This chapter fulfils a number of functions. It begins, in §3.1, by describing three semantic features which permeate the dictionaries and grammars of Australian languages, and concludes, in §3.4, with a brief survey of special speech styles (song styles, initiation styles and avoidance styles). In between there is an introduction to the main points in phonology (in §3.2) and grammar (in §3.3) in order to provide an initial perspective on the nature of Australian languages. §3.3.11, on negation, and §3.3.12, on complex sentences, are self-contained summaries of these topics, on which there is no specific later discussion. All of the other subsections within §3.3 provide a brief introduction to a topic that is gone into in some detail in later chapters.

As pointed out in the last chapter, the Australian language situation is here viewed as a long-term equilibrium zone; it is certainly the longest-established linguistic area in the world. The aim of this volume is to investigate the parameters of variation within this area, and the ways in which languages change with respect to them.

It is likely that, at an earlier stage, languages in the Australian linguistic area (a) were mildly synthetic and agglutinative, with some suffixes but no prefixes; (b) were dependent marking; and (c) had a mixed ergative and accusative morphological profile. There has been steady development towards a more strongly synthetic structure, with the creation of new affixes, mostly on a language-particular basis.