TELC meetings 1990-1994
Paul Black, 2014; last adjusted 2 Nov.
Information on these meetings is sketchy, obtained through personal communication
and reports in two issues of TELC Talk. In a few cases we were able to list publications
relating to the papers presented; often the papers found on the Web were listed as being
presented at TELC precisely because they had not otherwise been published. We would
appreciate any further information anyone may be able to provide on meetings during
this period or on associated publications.
1990 October 12 meeting
8:30-[4:30?] in the main hall of the Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL), in Berrimah.
8:30
Jean Kirton (SIL)
Yanyuwa discourse particles i... i, barra and mili
9:00
Michael Cooke (Batchelor College)
Explaining Western mathematical concepts in a Yolngu language and kinship
context
9:30
Barbara Sayers (SIL)
Wik-Mungkan verbs: A reanalysis in relation to realisation rather than time
10:00
Peter McGuire (Adult Migrant Education Centre)
Communicative praxis and second language learning
10:30
Morning smoko
11:00
Nola Oliver & Margaret Palmer (NTU)
Report on the Working Party for a Literacy Action Plan
11:45
Margaret Florey (Pilbara Aboriginal Language Centre)
Language shift in Central Maluku
12:30
Lunch
1:30
Rob Amery (Batchelor College)
What can you do with a dead language?
2:00
Lys Ford (ANU)
Some morphophonemic rules in Bachamal
2:30
Kevin Ford (Batchelor College)
Some Australian accent systems
3:00
Afternoon smoko
3:30
Chris Kilham (SIL)
Snippits from the Solomon Islands Translation/Discourse Workshop, 21 Aug.17 Sept. at Honiara
4:00
TELC business meeting
Note: For this meeting there was a $10 charge to cover smoko, a light lunch and TELC
dues.
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1990 November 23 meeting
Hosted by the Centre for Australian Languages and Linguistics (CALL) of Batchelor
College.
Morning session:
Robert Hoogenraad & Mary Laughren (NTDE)
Teaching spelling in central Australian languages
Neil Chadwick (Batchelor College)
The good health of linguistics at NTU
Kevin Ford (Batchelor College)
A common variety of Aboriginal English
Patrick McConvell & Robin Hodgson (NTU)
Aboriginal vernacular literature resources
Carolyn Coleman (NTDE)
How Aboriginal schools can help with language and culture maintenance
Afternoon session:
Discussion of the possible establishment of a centre for Aboriginal and Islander
languages in the Northern Territory, chaired by Caroline Coleman
4:00-4:30 TELC business meeting
1991 April 30 committee meeting
A 1 May 1991 email from Patrick McConvell to David Nash noted that they ‘Had a
TELC committee meeting yesterday and drafted a letter about cuts to NT Bilingual Ed.
Carolyn Coleman is going to organise a joint TELC/Dept. of Ed. workshop on
lexicography in Darwin the week after ARCLING also possibly to include a visit from
Melchuk.’
1991-1993 meetings
An 18 January 1992 email from Patrick McConvell to David Nash mentioned that ‘Nick
Evans gave a nice paper about this sort of stuff [syntactic recursion in the construction
of known extensive numeral systems and... some entirely diff[e]rent concept of
recursion to be found in Yolngu kinship lexicon] at TELC just before he left for
Melbourne.’
A 23 June 1992 email from Patrick McConvell to David Nash mentioned that ‘the
matter of appropriate fees for linguist consultants was raised at a TELC meeting. This
includes not just or primarily this sort of work, but where people hire linguists to do
translations; prepare materials on a language etc. Nobody in TELC could think of a
scale having been suggested e.g. by ALS,...’
A 23 June 1992 email from David Nash to Patrick McConvell mentioned that ‘Mary
Anne and Rob [Amery] and the girls dropped by yesterday afternoon. I asked after Neil
Chadwick and they said he wasn't at the last TELC.’
A 23 June 1992 email from Patrick McConvell to David Nash mentioned that ‘A
phonetician... asked me if [I] could find out about people interested in fortis/lenis
contrasts in the TopEnd. We had a TELC meeting recently and did a bit of that,...’
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1994 June 3 meeting [from a 1 June 1994 email by Patrick McConvell]
9:00-4:00 at Batchelor College, Centre for Australian Languages and Linguistics.
