03.09.2024John Mansfield presents comparative study noun class systems

John Mansfield will present initial findings from a project comparing noun-class semantics from Australian, Papuan, and Amazonian languages at the conference Langues and langage à la croisée de disciplines: 11th European Australianist Workshop, held from the 3rd to the 10th of September 2024. The talk, titled Ancient ontologies? Comparing noun classes within and between regions, discusses joint research with Ruth Singer (U. Melb) and Frank Seifart (Humboldt U.). This is one of the very few studies developing a systematic method for comparing noun class (NC) systems. The project was motivated by the hypothesis that NC systems may show systematic semantic differences between regions, potentially indicating shared histories beyond the reach of the lexical comparative method. However, the findings suggest that NC systems from different regions are instead shaped by similar universal semantic patterns, which overshadow regionally specific histories

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