LSA 130: Syntax of Indonesian languages

Peter Austin | session 1 | MW 10:30 – 12:15, 7205 Dwinelle Hall

This course is an overview of a number of syntactic issues in the languages of western Indonesia, with a focus on data from Sasak (Lombok Island) and Balinese. Topics to be covered will include voice and grammatical relations, valence changing mechanisms, constituency and word order, clitics and agreement, and clause linkage. These topics will be placed in the wider context of syntactic theory, especially the application of Lexical Functional Grammar to the description of Indonesian languages.

Reading: Selected materials available online.

On reserve at Graduate Services, 208 Doe Library: A. Adelaar and N. P. Himmelmann, The Austronesian languages of Asia and Madagascar, Peter Austin and Simon Musgrave, Voice and Grammatical Function in Austronesian Languages, and I Wayan Arka, Balinese morpho-syntax: A lexical functional approach.

Prerequisites: Basic knowledge of morphology and syntax.

Areas of linguistics: Syntax, semantics, and morphology; Languages of Eurasia; Languages of Australia and the Pacific