A Reference Grammar of the Mantharta Languages, Western Australia
Peter K. Austin
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A Reference Grammar of the Mantharta Languages, Western Australia
© 2015 Peter K. Austin Department of Linguistics, SOAS, University of London Russell Square, London WC1H 0XG United Kingdom
[email protected]
Draft version 3.7 15 July 2015
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This work would not have been possible without the generous assistance and untiring efforts of a number of people, prime among them the late Jack Butler. I hope that I have done justice to his knowledge of his native language and his ability to describe and explain the language and culture of the Jiwarli people. A great debt is also due to speakers of the other Mantharta languages with whom I worked: Donald Eagles, Thiin speaker; Annie Eagles, Tom Darby, Jessie Darby, and Donald Willering, who taught me Tharrkari; and Stuart Peck, who told me what he knew of Warriyangka. I also wish to thank speakers of neighbouring languages for their assistance in teaching me about their languages and cultures, especially as they sharpened my understanding of the Mantharta languages, and for their friendship and forbearance: Topsy Ashburton, Dolly Butler, Joe Butler, Molly Butler, Hamish Cameron, George Cooyou, Helen Hayes, George Hughes, and Jack Spear. Alan Dench has contributed to this study in a number of important ways: by collecting and checking Jiwarli data for me, explaining the intricacies of kinship and interpersonal relations in the region between the Gascoyne and Ashburton Rivers and Pilbara further north, allowing me access to his own unpublished data on Jurruru, Martuthunira, Panyjima and Yingkarta, and organising and participating in joint fieldwork. Geoff O’Grady, Terry Klokeid and C.G. von Brandenstein have generously given me access to their unpublished notes and tape-recordings on the Mantharta languages and their neighbours; these have been of great assistance in the comparative work and also in clarifying points in the analysis of my own data. Needless to say, they are not responsible for any blunders I have committed in using their material. This Mantharta grammar, together with the accompanying text collections and dictionaries were originally prepared using computer resources at the University of Melbourne, Australia, and previously at La Trobe University. For advice and assistance with the computer side of things I am indebted to David Nathan, Tim Woolford and Geoff Webb. For more general advice and assistance with computational aspects of my research I am grateful to Paul Nankervis and Bob Smart, La Trobe University Computer Centre, and Stephen Charlesworth and Henry Linger of Monash University. Currently, the Mantharta texts and lexicon are stored in SIL Linguist’s Toolbox format. My research on the Mantharta languages has been supported by grants from the Department of Anthropology, University of Western Australia (in 1978), the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies (1983-86), the School of Humanities, La Trobe University (in 1981-2, 1987) and the Australian Research Grants Committee
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(1983-6). These grants enabled me to undertake fieldwork in Western Australia and to employ several research assistants who have made the task of computer entry and analysis of the large amount of data collected during the project much easier. My thanks to Pia Herbert, Janine Peterson, Yvonne Ware, and Kay Vassilakis for their help in data entry. Most of the first draft of the reference grammar was written during a year’s study leave granted by La Trobe University in 1993, part of which was spent at Stanford University. I am grateful for having had the opportunity to take an extended period of leave in order to write up the results of my project. Thanks are also due to students of my courses on Australian Aboriginal Languages at La Trobe University, the University of Melbourne and SOAS, as well as the 2015 Linguistic Society of America Summer Institute course ‘Structure of Jiwarli’. The students studied Jiwarli with me, using early versions of the grammar and texts, and taught me much about presentation and readability of materials. A Jiwarli web site was prepared by some of the students from my University of Melbourne course in 1997 – this is no longer accessible but fortunately the Australian National Library archived the site on 28th July 2000 through its Pandora initiave which archives sites of national significance. The Jiwarli archival site is now located at: http://pandora.nla.gov.au/nphwb/20000727130000/http://www.linguistics.unimelb.edu.au/research/jiwarli/index.ht ml. There is also Jiwarli material on the Wangka Maya Pilbara Aboriginal Language Centre website at http://www.wangkamaya.org.au/pilbara-languages/jiwarlioverview and a dictionary at http://www.wangkamaya.org.au/pilbaralanguages/jiwarli-dictionary which is entired derived from my 1992 dictionary publication. For assistance and friendship in Carnarvon and Onslow I am grateful to Neil Ewart, Charles and Catriona Hamilton, Mary Franklin (Cooyou), Bernie and Linda Ryder, Brian Hayes, and Elizabeth Williams. They made my visits to the field much more comfortable and enjoyable than they otherwise would have been.
