2005/06/01 by Nicholas Evans · 7 citations
Social Sciences · Economics, Econometrics and Finance · #Australian Indigenous Culture and History #Pacific and Southeast Asian Studies #Socioeconomics of Resources and Conservation #Linguistics #Vocabulary #Set (abstract data type) #Foundation (evidence) #Historical linguistics #Sociology #Comparative linguistics #History #Philosophy #Computer science #Philology #Archaeology
paper · doi:10.1353/ol.2005.0020
openalex publication_date 2005/06/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01
Is the Australian linguistic area, because of its unique history, one in which the established methods of historical and comparative linguistics have limited appropriateness? Do neighboring languages in this situation come to share an "equilibrium level" of 50 percent basic vocabulary regardless of their degree of genetic relatedness? Is the Pama-Nyungan grouping totally without foundation and something that must be discarded if any progress is to be made in studying the nature of the linguistic situation in Australia? Are Australian scholars more hesitant than scholars elsewhere to criticize the work of colleagues? These and other "deliberately unorthodox" views of R. M. W. Dixon set forth in Australian Languages (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2002) are countered, while conceding that the book brings together an enormous amount of historically and typologically relevant material in one place.