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The team at UWA Linguistics have inventoried and partly analysed the
special symbols in the 'Laves South-west Fieldnotes' linked from John Henderson's home page.
Laves' own compilation of his "Abbreviations and symbols used" is on both sides of a light blue slip of paper found in the larger bundle of KURIN slips, about 2cm in the bundle. (Thanks to Nick Thieberger for drawing it to my attention.)
Both sides of the slip are reproduced here. Better scans of
both sides of the slip (number 213) are available from John Henderson's home page.
Note that the images show the ink from the other side partially visible
through the paper.
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1.3Mb JPEG image
Cf. earlier hypotheses about Laves' symbols
(yet to be revised in the light of the above)
| * | at top of slip indicates word illustrated by several sentences |
| = | indicates particle, suffix alternation |
| cf. | suggests a general comparison |
| CR | (Cross-reference) indicates important relation |
| | | separates words or particles although not always inserted |
| || | separates Abo. from English transcription |
| "?" | indicates idiomatic or provisional translation |
| ||| | separates two sentences and their translation, where space requires putting them on one line |
| [ ] | sentences not applying to the subject matter of the slip -
accidental
also for enclosing illustrative idiomatic expressions |
| v. | an expression having distinctly verbal force |
| s. | an expression having distinctly substantive force |
| adj. | an expression having distinctly adjectival force |
| adv. | an expression having distinctly adverbial force (if there is such) |
| NOT | forms created by me to illustrate construction |
| OR | (or) variation in translation |
| p.a. | predicative active particle |
| tr.a. | transitive active particle |
| loc. | location (static unless otherwise indicated) |
| dir | movement to & from etc. ("directional") |
| contr. | contrast with |
| sfx | suffix |
| itr. | intransitive |
| r. | root |
| rsf | root sf. |
| st. | "stem" |
| vo | vowel |
| Co. | consonant |
| Laves' abbreviation | expanded |
| Kumbn. | Kumbaingeri (Gumbaynggir) |
| Kerad. | Karadjeri (Karajarri) |
| in interlinear glosses: | |
| agt | agent |
| obj | object |
| cpt | complement |
| m n | m person, n number (where m,n = 1,2,3; 3=plural) |
| 21 ! | imperative (unless there's an overt 'you') [BJA] |
| 3-digit pronoun glosses
in Matngele ('Emdil') |
/ambu-/ '121' = '1+2 Minimal Augmented'
/arru-/ '123' (= '1 Augmented') /nung.gurru-/ '223' (='2 Augmented') /gurru-, burru-/ '323' (='3 Augmented') |
"Some linguistic slips have been sent to you by parcel post On theElkin Papers, 164/41/4/2/24. (thanks to Geoff Gray)
white slips I put the name of the language in the top rights hand
corner and then on the left hand side the native word and its meaning
in English. Beneath these I generally put a sentence or two
containing the word as an illustration of its use. The blue slips are
for making comparative vocabularies of English-Native, so that the
English word stands first and then following are the native
equivalents in each language with the names of the language beside
them. I use the yellow slips for working out the grammar. For
instance, I generally put things like suffixes and prefixes with
examples of their use, or else special grammatical constructions, and
then I fasten together all the slips dealing with any particular
grammatical element. I hope you will be able to make something of
this description."
Additions and amendments welcomed -- send to david.nash AT anu.edu.au
Laves page