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PREFACE The Mantharta languages are a group of four Aboriginal languages traditionally spoken in the north-west of Western Australia. They are Jiwarli, Thiin, Warriyangka and Tharrkari. The languages are closely related genetically, although they show some interesting structural and lexical differences. All four languages are now extinct, though some knowledge of vocabulary remains among younger descendants of Mantharta language speakers, but the languages no longer serve as effective means of communication. Because of the similarities between the languages, it is possible to write a grammar which describes the structure of them as a group. This book is a reference grammar of the group, covering phonology, morphology and syntax. As a complement to this volume there is a collection of texts (Austin 1997) and a comparative dictionary (Austin 2001); comparative phonology has been discussed in Austin 1998. The Mantharta languages are structurally interesting in several respects. Phonologically they show the typical consonant and vowel system of Central and Western Australian languages, but Tharrkari, which can be shown to have undergone major phonological changes recently, has a voicing contrast word-medially for oral stops and completely lacks nasal-stop consonant clusters (both are unusual features for Australian languages but both are shared with the neighbouring Purduna, a Kanyara language). Morphologically, the languages have a split-ergative case marking system where morphological coding of grammatical relations is determined by nominal type. In addition, coding of transitive object function is dependent upon the type of clause in which the object nominal is found: in certain types of clauses dative case marks transitive object, and in another transitive object is assigned allative case (as against the usual accusative case of main clauses). It is possible to set up a hierarchy of clause linkage which captures the required dependencies. Case affixation is also used in a wide range of other functions, linking modifiers to modified elements. In their verb morphology, the Mantharta languages show a system of switchreference, that is, indication of sameness or difference of subjects across clauses. This system of switch-reference interacts with case marking in an interesting way. Dependent clause verbs are also marked for case under certain circumstances and this assists with the interpretation of zero anaphors. Syntactically, we find very free word order and a heavy reliance on morphology (especially case concord) to understand predicate-argument relations. Zero anaphor is also very widespread and is not restricted to particular persons or numbers. This combination of characteristics is
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often referred to as ‘non-configurationality’ in the typological and theoretical linguistics literature (Austin and Bresnan 1996). It is also possible to analyse Mantharta language morphosyntax using the ‘constructive morphology’ approach of Nordliner (1997, 1998). With the assistance of Jiwarli, Warriyangka and Tharrkari speakers it has been possible to compile a representative selection of texts in Mantharta languages, covering traditional topics as well as contemporary issues. A set of 80 of these texts in Jiwarli and Warriyangka appear in a companion volume which I published in 1997: Texts in the Mantharta Languages, Western Australia. Throughout this grammar examples have been drawn extensively from the text collection and the source of all examples is given. This book is dedicated to the last speakers of the Mantharta languages in the hope that the efforts they made to teach me and other white linguists about their languages and culture will result in greater understanding of and appreciation for their rich heritage by all Australians, and readers elsewhere. London 13 July 2015
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1. INTRODUCTION 1.1.
Overview
This reference grammar is a study of four Aboriginal languages traditionally spoken in the north-west of Western Australia in the region between the Gascoyne and Ashburton Rivers. These languages are Jiwarli, Thiin, Warriyangka and Tharrkari. The languages are all closely related and are members of a single subgroup. Following a common practice in Australia (O’Grady, Voegelin and Voegelin 1966), we term them the Mantharta languages after the word for ‘man, human being’ mantharta1. The genetic connections of the languages and evidence for the proposed classification are discussed below. 1.2.
Sources for this study
The following sections describe the history of my research on Mantharta languages, the nature of the fieldwork undertaken, the type of data collected, and the linguistic consultants who co-operated in the study. 1.2.1. Background. My research on Mantharta languages began in May 1978 when I made a field-trip to Carnarvon, Western Australia, and interviewed Tharrkari speakers Donald Willering, Tom Darby and Jessie Darby as part of a survey of all the Aboriginal languages spoken in the town. Tharrkari has two distinct dialects (see 1.5 below), and I collected basic vocabulary and sentence data in both l-dialect and d-dialect. Further fieldwork was undertaken in August and November 1978; on this last trip I travelled to Onslow, Western Australia and met Jack Butler with whom I recorded Jiwarli vocabulary, sentences and simple texts. I spent 1979-1981 in the United States and was fortunate during that time to be able to meet the late G. N. O’Grady who provided me with copies of all his Mantharta language data that he collected in the 1960s. I was also able to view T.J. Klokeid’s Tharrkari fieldnotes that he made in 1967. 1
Actually, the word for ‘person, human being’ in Tharrkari is kanyara, which appears to be a borrowing from one of the neighbouring Kanyara languages.
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In July 1981 I returned to Australia and undertook a field-trip to Carnarvon and Onslow in November 1981, collecting extensive Jiwarli vocabulary, sentence and text material, including several hours of tape recordings. I also collected a tiny amount of Thiin vocabulary and sentences from Donald Eagles (who died in early 1983). In 1982 (and again in 1985) Alan Dench was able to record some Jiwarli data for me and to check queries I had sent him in the field. In November 1983 and December 1984 I again did fieldwork in Western Australia and collected further Jiwarli text and elicited data. I obtained copies of O’Grady’s tape-recordings that were held at the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS) and transcribed all the relevant material. My final fieldwork was in May 1985 when much of the earlier taped material was checked and retranscribed with Jack Butler. In December 1985, while in the United States, I spoke to Klokeid and obtained his permission to copy his Tharrkari fieldnotes and tapes held at AIATSIS. Further fieldwork was planned for 1986 but in April Jack Butler died, and in May I became very ill. Financial support for the project from ARC and AIATSIS ceased in December 1986. I carried out fieldwork in August 1987 on the neighbouring Payungu and Thalanyji languages, but no further language research on Jiwarli, Warriyangka and Thiin was possible. Only Annie Eagles remained as a speaker of Tharrkari, and I was able to do some work with her in Port Hedland in 1995. Between 1983 and the present I have developed a database in SIL Toolbox format in which all my materials plus my analysis of the data collected by Dench, O’Grady and Klokeid has been stored. This grammar is based upon that database and hence draws upon material collected by myself and the other three scholars. 1.2.2. Fieldwork. In order for the reader of this grammar to better appreciate the materials being presented, and to understand some of the background to the way the data were collected and analysed, I present here a few remarks on the nature of the fieldwork undertaken and the type of material collected. Before beginning this however, I believe it is important for the reader to have some knowledge of my own background, experiences and biases so that the task of interpreting the grammar as written is made a little more transparent. Grammars do not exist in a vacuum and reflect as much as anything the knowledge and past experience of the author, and the way that this has been involved in the shaping of his understanding of the language being analysed. I will attempt to be honest in revealing where my own interests and analytic strengths lie. I began the study of Australian Aboriginal languages in 1972 under R.M.W. Dixon at the Australian National University. My first exposure to Aboriginal
