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Dr Brett Baker

Senior Lecturer, School of Behavioural, Cognitive and Social Sciences

Qualifications

BA (Hons), PhD (Sydney)

Contact

Email: brett.baker@une.edu.au
Room: E11 149
Phone: 02 6773 3220 (or +61 2 6773 3220 overseas)
Homepage: http://www-personal.une.edu.au/~bbaker2/

Since February 2002 I've been teaching in the Linguistics discipline in the School of Languages, Cultures and Linguistics, University of New England. Units I have taught: LING100/101/102/450 (introductory first year units), LING306 and LING464 First language acquisition, LING307 Second language acquisition, LING313 Language description, LING330 Language in multilingual societies, LING360 Generative Syntax, LING368/468 Formal Phonology and LING365/465 Applied Phonology.

In 1999 I completed my PhD entitled Word Structure in Ngalakgan, at the Dept of Linguistics, University of Sydney. The thesis is a study of morphology, phonology, and prosody in Ngalakgan, and the interactions between the three of these. Ngalakgan is an indigenous Australian language, spoken by a handful of people in Arnhem Land, in the Northern Territory.

Research interests

Coverbs and complex predicates

I began this ARC-funded project in 2005 in collaboration with Mengistu Amberber (UNSW) and Mark Harvey (Newcastle).

Books

Forthcoming 2009 with Mengistu Amberber and Mark Harvey (eds.). Complex predicates in cross-linguistic perspective. Cambridge UP.
2008a Word Structure in Ngalakgan. Stanford CA: CSLI.
2008b with Ilana Mushin (eds.). Discourse and grammar in Australian languages. [Studies in Language Companion Series, 104.] Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

Articles in Refereed Journals and Book Chapters

Forthcoming a (with Mark Harvey) “Complex predicate formation”. In Mengistu Amberber, Brett Baker, and Mark Harvey (eds.) Complex predicates in cross-linguistic perspective. Cambridge UP.
Forthcoming b (with Mengistu Amberber and Mark Harvey) “Introduction”. In Mengistu Amberber, Brett Baker, and Mark Harvey (eds.) Complex predicates in cross-linguistic perspective. Cambridge UP.
2008a “The interpretation of complex nominal expressions in Southeast Arnhem Land languages”. In Ilana Mushin and Brett Baker (eds.) Discourse and grammar in Australian languages. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
2008b “Discourse and grammar in Australian languages”. In Ilana Mushin and Brett Baker (eds.) Discourse and grammar in Australian languages. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
2007 “Ethnoclassification and the environment in Northern Australia.” In Schalley, Andrea C. and Khlentzos, Drew (eds.): “Mental states, vol. 2: Language and cognitive structure”. [Studies in Language Companion Series 93.] Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Pp. 239-265.
2007 (With Mengistu Amberber and Mark Harvey) “Complex predication and the coverb construction”. In Siegel, Jeff, Lynch, John and Eades, Diana (eds.): Language Description, History and Development: Linguistic Indulgence in Memory of Terry Crowley. Pp. 209-219. John Benjamins.
2005 (with Mark Harvey) “Vowel harmony, directionality and morpheme structure constraints in Warlpiri”. Lingua. Vol 115/10: 1457-1474.
2003 (with Diana Eades, Helen Fraser, Jeff Siegel, and Tim McNamara) “Linguistic identification in the determination of nationality: A preliminary report.” Language Policy 2(2): 179-199.
2003 (with Mark Harvey) “Word structure in Australian languages” Australian Journal of Linguistics 23, 1. 3-34.
2002 "How referential is agreement? “The interpretation of polysynthetic agreement morphology in Ngalakgan”. In Nicholas Evans and Hans-Jürgen Sasse (eds) Problems of Polysynthesis [Studia Typologica 4], 51-86. Akademie Verlag: Berlin.
2002 “I’m going to where-her-brisket-is: placenames in the Roper”. In Luise Hercus, Flavia Hodges, and Jane Simpson (eds) The Land is a Map: Placenames of indigenous origin in Australia. Pandanus Books/Pacific Linguistics: Canberra. 103-130.
2000 “Geminate dissimilation as prosody in Ngalakgan”. In Robert Pensalfini and Norvin Richards (eds.) Papers on Australian Languages. MIT Working Papers in Endangered and Less-Familiar Languages 2. MIT Dept of Linguistics: Cambridge MA.

Papers in Refereed Conference Proceedings

2005 “The domain of phonological processes”. In Ilana Mushin (ed.) Proceedings of the 2004 Conference of the Australian Linguistics Society. http://dspace.library.usyd.edu.au:8080/handle/123456789/97.
2004 “Stem forms and paradigm reshaping in Gunwinyguan”. In Claire Bowern and Harold Koch (eds) Australian Languages: Classification and the comparative method. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 313-340.
2000 “Edge-Crispness in moraic structure”. In Matthew L. Juge and Jeri L. Moxley (eds.) Proceedings of the Berkeley Linguistics Society 23rd annual meeting, Spring 1997. Berkeley Linguistics Society: Berkeley CA. 2-13.
1998 “Edge-Crispness: segment to mora isomorphism”. In Emily Curtis, James Lyle and Gabriel Webster (eds.) Proceedings of the West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics XVI, Spring 1997. CSLI: Stanford CA. 33-47.
1998 “A dictionary database template for Australian languages” (with Christopher Manning). In Proceedings of Australex 1998, http://www.anu.edu.au/linguistics/alex/a98/.

Reviews

2004 Nicholas Evans. 2003. Bininj Gun-wok. (2 volumes.) Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. Oceania 75, 2: 153-154.
1998 Patrick McConvell and Nicholas Evans, 1997, Archaeology and Linguistics. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge. Oceania 68, 4: 304-307.
1994 John Myhill, 1992, Typological Discourse Analysis: Quantitative Approaches to the Study of Linguistic Function. Australian Journal of Linguistics (1994) 14:1 pp. 109-113.