Cover -- Half-title -- Series-title -- Title -- Copyright -- CONTENTS -- MAPS -- ABBREVIATIONS AND CONVENTIONS -- PREFACE -- ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS -- CONVENTIONS FOLLOWED -- LANGUAGES AND LANGUAGE GROUPS -- 1 The language situation in Australia -- 1.1 A partial picture -- 1.2 Social organisation and lifestyle -- 1.3 The languages -- 1.4 Prehistory -- 1.5 Diffusion of non-linguistic traits -- 2 Modelling the language situation -- 2.1 Preliminaries -- 2.1.1 Assumptions -- 2.1. 2 Types of similarity -- 2.1. 3 Family trees -- 2.1. 4 Diffusion -- 2.1.5 The 50 per cent equilibrium level -- 2.2 The Punctuated Equilibrium model -- 2.2.1 Linguistic equilibrium -- 2.2.2 Punctuation -- 2.3 The Australian scene -- 2.4 Split and merger of languages -- 2.4.1 Language split -- 2.4.2 Language merger? -- Appendix The 'Pama-Nyungan' idea -- 3 Overview -- 3.1 Semantics -- 3.1.1 Actual/potential -- 3.1.2 Volitional/non-volitional -- 3.1.3 Primacy of generic terms -- 3.2 Phonology -- 3.3 Grammar -- 3.3.1 Word classes -- 3.3.2 Nouns and adjectives -- 3.3.3 Shifters: pronouns, demonstratives and more -- 3.3.4 Verbs -- 3.3.5 Inflection -- 3.3.6 Derivation -- 3.3.7 Possession -- 3.3.8 Clause structure and constituent order -- 3.3.9 Commands -- 3.3.10 Questions -- 3.3.11 Negation -- 3.3.12 Complex sentences -- 3.4 Special speech styles -- 4 Vocabulary -- 4.1 Lexical meanings -- 4.2 Lexemes -- 4.2.1 Flora and fauna -- 4.2.2 Body parts -- 4.2.3 Kin terms -- 4.2.4 Artefacts -- 4.2.5 Other nouns -- 4.2.6 Adjectives -- 4.2.7 Verbs -- 4.3 Observations -- 4.3.1 Phonological observations -- 4.3.2 Possible cognates between word classes -- 4.3.3 The status of A1, West Torres -- 5 Case and other nominal suffixes -- 5.1 Functions of noun phrases -- 5.1.1 Core clausal functions -- 5.1.2 Peripheral clausal functions -- 5.1.3 Phrasal functions -- 5.1.4 Local functions -- 5.2 Case attachment.

5.3 Interpretation -- 5.3.1 Double case -- 5.4 Case forms -- 5.4.1 Variation across NP constituents -- 5.4.2 Accusative -- 5.4.3 Ergative, locative and instrumental -- 5.4.4 Purposive, dative, genitive and allative -- 5.4.5 Ablative and causal -- 5.4.6 Comitative and privative -- 5.4.7 Aversive -- 5.4.8 Summary of relations between forms -- 5.5 Conclusion -- 6 Verbs -- 6.1 Transitivity -- 6.2 Manner adverbs -- 6.3 Simple and complex verbs -- 6.3.1 Types of verbal organisation -- 6.3.2 A cyclic pattern of change -- 6.4 Verbal derivations -- 6.4.1 Semantic derivations -- 6.4.2 Syntactic derivations -- 6.4.3 Deriving verbs from nominals -- 6.5 Verb forms and inflections -- 6.5.1 Forms of inflections -- 6.5.2 Forms of verbs and development of conjugations -- 6.5.3 Loss of conjugations -- 6.5.4 Extended fusion -- 6.6 Nominal suffixes onto verbs -- 6.7 Copula and verbless clauses -- 7 Pronouns -- 7.1 Pronoun systems -- 7.2 Number-segmentable pronoun systems -- 7.2.1 Forms -- 7.3 Non-number-segmentable pronoun systems -- 7.3.1 Forms -- 7.4 The evolution of pronoun systems -- 7.4.1 Diffusion -- 7.4.2 Recurrent features of change and reanalysis -- 7.5 Pronominal case forms -- 7.5.1 Stage A -- 7.5.2 Stage B -- 7.5.3 Stage C-i -- 7.5.4 Stage C-ii -- 7.5.5 Stage C-iii -- 7.5.6 Summary -- 7.5.7 Non-core functions -- 7.6 Reflexives and reciprocals -- 7.7 Interrogatives/indefinites -- 7.8 Demonstratives -- 8 Bound pronouns -- 8.1 What are bound pronouns? -- 8.2 The predicate arguments involved -- 8.2.1 Which arguments? -- 8.2.2 How many in a clause? -- 8.2.3 Case systems -- 8.3 Choices -- 8.4 Forms -- 8.4.1 Free and bound pronominal forms -- 8.4.2 Zero realisation -- 8.5 Categories -- 8.5.1 Person -- 8.5.2 Number -- 8.6 Position -- 8.6.1 Number of positions -- 8.6.2 Order of transitive arguments -- 8.6.3 Location in the clause -- 8.7 Links with other categories.