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languages (and my first experience of speaking to Aboriginal people) was during the May vacation that year when I visited Moree in north-west New South Wales and collected fragments of Gamilaraay, which existed as words remembered mainly by old people. Later in the year I was introduced to Luise Hercus who allowed me to listen to and transcribe tapes in Diyari (northern South Australia) for a student essay. In 1974 I undertook fourth year honours in linguistics writing a sub-thesis on Thirrari, a language spoken by one person in northern South Australia. I did fieldwork at Farina and Marree in January and May 1974, being introduced to the Aboriginal community and to fieldwork methodology in action by Luise Hercus. Between 1975 and 1977 I studied for the PhD at ANU supervised by Dixon and Harold Koch, and working on Diyari. This language was spoken by about a dozen people in South Australia and was in daily use among some families at Marree. The fieldwork situation was however one of salvage as few members of the younger generations were learning the language. I was fortunate in having some excellent language teachers (see Austin 1978, 1981, Austin, Hercus and Jones 1988) and was able to do intensive bilingual interviewing with them. I collected vocabulary, sentences (translated from English) and texts, including monologues and conversations. Fieldwork was conducted in short bursts of three to four weeks duration every few months. During this time I also worked on Ngamini, Yarluyandi and Adnyamathanha (neighbouring languages), as well as Gamilaraay and other languages of northern NSW (including analysis of material kindly made available by S.A. Wurm). In 1978 I was appointed to a lectureship at the University of Western Australia and went to Perth. I decided to survey and collect whatever material I could find on languages spoken in Carnarvon, having been given some local contacts by Dennis Grey, a post-graduate student in Perth. Fieldwork was fitted into the university vacations and involved intensive bilingual interviews to elicit as much basic lexical and grammatical information as possible in as many languages as possible. I had Klokeid’s Tharrkari grammar to guide me, along with O’Grady’s brief notes on Thalanyji and Payungu (in O’Grady et al. 1966). I was fortunate to make contact with a number of extremely helpful elderly language consultants who were prepared to cooperate with the requests of an itinerant white man (somewhat surprised that, unlike previous investigators, I came back to see them on more than one occasion). In November 1978 I visited Onslow briefly (see Austin 1987) and met Jack Butler, who was later to become my principal consultant. During my visit to the United States (see above), obtaining copies of O’Grady’s unpublished fieldnotes enabled me to better appreciate my own materials, as well as to add to the range of available data. Upon my return to Australia I began again to undertake fieldwork in Western Australia, as brief periods of about two weeks or so
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during university vacations. At other times I was heavily involved in teaching and administration, as Head of the Division of Linguistics at La Trobe University. My fieldwork has all been in the form of intensive interviews, usually requesting translations of words or sentences from English (see 1.2.3 below), and, apart from a week spent living in Onslow with Jack Butler in 1985, I have not had the opportunity to hear the languages spoken in non-interview situations or to use them for anything but the briefest of conversations. Normal non-linguistic language use has taken place in English. Due to the age difference between myself and the language consultants (40-50 years), relaxed contact outside the research environment has not been possible. These factors must be borne in mind when reading the grammatical description. 1.2.3. The nature of the material collected. Due to the efforts of Jack Butler (see 1.2.5), I have been able to collect a diversity of materials in Jiwarli. These can be classified into various types: (1) elicited material — this is vocabulary and sentence data supplied in response to a prompt in English (“What do you call ...?”, “How do I say ...”). Such elicited data is indicated by N in the sentence reference in the grammar as a code for the notebook in which the material was written down. (2) prompted texts — these are sequences of two or more sentences which have a coherence as texts and which arose in the context of elicitation. Often, Jack Butler would respond to a translation prompt with a brief text including the desired sentence but incorporating what was for him the required linguistic and social background. So, for example, the prompt ‘He is hiccuping’ gave rise to a text about a baby and the traditional method of treating hiccups that includes the sentence Ngunhapa parrunthurru nyilkamalkurna juma ngunhapa thurlku ‘That baby is hiccuping again’ (see Text 5 in the companion volume). These prompted texts were sometimes dictated for me to write down, and sometimes recorded on tape for later transcription. (3) unprompted texts — these are sequences of two or more sentences which were offered by Jack Butler in Jiwarli, but not in response to an English prompt by me. They include descriptions of what it is culturally appropriate to do in certain situations (such as when strangers visit one’s camp), recipes, imagined conversations, messages telling of recent news and events, and narratives, including both descriptions of historical events (see Butler and Austin 1986 for examples) and traditional mythology. Most of the narratives were recorded on tape (often with Jack sitting with his eyes closed holding the microphone and totally engrossed in storytelling), and transcribed as soon as possible thereafter. About ten hours of such tape recordings were made.
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Data on the other languages falls into similar categories but is rather more limited. For Thiin, I have the briefest of notes from a single session with Donald Eagles containing elicited vocabulary and 39 sentences, plus O’Grady’s Thiin vocabularly collected from Donald Eagles in 1967 which contains 71 sentences together with his notebook notes that include a further 23 sentences (giving 133 in total). For Warriyangka I have had to rely almost entirely on the material collected by G. N. O’Grady in 1967. This is mostly elicited vocabulary and sentences (293 sentences), but does include ten texts, spoken onto tape and then transcribed by O’Grady. I went through these transcriptions with Jack Butler and clarified a number of points, and published my analysis of the 10 Warriyangka texts in Austin 19922. For Tharrkari, I have used my own elicited data together with that collected by Klokeid. As Klokeid (1969:iii) reports: the written corpus consists of about fifteen hundred translated and spontaneous sentences, more than a thousand words in isolation, and sixty notebook pages of text. About ten hours of tape recordings were made, most of which was also transcribed. I have relied heavily on Klokeid’s transcription, supplemented by my knowledge of the other languages.