9:00
Carolyn Coleman (NTU/NT Dept of Education)
Ethnobiological studies and their relevance to Aboriginal education
9:20
Peter Carroll (NTU)
Kunwinjku Stories and the question of genre [cf. Carroll 1995]
9:40
Prith Chakravarti (Batchelor College, CALL)
Diglossia in Bengali media
10:00
Morning tea
10:30
Charley Basham (University of Alaska)
Language revitalization: academic and community perspectives
11:00
Marilyn McLellan (Batchelor College, CALL)
Realis and irrealis in Wangurri
11:20
Frances Kofod (NTU)
Transitivity and indefiniteness in the Jarragan languages
[1]1:40 Henk Rumbewas (NTU)
The possibility of the disappearance of the Biak language, Irian Jaya
12:00
Lunch and TELC business meeting
1. Survey of linguistic consultancy fees
2. Top End Interpreter service
3. TELC future plans
4. AOB
1:00
Jillian Dewar (Batchelor College, CALL)
Nyungah/Nyoongar language
1:20
Ely White (Batchelor College, CALL)
Adopting/adapting new concepts in Aboriginal languages
1:40 - 4:00 Computer applications
1. Alaskan Eskimo Hypercard Programs (from Roy Iutzi-Mitchell);
2. UNE Phonetics course (from Nick Reid)
3. Katherine Regional Aboriginal Language Centre Hypercard
4. Wadeye projects
5. Other projects (AIATSIS etc.)
1994 October 28 meeting [from a 30 Oct 1994 email by Patrick McConvell]
9:00-4:30 at the Summer Institute of Linguistics, Berrimah, in the Computer Building
9:00
Introduction
9:10
Neil Chadwick
The public face of linguistics
9:30
Mary Laughren
The big one and the little one — from different points of view
10:00
Morning tea
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10:30
Talk by Peter Carroll on recent moves towards establishing Aboriginal
interpreting in the Top End, followed by other contributions and general
discussion on the topic.
11:20
Michael Christie
Teaching Yolngu Matha at NTU
11:40
Suzanne Hargrave
The Certificate of Translation course (SIL)
12:00
Lunch (provided by SIL)
1:00
John Henderson
Arrernte complex verbs
1:20
Patrick McConvell
The rise of compound verbs: An areal code-switching scenario [abstract below]
1:40
Jennie Lee
The Tiwi Dictionary Project
2:00
John Henderson and Mary Laughren
Dictionaries for central Australian Aboriginal languages
2:30
Nick Thieberger
Report on the Dictionary Interface Project
3:00
Afternoon tea
3:30
General discussion of dictionaries and dictionary interfaces
Abstract
Patrick McConvell
The rise of compound verb constructions: An areal code-switching scenario
Romaine and Myers-Scotton have pointed out that compound verb constructions
are commonly used way in which languages can incorporate verbal elements from
other languages without problems of incompatibility of grammar. If a construction
exists in which the main lexical element (referred to here as the main verb) is
invariant and separate from the element which carries a low semantic load but
carries the inflection (the ancillary verb), then borrowed elements can easily be
slotted into the main verb position without problems of grammatical
incompatibility which could otherwise arise.
This type of construction commonly provides a means whereby English and Kriol
verbs are incorporated into Australian Aboriginal languages in borrowing and
code-switching.
But could it be that the prevalence of such constructions in the languages of
certain areas has itself arisen from long-term intensive language contact involving
borrowing and code-switching? Linguistic convergence is a known feature of the
Indian sub-continent where such constructions have been widespread for a long
period, for instance.
In Australia there is evidence that compound constructions have arisen and
become significant periodically in many areas. Some older manifestations of these
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waves of compounding have become remorphologised, for instance by the
suffixation of old ancillary verbs. However in other areas where multilingualism
and code-switching between very different Australian languages has been going
on for a long period before European contact the compound verb constructions are
dominant and the inventory of simple verbs has been reduced often to a very
small set.
The Victoria River District/East Kimberley is one such an area. Language contact
between Pama-Nyungan languages of the Ngumpin-Yapa subgroup and several
Non-Pama-Nyungan language families is evident both in large-scale lexical
borrowing and in certain grammatical convergence effects. Interestingly the basic
difference in Head/Dependent marking type between PN and NPN is maintained
virtually without convergence (some development of case-marking in NPN
languages may relate to PN influence) but very similar compound verb structures
have risen to dominance, facilitating borrowing of main verbs ("preverbs" or
"coverbs") throughout the area. I propose that this is not due to one groups of
languages adopting structures or parameters from another group unidirectionally ,
but results from a compromise between grammatical structures formed in the
context of multilingual code-switching communication.
1994 October 29 workshop [from a 30 Oct 1994 email by Patrick McConvell]
[The] Dictionary Interface Project Workshop [was] held on Thursday 27th October
from 9am and Saturday 29th October from 10 am in the Seminar Room, 3rd floor, NTU
Library, Casuarina Campus.
Contact: Michael Christie, CAIS, NTU
michael@library.ntu.edu.au
References
Carroll, Peter J. 1995, The old people told us: Verbal art in western Arnhem Land, PhD
thesis, University of Queensland. (Also published in 1996 by Peter Carroll
Advisory Services, Nightcliff, NT.)
McConvell, Patrick 1994, Hypercard language learning, 1 April post to Google Groups
found at <https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/alt.native/zZwBQnUYQNU>.
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