8.8 Patterns of development -- 8.9 Possessive bound pronouns -- 9 Prefixing and fusion -- 9.1 Verbs, coverbs and pronominal placement -- 9.2 Structure of the verb in prefixing languages -- 9.2.1 Valency-changing affixes -- 9.2.2 Directional markers -- 9.2.3 Negation and number -- 9.3 Nominal incorporation -- 9.4 Pronominal prefixes and TAM -- 9.5 Pronominal prefixes to transitive verbs -- 9.6 Implications -- 10 Generic nouns, classifiers, genders and noun classes -- 10.1 Generic nouns and classifiers -- 10.1.1 Semantics -- 10.1.2 Grammar -- 10.2 Feminine suffix -gan -- 10.3 Gender in free pronouns -- 10.4 Noun classes in non-prefixing languages -- 10.5 Nominal prefixes in prefixing languages -- 10.6 Noun classes in prefixing languages -- 10.6.1 Noun classes and number -- 10.6.2 Where noun classes are marked -- 10.6.3 Semantics -- 10.6.4 Markedness -- 10.6.5 Forms -- 10.6.6 Development -- 10.6.7 Loss -- 10.7 Noun classes and case marking -- 10.7.1 The loss of case marking -- 10.8 Summary -- 11 Ergative/accusative morphological and syntactic profiles -- 11.1 Development of morphological marking -- 11.2 Syntactic pivots -- 11.3 Antipassive and passive -- 11.3.1 *-dharri and other suffxes that can mark antipassive and/or passive function -- 11.4 Shifts in profile -- 11.5 Summary -- 12 Phonology -- 12.1 Canonical systems -- 12.1.1 Consonants -- 12.1.2 Vowels -- 12.1.3 Phonotactics -- 12.1.4 Stress -- 12.2 Laminals -- 12.3 Apicals, including rhotics -- 12.3.1 Stops and nasals (and laterals) -- 12.3.2 Rhotics -- 12.3.3 The apical problem -- 12.4 Initial dropping and medial strengthening -- 12.4.1 Loss and lenition of initial consonant -- 12.4.2 Loss or shortening of first vowel -- 12.4.3 Changes affecting C2 -- 12.4.4 Vowel copying and metathesis -- 12.4.5 Changes at V2 -- 12.4.6 An overall perspective -- 12.5 Stop contrasts, and fricatives.

12.5.1 Historical development, and loss -- 12.5.2 Occurrence -- 12.6 Glottals -- 12.7 Other types of change -- 12.7.1 Assimilation -- 12.7.2 Dissimilation -- 12.7.3 Further changes -- 12.8 Vowel systems -- 12.8.1 Vowel quality -- 12.8.2 Evolution of additional vowels -- 12.8.3 Occurrence -- 12.8.4 Vowel length -- 12.9 On the margin of a word -- 12.9.1 Vowel-final languages -- 12.9.2 Consonant-final languages -- 12.9.3 Non-prototypical consonant clusters -- 13 Genetic subgroups and small linguistic areas -- 13.1 Some genetic subgroups -- 13.2 Small linguistic areas -- 13.3 Origin places and directions of expansion -- 13.4 Shifting isoglosses -- 14 Summary and conclusion -- 14.1 Outline of development -- 14.2 Diffusional patterns and cyclic change -- References -- INDEX OF LANGUAGES, DIALECTS AND LANGUAGE GROUPS -- SUBJECT INDEX.