Australia and New Guinea

Abstract

The languages of Australia constitute a single genetic group. They are non-tonal, in that tone is not lexically contrastive in any Australian language, and they tend to have stress systems where the location of stress is largely determined by the edges of morphemes. Their intonation systems are not unlike those of some European languages, though with phonetic rather than phonological effects of post-focal compression for the most part. The large number of languages of New Guinea are remarkable for their word-prosodic diversity and for that reason of great typological significance. While the entire area is under-investigated, the intonation systems in New Guinea are particularly poorly docume..