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A clear distinction is made between semantic roles and syntactic functions. And it is held that the basic constituents of a language are lexical elements. Grammatical items serve to link together lexical units. At every level of analysis, the central units are lexical with grammar providing ancillary indicators.
A clear distinction is made between semantic roles and syntactic functions. And it is held that the basic constituents of a language are lexical elements. Grammatical items serve to link together lexical units. At every level of analysis, the central units are lexical with grammar providing ancillary indicators.
Abstract
The chapter begins with a background account of the author’s experience of working with languages where there is a range of people who speak it fluently—Fijian from the South Pacific, Jarawara from the Amazonian jungle, and Dyirbal and Yidiñ from Australia. This involves recording, transcribing and analysing texts, and learning the language through participant observation, with little recourse to elicitation. It then focuses on the quite different methodology which has to be followed when documenting a language which has not been actively spoken for several decades and is just remembered by one or two old people who are not be able to record texts. The linguist can now only pursue judicious elicitation. Dixon explains how he worked with the last guardians of three Australian languages—Mbabaram, Warrgamay, and Nyawaygi—and of how a different fieldwork technique had to be followed for each language. This was related to the personality and commitment of the speaker, and the context in which the research was conducted.