Alan Dench

Professor Alan Dench BA (UWA) MA PhD (ANU) FAHA Linguistics (M258) School of Humanities University of Western Australia Nedlands WA 6009 +61 8 6488 2865 +61 8 6488 1157 (fax) Alan.Dench@uwa.edu.au

Research Interests

Grammatical description, typological comparison and historical reconstruction of Australian Aboriginal languages, especially those of the Pilbara region of north west Western Australia. Syntactic reconstruction, subgrouping methodology and the nature of language contact. Reconstitution and grammatical analysis of the Nyungar language of the south west of Western Australia.

(Re)Publication

• Dench, Alan. 1995. Martuthunira: A Language of the Pilbara Region of Western Australia. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics C:125.

  This is now available as a set of downloadable linked PDF files from the following address:

  http://www.linguistics.uwa.edu.au/staff/alan_dench/martuthunira

Recent Publications

• Dench, Alan. 2007. Demonstrative paradigm splitting in the Pilbara languages of Western Australia. In Joseph Salmons and Shannon Dubenion-Smith (eds) Historical Linguistics 2005: Selected papers from the 17th International Conference on Historical Linguistics, Madison, Wisconsin, 31 July-5 August 2005. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. pp 223-237

• Dench, Alan. 2006. Case marking strategies in subordinate clauses in Pilbara languages -- some diachronic speculations Australian Journal of Linguistics 26:81-105.

• Ameka, Felix, Alan Dench and Nicholas Evans (Eds). 2006. Catching Language: The Standing Challenge of Grammar Writing. Berlin, New York: Mouton de Gruyter.

• Evans, Nicholas and Alan Dench. 2006. Introduction: Catching language. In Felix Ameka et al (eds). pp 1-39.

• Dench, Alan. 2003. From Purposive/Future to Present: Shifting temporal categories in the Pilbara languages of north west Western Australia. In B. Blake and K. Burridge (eds.) Historical Linguistics 2001. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. pp 87-103.

• Dench, Alan. 2001. Descent and diffusion: the complexity of the Pilbara situation. In A. Y. Aikhenvald & R.M.W. Dixon (eds). Areal Diffusion and Genetic Inheritance: Problems in Comparative Linguistics. Oxford: OUP. pp 105-132.

To see a fuller list click here

Forthcoming

• Case in an Australian language: Distribution of case and multiple case-marking in Nyamal. In Andrej Malchukov & Andrew Spencer (eds). The Handbook of Case. Oxford: OUP.

• The Aboriginal People of the North West Cape. In J. Melville-Jones (ed.) The Stefano Castaways, by Amedeo Sala. Crawley: UWA Press.

Projects under way

• Pronouns and demonstratives in the Pilbara languages of Western Australia: a comparative reconstruction

• Coma Negra: Initial European language contact in north western Australia

• From Ergative to Accusative in the languages of the north west of Western Australia

• A Grammar of Nyamal. (for Mouton de Gruyter)

• Meillet's Magic Bullet: On the Logic of Genetic Arguments Using Morphological Evidence (with S.P. Harrison) (v. 8/02 [abstract][pdf])