John Benjamins Publishing Company


  A Functional Grammar of Gooniyandi.
  MCGREGOR, William

  (Studies in Language Companion Series, No. 22)

  1990. xx, 618 pp.
                       Hb       US$  133.00
  90 272 3025 0        Hb       Hfl. 236,00

                   *** Description ***

  This volume sets out to provide a comprehensive description of the
  grammar of Gooniyandi, a non-Pama-Nyungan language of the
  southern-central Kimberley region of Western Australia. It covers
  phonetics and phonology, word phrase and clause structure, and the
  semantics of closed-class grammatical items. The major focus is,
  however, on meaning: how do Gooniyandi speakers mean with and in
  their language. To this end, the theoretical framework of systemic
  functional grammar, particularly as elaborated in Halliday's
  recent work, is adopted. Certain refinements to the theory are
  proposed in order to better account for the Gooniyandi evidence.
  Of obvious importance to those studying Australian aboriginal
  languages, this work has an importance to a wider audience for its
  effective presentation of theory justification.

.