1.2.4. Dying languages? It is by now well known that last speakers of languages, particularly minority languages swamped by a majority language and culture, are subject to influences which often lead to structural changes in their language. The phenomenon of ‘language obsolescence’ or ‘language death’, and the consequent structural changes in dying languages, have been well explored (see publications by Dorian, Schmidt, Austin 1986, Donaldson etc). We may ask to what extent there has been language death among Mantharta languages (as distinct from language extinction due to the deaths of the last speakers). It is evident from the materials collected by O’Grady, Klokeid and myself that our main language consultants were all fluent in their languages, in the senses that they could unhesitatingly translate any English sentence into its Mantharta equivalent, and could also speak unhesitatingly into a tape recorder for several minutes or more dictating texts and telling stories. In addition, the materials they provided are internally consistent and, allowing for language differences, largely similar even 2
There is an additional few sentences in C.G. von Brandenstein’s materials recorded with Robert Williams but this is all identical to O’Grady’s data.
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though collected by different people at different times. There are a few instances of variation, for example, in the form of the ablative case in Jiwarli (see ??), but these are minor and probably represent valid alternatives. There is no indication of major breakdown of structural knowledge in any of the data. The only limitations I observed with speaker fluency are in the area of the lexicon. On several occasions, Jack Butler and other speakers had difficulty recalling words in their languages, often terms for items no longer in use. In some instances, words had been totally forgotten. This was not the case for sentence construction types, or morphology. It is important to remember however that the data on all the Mantharta languages was recorded in a ‘last speaker’ situation, and that it is consequently not as sociolinguistically rich or represent as wide a range of genres as might otherwise be the case.
1.2.5. Language consultants. The main language consultant for this work was Jack Butler. Jack was born on 4th May 1901 at wilukampal Caraline Well, which was a shepherding outcamp east of Maroonah Station (NAT MAP reference Winning Pool 330092). His mother Silver was a shepherd’s cook and his father was Dick Butler, a white shepherd. Jack was brought up by his mother and step-father jinapuka, a Warriyangka man, also referred to as yawartawari. His section was karimarra, totemic group wariyarra, totem kajalpu ‘emu’, conception totem papalhura ‘type of wild potato’ and conception site pirtanngura. He spent his early life on Ullawarra Station where his younger brother Joe was born in 1903, and Glen Florrie Station. There he lived in the Aboriginal camp and looked after the old men, learning their languages and histories. He learned Jiwarli, the language he preferred to speak, from wangki, known to the whites on the station as ‘Stumpy’, and also learned Jurruru and Thalanyji. As a child, he seems to have lead an almost traditional life (see, for example, the description of a journey probably undertaken in 1906 in Butler and Austin 1986), and entered the white man’s world as a station labourer shortly after his sister Molly was born in 1908. He continued to learn and practise traditional hunting skills, and to work on the stations as a stockman and dogger (dingo trapper), spending much of his adult life on Mt Stuart station. These experiences are recorded in Texts ??-??. Although his initiation was arranged with the Nhuwala as a child, by the time Jack came of initiation age the wholesale destruction of the coastal groups (see 1.9) had led to the abandonment of traditional ceremonies. He married Molly Butler (nee Ashburton) in 1927 and had four children. He retired to Onslow in the 1970’s where his brother Joe also lived. Since I first met Jack Butler in 1978 (see Austin 1987), he took it upon himself to teach me as much about Jiwarli language and culture as he could. He spent many
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hours doing translations from English as I began to learn the language, and later dictated a large number of texts on tape, assisting with the subsequent transcriptions and interpretations. He was always ready and willing to undertake these tasks, and was proud to see his language recorded and his stories put into book form. Even in his 80’s he continued to be active, getting up at six in the morning to tidy up the garden of his house. He became increasingly disillusioned with younger members of the community and dismayed by the impact of alcohol on them. He joined the Christian church and was an active member of the congregation in Onslow. As he explained them to me, his beliefs involved a syncretisation of Christian teaching and traditional themes. In 1986 he was diagnosed as having intestinal cancer, and died at Carnarvon on 10th May 1986. The Thiin language consultant was Donald Eagles (marramalu totem group, warlartu ‘eaglehawk’ totem), who was already a very old man when I met him at Peedamulla Station in 1981. He looked after Jack Butler as a child and was known as wartunyungu ’scrub dweller’ because of his dislike of white society and preference for traditional life (see Text ??). He died in 1983. O’Grady’s Warriyangka consultant, Alec Eagles, was also marramalu totem group and warlartu eaglehawk totem. I know little about him except that he was married to Jack Butler’s younger sister Molly. His daughter Annie Eagles was one of my Tharrkari consultants. Klokeid’s main Tharrkari consultant was Chubby Yowadji (totem class yawiji (= marramalu in Thiin and Warriyangka), totem warlardu ’eaglehawk’). Klokeid (1969:iii) says that ‘[w]ithout his qualities of intelligence, patience, and observation, and his interest in seeing the Thargari language recorded and preserved, this grammar could not have been written’. I worked with four Tharrkari speakers: Tom Darby, Jessie Darby, Annie Eagles and Donald Willering. Tom Darby, also known as Darby Yowadji and pirtuthuni, was born in Tharrkari traditional country, although his mother came from Queensland. He is a fluent speaker of Tharrkari and was able to help with simple elicitation, but soon became bored and was reluctant to be involved further. Jessie Darby provided some elementary materials in 1978, but was too involved with family matters to be of later assistance. Annie Eagles, daughter of Alec Eagles, was the youngest Tharrkari speaker I met and provided some useful information when she had free time. She moved to Port Hedland in 1983 and was not able to be later contacted. Donald Willering was an old fully-initiated Tharrkari man who was able to provide some elementary information in 1978, but his age and lack of fluency with English made it difficult to work with him productively. He sang a number of Tharrkari songs to me but I was unable to transcribe and translate them with him with any degree of certainty.
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1.3.
