The Diachrony of Classification Systems

Most languages of northern Australia show a compound verb construction in which an uninflecting verbal element collocates with one of a small set of inflecting verbs. McGregor (2002) argues that this construction typically represents a system of verb classification in which the inflecting verbal root categorizes the uninflecting element. He proposes further that such systems of verb classification diffused areally across the northern part of the continent. For the languages of the Kimberley regi