How Warumungu people express new concepts

This article describes strategies used by Warumungu speakers to create new words and ways of expressing new concepts, in the context of multilingual society in which speakers of Indigenous Australian languages view language as a property. The strategies include borrowing, onomatopoeia, compounding, derivation, extension of existing words, including polysemous extensions such as actual/potential and container/containe

Resultatives

This paper looks at the syntactic and semantic conditions in English on resultative attributes, which describe the state of an entity resulting from the action denoted by the main predicate. It is argued that these entities are expressed as the objects of transitive verbs, and the subject of intransitive unaccusative verbs. A fake object construction is required for a resultative to describe the state of an entity expressed as the subject of an intransitive unergative verb or an indefinite object-deleting verb

Representing information about words digitally

The late 1960s saw the start of the "electronic-dictionary age" (de Schryver, 2003). The growth in the use of computers has transformed all aspects of dictionary-making, from collecting data about word meanings and uses, creating a set of dictionary entries, and displaying, using, preserving and distributing these entries and the data on which they are based. This paper discusses the transformations, and considers the ways in which dictionaries for minority languages are leading or lagging in the electronic-dictionary age. Illustrations are taken mostly from the uses of digital sound in modern multimedia dictionaries.Australian Academy of the Humanities; Australian E-Humanities Network; Research Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Sydney; School of Society, Culture and Performance, Faculty of Arts, University of Sydne

Resultatives

This paper looks at the syntactic and semantic conditions in English on resultative attributes, which describe the state of an entity resulting from the action denoted by the main predicate. It is argued that these entities are expressed as the objects of transitive verbs, and the subject of intransitive unaccusative verbs. A fake object construction is required for a resultative to describe the state of an entity expressed as the subject of an intransitive unergative verb or an indefinite object-deleting verb

Student Performance in First Year, Mathematics, and Physics Courses: Implications for Success in the Study of Electrical and Computer Engineering

Mathematics and physics courses are recognized as a crucial foundation for the study of engineering, and often are prerequisite courses for the basic engineering curriculum. But how does performance in these prerequisite courses affect student performance in engineering courses? This study evaluated the relationship between grades in prerequisite math and physics courses and grades in subsequent electrical engineering courses. Where significant relationships were found, additional analysis was conducted to determine minimum grade goals for the prerequisite courses. Relationships were found between five course pairs: calculus II and differential equations; calculus II and physics I (mechanics); physics II (electricity and optics) and circuits analysis II; physics II (electricity and optics) and signals and systems; and circuits analysis II and signals and systems. The results indicate that a grade of C+ or higher in calculus II, and a grade of B- or higher in physics II and circuits analysis II will lead to higher grades in subsequent mathematics, circuits, and signals and systems courses. This information will be used to aid faculty in making decisions about imposing minimum grade requirements

Free to bound to free? Interactions between pragmatics and syntax in the development of Australian pronominal systems

Data from dual pronoun systems in Australian languages is used to show the pragmatic basis for a cycle of pronoun creation - reduced pronouns from free forms and free from reduced - and the motivation to maintain both types in a linguistic system. Free pronouns become positionally restricted reduced forms by association of clause-initial position with discourse prominence (Swartz 1988, Choi 1999). The same pragmatic motivations result in the creation of new free pronouns, and the divergence of free and reduced pronouns with respect to ergative case marking. Examples of languages at different stages of the cycle include Garrwa (one set of free pronouns, with a strong preference for second position); Djambarrpuyngu and Gupapuyngu (two sets of pronouns transparently related in form and in complementary distribution); Ritharrngu, Djinang, and Djinba (two sets of pronouns transparently related in form but in which the reduced pronouns are becoming obligatory); Warlpiri (two sets of pronouns, which diverge in form, and the reduced set is obligatory); and Warumungu (one set of reduced pronouns, indicating how new free pronouns might emerge based on information-packaging principles). The creation of free pronouns from reduced pronouns argues against strict unidirectionality of change