July

Did you notice it is July already?! I am still trying to get my head around it. Events seems to be unfolding without much regard to how much I can handle at any given time! I am at my mother's house (eating lots of good food!) and trying to write a paper for ALS (Australian Linguistics Society) conference coming up on the 7th July.

I am trying to write something interesting about the word 'det' in Kriol historically derived from 'that' in English, the noteworthy thing about it being the frequency with which it turns up in discourse, and that it can precede proper nouns. I have been reading through trying to decide if I should call it an 'article' (like a, or the), or an adnominal demonstrative (like a recognitional one, 'that one (you know who I mean- after Himmelmann)- and occasionally forgetting what the difference is between the two anyway. Is there a meaningful distinction?!.. is it something to do with personalised shared world knowledge as opposed to general shared world knowledge? It is funny there is a demonstrative attested in a few languages that is meant to have a 'discourse' function, with a meaning something like 'I think you can know who I mean'- but I haven't (so far) much evidence for it in the actual substrate languages of Kriol!

Anyway, enough of that. Armidale is cold, though the sun still shines- and the people are friendly... only a few days until drive to Brisbane to go to this conference- but most importantly to see Wamut! Yay! I don't think we have ever hung out together out of Ngukurr, I am looking forward to it, and then. well. it is just a matter of weeks until I make my way to the northern hemisphere and make a life there... adventures abound.
:)