Previous linguistic research
The Mantharta languages have been largely neglected until very recently. The first written material collected on them is found in a questionnaire sent to pastoralists by Daisy Bates in 1904. Vocabularies XII, 2D, 7 and XII, 2D, 8 contain Warriyangka words. In 1910-11 Radcliffe-Brown worked on Bernier Island and the nearby coastal stations and recorded kinship and vocabulary data on some of the languages. His 1912 paper gives locations for the language groups. There are unpublished fieldnotes (Notebook E5) and a card file in Radcliffe-Brown’s papers held in the Fisher Library at the University of Sydney. Notebook E5 contains some Tharrkari words (pages 2628, 40), and the card file lists details of local group organisation in the GascoyneAshburton region. The cards relevant to Mantharta languages are: 1 1 4 12
Thiin group (unnamed) Jiwarli group (termed ?Tungo) Tharrkari groups (1 unnamed plus yulura, wuruwaia, and wil’ambari) Warriyangka groups (4 unnamed plus kaguara, kumbangara, puanbari, yiridini, wirabara, waiamba, maluwara, and waribungara)
There are a few words on these eighteen cards, and references to genealogies and other fieldnotes. Unfortunately, I have been unable to locate any other material of Radcliffe-Brown’s. In 1910-11 Daisy Bates also worked on Bernier and Dorre islands and collected information from speakers of Gascoyne-Ashburton languages. In 1914 she read a paper at the Australian Association for the Advancement of Science which contains information about the totemic and kinship systems; there is also a little material in her manuscripts (the anthropological material was published as Bates 1985). The relevant data is in Vocabularies II D 6, 12. Most of this is written is a very underdifferentiated orthography and there seems to be little which is not also in the more recent material. In 1920 W. B. Alexander, Keeper of Biology at the West Australian Museum, published sixty words for birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish collected from “three full-blooded aboriginals from the district where the Lyons River flows into the Gascoyne” who were taken to the Museum in April 1918 by their employer Mr Rutherford. These are all Warriyangka items, and although the spelling is underdifferentiated the material is useful because Alexander took the men around the Museum and was able to give explicit identifications for the fauna named by them. Between 1928 and 1932 Daniel Davidson who was then at the University of
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Western Australia, collected vocabulary material on several languages spoken in the north-west. Davidson’s material includes words in Tharrkari. In 1956 Ruth Fink carried out research on songs of the Murchison, Gascoyne and Ashburton regions, and her fieldnotes include songs recorded at Carnarvon in November that year. In Fink (1956a:10-11) there are two Warriyangka songs sung by Bob Williams; her Notebook H gives the original transcription. Research by trained linguists began in 1958 when G. N. O’Grady collected vocabulary and sentence data as part of his survey of Western Australia. O’Grady 1958-9 contains the following Mantharta language material: p ii two sentences in Warriyangka p 20-103 Tharrkari vocabulary p 135-6 sentences in Tharrkari p 265-272 Warriyangka vocabulary (from Albert) This data served as the basis for the following statements made in O’Grady et al (1966:113): “Mantharda subgroup - 1. Wariengga /waryaNka/ number 521 on Greenway’s map, is located at 24’ S and 116’ E. It is known only from a brief wordlist collected by O’Grady in 1958, and appears close to extinction. It shares a high of 45 percent of its basic vocabulary with Targari (to its west), as against 33 percent with Wadjeri (to its east). 2. and 3. Other members of the Mantharda subgroup are Tenma and Djiwali.” O’Grady returned to the area in 1967 with his student T.J. Klokeid, and together they collected extensive materials on the Mantharta languages, including wordlists of Thiin, Tharrkari and Warriyangka, and sentence and text data in Tharrkari and Warriyangka. Klokeid published an outline phonology and morphology of Tharrkari in 1969. Between 1965 and 1983 C.G. von Brandenstein carried out research in the Gascoyne-Ashburton region as well as the Pilbara further north. He collected some Warriyangka data which confirms that of O’Grady. Most of von Brandenstein’s material is in an idiosyncratic transcription which reduces its value. There is little other material on Mantharta languages in his notes and tape-recordings.
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1.4.
Names
The four languages which make up the Mantharta group are called Jiwarli, Thiin, Warriyangka and Tharrkari by their speakers and by speakers of other neighbouring languages. The names appear in the published and unpublished literature on West Australian languages spelled in a variety of ways: Jiwarli Djiwali Djiwarli Jivali Jiwali Jiwarli T’iuarli T’iuarli Tchi-warli Tchiwarli Tivali Tjiwali Tjiwarli
Capell 1963:W3, O’Grady et al 1966:113, Radcliffe-Brown 193031:212, Tindale 1940: , Tindale 1974:241 Oates 1975:72 Connelly 1932:101 [Radcliffe-]Brown 1912:144 Bates 1985:57 von Brandenstein 1967b von Brandenstein 1967b Bates 1985:57 Bates 1985:62 Tindale 1974:241 Tindale 1974:241 von Brandenstein 1967b
Thiin There is a phonological constraint (discussed in 2.??) that all words in Mantharta languages must end in a vowel. Roots which would otherwise end in a nasal add -ma to satisfy this constraint; hence, the language name is Thiin or Thiinma. Denma Te:n Teen Tenma
Capell 1963:W3, Oates 1975:72 Tindale 1974:257 von Brandenstein 1967b Bates 1985:62, Connelly 1932:101, O’Grady et al 1966:113, Radcliffe-Brown 1930-31:212, Tindale 1940, Tindale 1974:257, [Radcliffe-]Brown 1912:146
Warriyangka There are two alternative names for this group: Warriyangka or Warriwangka, both
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derived from the word warri ’no, not’. The spellings found in the literature reflect the two alternatives. Wadiwanga Wari-wonga Warianga Wariangga Warienga Wariengga Warijangga Wariwongga Warreeanga Warrianga Warriangga Warrijangga Warriwangka Warriwonga Warriyarngka Woorenga Woorianga Woorienga
