Jan 3, 2016
Spatial Deixis
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Spatial Deixis
Hey, one of you mentioned you study Australian languages. Is Guugu Yimithirr the only one that uses cardinal directions (north, south) instead of relative directions (left, right)? Or is this phenomenon more widespread in Aboriginal languages? Also do you know of good sources that discuss this? Google Scholar turns up a number of results but I don't know who's considered any kind of expert on the subject.
No, Guugu Yimithirr is not the only one. As a matter of fact, many of its relatives have similar systems, so do languages of a few other families.
The people at the MPI in Nijmegen (Language and Cognition Group) have been working on spatial deixis/directionals for decades now, not only in Australian languages. Other names that comes to my mind is Eva Schultze-Berndt (Manchester) and Claire Bowern (Yale).
(jw)