Words within words: Examples from Yidiñ, Jarawara, and Fijian

This chapter discusses the nature of ‘phonological word’ and ‘grammatical word’ in three disparate languages (on each of which the author has done extensive fieldwork and published a comprehensive description), examining the ways in which one type of word may be included within another type. In Yidiñ, an Australian language, a grammatical word may consist of a whole number of phonological words. Jarawara-from the small Arawá family in the Amazonian jungle of Brazil-also has this feature and in addition allows a phonological word to consist of a whole number of grammatical words. Finally, the Austronesian language Fijian shows both these and also has a grammatical word consisting of one and a bit phonological words (and thus, necessarily, a phonological word consisting of one and a bit grammatical words).