Capell 1963:A8 [Radcliffe-]Brown 1912:146 Bates 1914:392, Capell 1963:W8, Fink 1956a:10-11, Fink 1956b:7,11, Oates 1975:75 Tindale 1974:259 O’Grady et al 1966:113, Radcliffe-Brown 1930-31:212, Tindale 1940, [Radcliffe-]Brown 1912:146 Tindale 1974:259 O’Grady 1957-8:ii, O’Grady 1959 Tindale 1974:259 Bates n.d. Bates 1985:56 von Brandenstein 1967b Tindale 1974:259, von Brandenstein 1967b Klokeid TKN1p43 “Yabaroo”, Bates 1985:56 von Brandenstein 1967b Tindale 1974:259 Connelly 1932:101 Tindale 1974:259
Tharrkari Dalgari Dargari Dthargari T(h)arlgardi Tarlgardi Targari
Tarkari Tarlgarri Tarrkari
Tindale 1974:257 Bates 1914: , Capell 1963:W3, O’Grady 1957-8:i, O’Grady 1959, Oates 1975:78 Fink 1956b von Brandenstein 1967b von Brandenstein 1967b Bates 1914:393, Connelly 1932:101, O’Grady et al 1966:113, Radcliffe-Brown 1930-31:212, Tindale 1940, Tindale 1974:257, [Radcliffe-]Brown 1912:146 Tindale 1974:257 Tindale 1974:257 “Yabaroo”, Douglas 1981:202
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Tarugari Thadgarda Thadgardi Thadgarri Thargari Thargarri Tharrgari
Tindale 1974:257 Bates 1985:57 Bates 1985:56 Bates 1985:56 Klokeid 1969, Klokeid TKN1p45, Wordick 1982:382 Bates 1985:56 von Brandenstein 1969:3
The speakers of the languages call themselves by the names given above or else mantharta (in the case of Tharrkari kanyara) ‘human being, Aboriginal person’. 1.5.
Dialects
The dialect situation is not completely clear because of the social disruption to which speakers of the languages have been subjected (see 1.7), however there is some evidence of dialect differences. A dialect name Malykaru has been given by consultants as the name of a group speaking Warriyangka, distinct from Warriyangka proper. For Tharrkari there is a deal of evidence of internal dialect diversity. Klokeid (1969:1) distinguishes two dialects: the l-dialect and the d-dialect; in the latter all laterals are pronounced as the corresponding voiced stops. Thus we find the pattern exemplified in the following: L-DIALECT
D-DIALECT
GLOSS
mulha ngali kalya karla
mudha ngadi kaja karda
‘nose’ ‘we dl’ ‘armpit’ ‘fire’
I found exactly this situation for speakers I interviewed. Klokeid also mentions further dialect differences but does not elaborate. The differences I have noted between consultants are primarily lexical, so that there exist synonymous sets of terms some of which are preferred by different speakers. An example is ‘woman’ which is purrardi, macangu, or pirrimayi, according to speaker preference. There is no evidence of dialect variation in Thiin or Jiwarli (however our data on these languages comes from a single speaker each so we would not expect to discover evidence for dialects).
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1.6.
Territory and Neighbours
The issue of traditional locations of Aboriginal groups is a complex one, with it being necessary to draw a distinction between (generally patrilineal) land-owning groups, called ‘clans’, and residence groups, called ‘local groups’ or ‘hordes’ (the distinction is made clear in Radcliffe-Brown’s writings, for example Radcliffe-Brown 1952; see also Peterson 1976 for several papers on this topic). When questioned about traditional locations, Mantharta speakers have quite firm ideas about the places ‘owned’ by named groups and the languages those groups spoke. That is, it is possible to reconstruct a picture of clan organisation, ownership of language and relationships to territory. Radcliffe-Brown collected data on patrilineal group locations and places, including some maps, in his fieldwork in 1910-11 and this material remains in a card file at the University of Sydney described above. I have used it, together with information from speakers that I worked with, to compile a list of hundreds of place names in this area and patrilineal clan group associations, if known. Because of the disruption caused by white occupation in the GascoyneAshburton region, it is impossible now double check traditional local group organisation and composition in detail. The approximate locations of each language group are indicated on Map 1. In the following sections the more specific locations of each language-owning unit are discussed. Map 1. Approximate locations of Mantharta language owning groups
19
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1.6.1. Jiwarli. According to the last speaker of Jiwarli, Jack Butler (see 1.9), at the time of first contact with European settlers the country of the Jiwarli comprised the area at ‘the top end of the Yannarie River down to the Lyons River where it divides and up to the Henry River’. This location more or less agrees with that given by previous investigators such as [Radcliffe-]Brown 1912, Bates 1985, Tindale 1940 and von Brandenstein 1967 and coincides almost exactly with the description in Tindale (1974:241): Headwaters of Henry and Yannarie rivers from Mounts Hamlet and Florrie (sic.) southeast to the Lyons River, northeastward only to Ashburton divide; at Elliot Creek. I have recorded several dozen names for places located within traditional Jiwarli country. Places on the limits of Jiwarli territory are: north:
mirni Minnie Springs (map reference Edmund 367128). Here the Jiwarli met the Thalanyji.
east:
kajiriwari Mount Florry (Wyloo ) in the north-east borders with Pinikura. yaalha pool on Henry River east branch is the south-east limit. The yankurangku group of Jurruru speakers owned the country further east.
south:
karlapaya High Range (Edmund ) in the south-west borders on Tharrkari country. japarntipirri Edmund River in the south borders on Warriyangka country and the Barlee Range borders on the Thiin.
There are a number of important sites of significance in Jiwarli country, including kartumayi ‘Needle Hill’ (Edmund 395047), connected with echidna, and pirtuwarra spring (Edmund 354117), a rock art site. Other place names are mentioned in the Jiwarli texts (see Butler and Austin 1986, Austin 1987). For the location of Jiwarli country see Map 2.
