the sample corroborates the common belief that that ergative languages have antipassives with

greater chances than nominative-accusative languages, the author suggests that this is not a direct

correlation, but rather a consequence of the fact that both antipassives and ergativity are favoured

in languages with rigid transitivity classes.

 

In sum, this is a very comprehensive study, both in breadth and in depth, which offers a wealth

of new data and insights and should become a standard reference on antipassives.

 

 

 

 

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Dana Louagie. 2017. A typological study of noun phrase structures in Australian

languages

Katholieke Universiteit Leuven

Supervisor: Jean-Christophe Verstraete

 

This dissertation presents a study of noun phrase structures in Australian languages based on a

sample of 100 languages. The analysis is developed in two main parts. The first part of the

dissertation presents a general survey of NP features, developing a synthesis of the available

Australianist literature, testing some of its ideas on the languages of the sample, and showing

where Australian languages stand in relation to other languages in the world. Chapter 1 deals

with nominal classification, which is the best-described aspect of NP structure for Australian

languages. Chapter 2 discusses the domains of qualification and quantification, which have

received less attention in the literature, and chapter 3 introduces the domains of determination

and NP constituency, which are most poorly understood.

 

The second part of the dissertation presents a more detailed analysis of the last two aspects,

determination and NP constituency, in the languages of the sample. In Chapter 4, on NP

constituency, Louagie concludes that there is in fact no strong evidence against constituency,

contrary to what has been traditionally claimed in the Australianist literature. More generally, it

is shown that constituency is not an absolute value that can be applied to languages as unitary

wholes, but rather a matter of degree. Chapter 5, on determiners, likewise challenges the received

view that Australian languages lack determiners. Interestingly, Louagie shows that a determiner

slot can be filled by a range of structurally different elements, which share the functional feature

of identifiability. This approach is cross-linguistically applicable to languages with and without

‘classic’ determiner systems.

 

This thesis is very clearly structured and reads easily. The analysis and presentation of the data is

very transparent and conscientious, including possible limitations of the research due to scarce or

inconclusive data. An important merit of this thesis is that in addition to providing a detailed

overview of NP structure in 100 Australian languages it also draws on and extrapolates to

general typological work.

 

CHAIR’S REPORT ON THE FINALISTS FOR THE FOURTH PĀṆINI AWARD, 2019, HILARY

CHAPPELL, CHAIR:

 

(i)  THE 2019 WINNER

Nadine Grimm. 2015. A grammar of Gyeli

Humboldt University, Berlin

Supervisors: Tom Güldemann and Maarten Mous

 

This thesis presents a remarkable and comprehensive grammar of Gyeli, a Bantu language whose

description is based on the Ngolo speech community in southern Cameroon, West Africa. The

research draws on 19 months of fieldwork, some of which Nadine Grimm carried out as part of a

DoBeS (Documentation of Endangered Languages) team project between 2010 and 2014. The

analysis is firmly anchored in a multimodal corpus, which includes texts of diverse genres such

 

 

                                                                                                   5

as traditional stories, narratives, multi-party conversations and dialogues, descriptions of

everyday activities, procedural texts and songs. This rich documentation has been supplemented

by data from elicitation work, questionnaires, and experiments. As to be expected of a winning

grammar, it covers all levels of language, ranging from Gyeli phonology to its information

structure.

 

In her analysis, Nadine Grimm has chosen to use an approach which explicitly privileges form

over function in her presentation so that each successive chapter topic neatly mirrors its role in a

hierarchy of structures that she has established. Crucially, the description reveals itself as one

that is well-entrenched in Bantu linguistics, providing a wealth of in-depth comparative and

typological information and supplemented by observations on reconstructed forms for proto-

Bantu. Some more specific comments follow below.

 

An important reason for singling out Grimm’s grammar among the sixteen submitted to the

Pāṇini Award are its in-depth analyses and discussions on a range of topics that will appeal to a

wider typological audience, not just Bantuists. What is particularly laudable is that these analyses

are clearly argued as to the reasons for favouring one theoretical solution over another. This is

not just an occasional instance of good argumentation; it is evident in every chapter, and many

sections within chapters. A few examples follow to illustrate this from different parts of the

grammar.