Bardi Verb Morphology in Historical Perspective

This dissertation is an investigation into the structure of verbal predicates in Bardi, a Nyulnyulan language from the North-Western Australian coast. I examine possible synchronic analyses and reconstruct the history of the systems between Proto-Nyulnyulan and the modern attested languages. There has been very little previous work on the history of complex predicates, and no detailed historical reconstruction for the Nyulnyulan family. The results presented here are a significant contribution to a topic in linguistics that it has only recently become possible to research. My analysis of Nyulnyulan verbal morphology and predicate formation is both synchronic and diachronic. I give an analysis of the structure of verbal predicates in the modern languages, and present reconstructions to show how they have changed over time. Synchronically, I address issues in the analysis of predicate structure that rely on fundamental assumptions about the nature of generative grammar. I also highlight the some of the many intriguing diachronic problems in the Nyulnyulan languages. Why, for example, should so few inflecting verb roots be cognate between Eastern and Western Nyulnyulan when the lexicon as a whole is very similar? I present the first reconstruction of the Proto-Nyulnyulan verbal system and show in detail what changes Bardi has undergone. I place this analysis in the context of current theoretical research on complex predicates.