21
Map 2. Approximate location of significant places in Jiwarli territory
22
1.6.2. Thiin. The traditional location of the Thiin is less well known than that of the other groups. Jack Butler gave it as south-west of the Jiwarli in the Barlee Range, and on Wanna Station (but not as far east as Mount Augustus which is in Wajarri traditional territory). [Radcliffe-]Brown (1912:146) says ‘on the Frederick River, a tributary of the Lyons’, and Connelly 1932 has ‘inland, head of Henry River’. Bates (1985:62) gives the location as ‘about Wondarry Creek, which rises in Capricorn Range’. Tindale (1974:257) is equally vague, giving ‘head of Henry River; Barlee Range; on Marillana’. The Thiin bordered the Wajarri and the Yinhawangka in the east, and the Jiwarli and Warriyangka in the west. 1.6.3. Warriyangka. All sources agree that the Warriyangka territory was traditionally along the upper Lyons River, and the Edmund River, and including the present-day stations of Minnie Creek, Gifford Creek and Edmund. Tindale (1974:259) gives the following details: Upper Lyons River, also Gifford and Minnie creeks; on Minnie Creek Station, at Edmund and the eastern side of Maroonah. They claimed to have very strict boundaries with surrounding tribes, their term for boundary being [‘wadhara], which word they share with the Djiwali and Tjuroro. Information supplied by Bates (1985:56-7) confirms this. She states that: the southern boundary of the Warriwonga and Thadgari was the Gascoyne River. The Lyons River separated the Warriwonga from the Thadgardi. East of the Warriwonga were the circumcised tribes. The Lyons River taking a sharp curve eastward formed the northern boundary of the Warriwonga. There appears to have been a sub-group of Warriyangka speakers termed the malykaru who lived south-west of this location. Tindale (1974:247) gives Malgaru as a separate tribe in his listing and assigns them as: East of Kennedy Range and in the hills east of Lyons River from Gascoyne Junction north to near Minnie Creek; at Eudamullah; south to near Fossil Hill; a small tribe of people not practising circumcision. The neighbours of the Warriyangka were the Yingkarta (south), Tharrkari (west) and Wajarri (east). 1.6.4. Tharrkari. The country owned by Tharrkari speakers included the Kennedy Range, upper
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Lyndon and Minilya Rivers, and the lower Lyons River. [Radcliffe-]Brown has them: ‘on lower portion of the Lyons River and the upper portion of the Minilya River’. Tindale 1940 has ‘Kennedy Range; upper Minilya River and lower Lyons River’, but Tindale (1974:257) moves them further west: On Lyndon Station and the coastal plain south of the Lyndon River and west of Round Hill; east to Hill Springs and Minilya River headwaters; south to Middalya, Moogooree, and Kennedy Range. Post-European migration took them east to the Lyons River. This late event was reflected in the 1940 map. Klokeid’s consultants gave the location as ‘Middalya, Williambury and formerly Mangaroon’ (in TKN1p45), naming Stations in the centre of this territory. The neighbours of the Tharrkari were the Payungu (east), Purduna (north), Yingkarta (south) and Warriyangka (east). The language shows a number of borrowings from the languages to the north and east, including kanyara ‘man, human being’ instead of the expected matharda, and shares with Purduna several farreaching phonological changes (Austin 1981, 1983, see also 1.5). 1.7.
Language relationships
Jiwarli, Thiin, Warriyangka and Tharrkari have been classified as genetically related by a number of scholars. O’Grady, Voegelin and Voegelin (1966:111–3) classify the first three as members of the Mantharta subgroup of the Nyungic group of PamaNyungan, and classify Tharrkari in the Kanyara subgroup (along with Payungu, Purduna and Thalanyji — see 1.? above). Klokeid (1969:1) states that: [a]ccording to comparisons made by G. N. O’Grady and the author in July, 1967, Thargari is a member of the Mantharta subgroup, Nyungic group of the Pama-Nyungan family. In his earlier classification in 1966, p.37 and p.111, O’Grady had tentatively placed Thargari in the Kanyara subgroup. In Austin (1981, 1983) I have demonstrated that the four languages do indeed form a close genetic group, which I name Mantharta, following O’Grady et. al. It is possible to reconstruct several hundred roots and suffixes for proto-Mantharta and to point to features unique to the four languages. In Austin 1981 I suggested that Jurruru also be included in the group, but grammatical data collected by Alan Dench in 1982 and myself in 1983 and material collected by von Brandenstein in the 1960’s and made available in 1983 shows this to be incorrect. There are several features which the Mantharta languages have in common, including: six verb conjugations with the same morphological structure, an irregular verb ‘to go’, and shared irregularities in the pronominal paradigms (including suppletive forms for first person dative case).
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There is some slight evidence that within the Mantharta group, Jiwarli is closer to Thiin, and Warriyangka is closer to Tharrkari. This evidence includes lexical differences, and the form of the first person dual pronoun: nganthurra in Jiwarli and Thiin, but nganhurra in Warriyangka. The wider links of the Mantharta languages have not been proven in detail but a connection with the Kanyara languages to the west (Thalanyji, Purduna, Payungu — see Austin 1983) is clear. Research in this area is continuing. 1.8.
