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Næss, Åshild
(2024).
Demonstrative forms vs. demonstrative systems: Patterns of overlap and cooccurrence in Äiwoo demonstratives.
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Næss, Åshild & Vander Klok, Jozina Madolyn
(2024).
Pivot (non-)restrictions and Austronesian syntactic typology.
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Næss, Åshild & Vander Klok, Jozina Madolyn
(2024).
Pivot (non-)restrictions and Austronesian syntactic typology.
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Alfarano, Valentina & Næss, Åshild
(2024).
Valency morphology in Reefs-Santa Cruz: how Oceanic morphology gave rise to two kinds of 'un-Oceanic' systems .
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Evans, Bethwyn; Næss, Åshild & Vander Klok, Jozina Madolyn
(2024).
Prominence in Austronesian: An introduction.
In Evans, Bethwyn; Næss, Åshild & Vander Klok, Jozina Madolyn (Ed.),
Prominence in Austronesian.
De Gruyter Mouton.
ISSN 9783110735413.
p. 1–18.
doi:
https:/doi.org/10.1515/9783110730753-001.
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Næss, Åshild
(2023).
Demonstratives taking over discourse: the grammaticalisation of deictic clitics in Äiwoo.
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Næss, Åshild
(2023).
Voice choice in Äiwoo discourse.
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De Korne, Haley & Næss, Åshild
(2022).
Linguistic Diversity in Norway and Beyond.
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Næss, Åshild
(2022).
Voice and transitivity in Äiwoo discourse .
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Næss, Åshild
(2022).
Reversing grammatical relations: lessons from Reefs-Santa Cruz.
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Næss, Åshild
(2022).
Voice and pluractionality in Äiwoo.
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Næss, Åshild
(2022).
Hen inn i den norske ordboken?
[Radio].
NRK P2.
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Sauppe, Sebastian; Isasi-Isasmendi, Arrate; Andrews, Caroline; Næss, Åshild; Flecken, Monique & Daum, Moritz
[Show all 9 contributors for this article]
(2022).
The prominence of agents in event cognition and language processing: Reviewing the cross-linguistic evidence for a malleable preference.
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Næss, Åshild
(2022).
Prominence levels and the symmetrical voice-to-transitivity shift.
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Sauppe, Sebastian; Næss, Åshild; Roversi, Giovanni; Meyer, Martin; Bornkessel-Schlesewsky, Ina & Bickel, Balthasar
(2022).
The agent bias in comprehension is robust in an OVS language, at least for human referents: Evidence from Äiwoo (Solomon Islands).
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Næss, Åshild
(2021).
Språktypologi og språkundervisning: hva Stillehavet har lært meg om norsk grammatikk.
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Næss, Åshild
(2021).
Deictics, syntax and information structure in Äiwoo.
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Næss, Åshild
(2021).
Two comitative constructions in Äiwoo.
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Næss, Åshild; Margetts, Anna & Treis, Yvonne
(2020).
Introduction: Demonstratives in discourse.
In Næss, Åshild; Margetts, Anna & Treis, Yvonne (Ed.),
Demonstratives in discourse.
Language Science Press.
ISSN 978-3-96110-286-0.
p. 1–20.
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Næss, Åshild & Sauppe, Sebastian
(2020).
Bringing psycholinguistics to the field: experiences from the Solomon Islands.
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Næss, Åshild
(2019).
Språkmangfaldet i Stillehavsregionen.
Mål og makt.
ISSN 0332-7744.
49(3),
p. 33–37.
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Næss, Åshild; Vander Klok, Jozina Madolyn & Evans, Bethwyn
(2019).
Prominence in Austronesian: introduction.
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Næss, Åshild
(2019).
How to grow grammatical relations: modelling the transition from symmetrical voice to subject-object structure in Austronesian.
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Næss, Åshild
(2019).
How to grow grammatical relations: modelling the transition from symmetrical voice to subject/object structure in Austronesian.
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Næss, Åshild
(2019).
