Reconstruction of pronominals among the non-Pama-Nyungan languages

Abstract

This paper examines a number of issues that arise in the reconstruction of pronominals among the non-Pama-Nyungan languages. Blake reconstructed the following free pronoun set for the non-Pama-Nyungan languages. This reconstruction was based on a comparison of the free baselnominative pronoun paradigms from the non-Pama-Nyungan languages, for which information was available. There are recurrent similarities in parts of the forms of these free pronouns across the range of non-Pama-Nyungan languages, and I agree with Blake that a set of pronominals can be reconstructed for a proto-language ancestral to most if not all of the non-Pama-Nyungan languages. However, I argue that it is not in general possible to reconstruct free pronouns. Rather, I propose that it is paradigm of prefixes which may be reconstructed.

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