Brigitte Agnew: The case of the disappearing dative in Mangarla

Brigitte Agnew, PhD completion seminar

Mangarla is a highly endangered suffixing language traditionally spoken in the Great Sandy Desert of Western Australia. Surrounded by languages from three different Pama-Nyungan subgroups and the unrelated prefixing language Nyikina, it combines features shared with each of these in a unique way. Grammatical relations are expressed with a combination of case-marking and pronominal clitics which function in a split-ergative system. However, variation in the form of the dative suffix and the use of different cases for prototypical dative functions have reduced the functional load of the dative, created a large number of alternative expressions and some grammatically ambiguous constructions which are clearly expressed by the dative in related languages.

Date: Friday 21 February 2020
Time: 3.15pm
Venue: Room 407, Babel (Building 139)