Thematic structure and referential choices in Two Australian languages

Abstract

During discourse production speakers make routine, and presumably automatic decisions regarding the form of referring expressions, for instance, whether to use a full noun phrase, a pronoun, a demonstrative, or a pronominal affix. This paper reports a pilot study which is a part of a larger project investigating the referential choices in discourse in Australian Aboriginal languages. These languages have long been known for their intricate syntactic and morphological systems, but it has been largely overlooked how speakers use in discourse the available linguistic options for making reference. We examine referential management in two stories from each of Mayali and Kala Lagaw Ya. Mayali is a non- Pama-Nyungan language spoken in Arnhem La nd and is mostly prefixing, head-marking and highly polysynthetic. Kala Lagaw Ya is a Pama-Nyungan language spoken in the Western Torres Strait Islands, and is a suffixing language with split-ergative case marking. We report our analysis of the referential forms in the narratives using the following measures: a) thematicity of the referent (whether it is a main or peripheral character in the story); b) 'topic continuity' (recency of mention, 'persistence', and number of competing referents); c) position with respect to the hierarchical structure of the narrative. The results improve our understanding of the factors influencing choice of particular types of referring expression in these languages, and the interaction between them.