(Im)perfectivity and phasal aspect in Äiwoo.
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Næss, Åshild
(2019).
Nouns and verbs yet again: new questions in an old debate .
Show summary
Nouns and verbs yet again: new questions in an old debate
Much ink has been spilt over the question of whether there are languages which do not distinguish a lexical class of nouns from one of verbs, and what sort of evidence would be required to confidently establish such a situation (e.g. Evans and Osada 2005 and commentaries on this paper in Linguistic Typology 9:3). Austronesian languages have figured heavily in this debate (e.g. Himmelmann 1991, 2004, Gil 1994, 1995, 2001, Mosel and Hovdhaugen 1992, Broschart 1997, and a recent (2017) special issue of Studies in Language on ‘Lexical flexibility in Oceanic languages’, among others).
Part of the issue is that «most theories about word classes take for granted a one-to-one correlation between lexical categories and syntactic categories» (Bisang 2011: 293). Himmelmann (2008) notes that the terms ‘noun’ and ‘verb’ can be applied to different levels of analysis: the ontological (e.g. roots referring to objects vs roots referring to actions), the morpho-lexical (classes of words defined by their morphological potential), and the syntactic (the function of an item in syntax as e.g. the head of an argument phrase, a predicate phrase, or a modifier). Because these levels tend to align in European languages, such alignment has been taken as the default for word classes in general. However, as Bisang (2011) and others have pointed out, this is not a necessary situation; for example, Himmelmann (2008: 249) notes that the three levels «are not at all commensurate in a language like Tagalog».
Recognising this allows us to take the discussion beyond the question of which criteria can or should be used to distinguish nouns from verbs, and into an area of more general interest both for the understanding of the grammar of individual languages and for linguistic typology and theory: How do these levels of classification interact in the grammar of a language where they do not overlap? For example, how does morphology - inflectional and derivational - relate to lexical classes on the one hand and syntactic categories on the other, when the latter two are not commensurate? And what grammatical means do languages use to identify basic syntactic functions such as predicate and argument when they lack a direct correspondence between such functions and lexical classes?
In this talk, I will compare two Austronesian languages - Tagalog, as described in Himmelmann (2008), and the Oceanic language Äiwoo, based on my own descriptive work - and show that these questions have very different answers for the two languages. This illustrates the potential for typological variation in this domain, and points to an area where the study of Austronesian languages can contribute to new insights into the organisation of grammatical structure in the world’s languages.
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Næss, Åshild
(2019).
Chasing the clause: the challenges of describing person indexing in Äiwoo.
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Næss, Åshild
(2018).
Aspect, evidentiality and mirativity in Äiwoo.
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Næss, Åshild; Evans, Bethwyn & Vander Klok, Jozina Madolyn
(2018).
The rise of grammatical relations in Austronesian.
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Næss, Åshild
(2018).
Fra Stillehavet til norske klasserom: Hva stillehavsforskning har lært meg om norsk grammatikk.
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Næss, Åshild & Evans, Bethwyn
(2017).
Prominence and the typology of grammatical relations.
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Næss, Åshild
(2017).
Standing up to the canoe: directionals and stative spatial relations in Äiwoo.
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Næss, Åshild
(2016).
Å se verden med nye verbformer: kategorier i grammatikken og i virkeligheten.
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Næss, Åshild
(2016).
Looking for words in the Reef Islands: bound roots in Äiwoo and their descriptive and documentary challenges.
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Næss, Åshild
(2016).
Deverbal nouns in Äiwoo: derivations, compounds or phrases?
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Næss, Åshild & Toft, Ellen Hellebostad
(2009).
Om normering og følgjer av denne: støtte vs stytte i Norsk Ordbok 2014.
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Toft, Ellen Hellebostad & Næss, Åshild
(2009).
Stytte og støtte: Mellom semantisk teori og leksikografisk praksis.
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Lane, Pia Marit Johanne & Næss, Åshild
(2008).
Dommedagsprofeter.
Dagbladet.
ISSN 0805-3766.