Ethnographic background
Speakers of Mantharta languages formed part of a large socio-cultural block along the north-west coast of Western Australia and the immediate hinterland. They shared many cultural characteristics with their Kanyara neighbours to the east. Apart from the Thiin, speakers of Mantharta languages did not practise circumcision as a rite of male initiation, having instead ceremonies of arm-tying and cicatrisation at the time that boys were initiated. The groups had a four section system, a system of patrilineal totemic affiliations, and an Aranda type kinship system. We discuss these in brief in the following sections. 1.8.1. Social categorisation. Each member of a Mantharta language speaking group was assigned at birth to a number of socially defined categories. These categories include the four-term section system, and the patrilineally inherited totemic class system. 1.8.2. Sections. Mantharta language speakers had a four-term section system, which they shared with other coastal groups in the Gascoyne-Ashburton region (related systems are found in the Pilbara (see Radcliffe-Brown 1913, Dench 1987:19ff) and neighbouring desert regions (see Tonkinson 1987)).. Each person is assigned a section at birth. The sections are exogamous and one’s section is always different from that of one’s parents. Section assignment may be calculated from the following diagram:
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=
karimarra
=
panaka
purungu
=
palyarri
are marriage links are mother-child (matrilineal) links are father-child (patrilineal) links
So, for example, a karimarra man marries a panaka woman and their children are palyarri (the male children will then be required to marry purungu women and will have karimarra children, the female children will marry purungu men and have panaka children). Also, panaka men marry karimarra women and have purungu children. Inherent in the section system are three sets of dual-organisation contrasts (see Tonkinson 1978:57, Edwards 1988:51-52): 1. matrimoieties — comprising mother-child sets, namely karimarra and purungu as one matrimoiety, and panaka and palyarri as the other; 2. patrimoieties — comprising father-child sets, namely karimarra and palyarri as one patrimoiety, and panaka and purungu as the other; 3. merged alternate generation levels — comprising members of one generation level plus those an even number above or below it, namely karimarra and panaka as one generation level, and purungu and palyarri as the other. The section system and the underlying dualities (apart from matrimoieties) play an important role is many aspects of social life, including marriage and descent rules. Marriage is restricted to certain categories by the kinship system (see 1.8.5). As Tonkinson (1978:54) explains for the Mardudjara, the section system is socio-centric, while the kinship system is ‘an ego-centrically defined network of relationships’. Patrimoieties and merged generation levels are important organising principles in aspects of social and ritual organisation. For example, camping arrangements were meant to reflect patrimoieties (see Text ), and during initiation, merged generation levels were important in categorising participants. As Tonkinson (1978:57) says of the Martutjarra:
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At large gatherings, the Mardudjara group their camps into two patrimoiety ‘sides’, also used in the seating arrangements for certain men’s rituals and seen in intergroup gift exchange. But the most important division is the merged alternate generation levels, which figure prominently in many religious activities. In Jiwarli male initiation (see ??), as among the Martutjarra (see Tonkinson 1978:58) and many other Western Australian groups, there is a contrast between karnku and jinyjanungu, described in English as ‘bosses’ and ‘workers’ respectively. The jinyjanungu are composed of the merged alternate generation set of the initiands, minus close consanguineal kin such as brothers and sisters. The jinyjanungu play an active role in organising and carrying out the initiation ceremonies. The karnku consists of the other generation set, plus the close consanguineal kin; they draw up plans for the ritual and are consulted on its conduct but play no active part in its operation. They are effectively in mourning and ‘sorry’ for the initiates (see also Dench 19??, 19??). 1.8.3. Totemism. Each member of a Mantharta language speaking group belongs to a patrilineally defined clan (an essentially identical system is followed by the Martuthunira to the north — see Dench 1987:28–9). Associated with each clan is a clan territory and sites of significance in that territory, including sites called thalu. The thalu have been referred to as ‘local totem centres’ (Radcliffe-Brown 1930-31:213) or ‘increase sites’ (Maddock 1982:122). Essentially, each clan has associated with it a number of totems, which are generally animal or plant species, and within the clan territory there will be places which are associated with particular totems. These places, called thalu, are usually a pile of stones or a tree at which members of the group (generally, but not exclusively, male adults) perform ceremonies to maintain or increase the totem species (this is referred to as ‘working the thalu’ in the English of Aboriginal people of the area). Such ceremonies may be carried out to ensure the well-being of the group, or to relieve a temporary state of affairs, for example, a shortage of water or food. Some thalu are associated not with natural species, but with disease or suffering; Jack Butler mentioned a thalu on Alma Station where boils could be inflicted on people by working the thalu. Totemic affiliations are also inherited patrilineally. Each person belongs to a named totemic class with which certain totems are associated. For example, Jack Butler is wariyarra totem class with kajalpu ’emu’ totem. Unlike totemic affiliations elsewhere in Australia, there is no restriction on eating one’s totem species. There are separate terms for male and female members of the totem groups, and the terms are
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often used to refer to or address people, much in the manner of personal names. The totem class names extend throughout the Gascoyne-Ashburton region (see Austin 1987). Table 1.1 sets out the totem group names found among Mantharta language speakers. Table 1.1 - Totemic groups MALE
FEMALE
TOTEM
walirri
wilari
karla parturra
‘fire’ ‘bustard’
kajartu
ngajuri
yungu
‘rain’
wariyarra
ngukuji
jankurna
‘emu’
marramalu
mampulu
warlartu
‘eaglehawk’
mirtirr
ngalkuji
jiriparri
‘echidna’
thampurla
?
kurrumantu
‘goanna’
NOTES: 1. Warriyangka and Tharrkari have yawiji where Jiwarli and Thiin have marramalu 2. Jack Butler did not know the female term corresponding to thampurla It appears that the totems listed above for each group are prototypical for the local groups having that totem class name, however evidence from Radcliffe-Brown’s card file suggests that for any given local group there could be many associated totems, not always the one typical of the totem class of the clan. In addition to patrilineal totems people also were assigned conception totems. A conception totem is the particular plant or animal species which made one’s mother ill at the time that one was conceived. For example, Jack Butler’s conception totem was papalhura a species of yam, and Joe Butler’s was pikurta ’hill kangaroo’. People may be referred to or addressed by means of the name of their conception totem.
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1.8.4. Names and naming. As noted above, totem class names, patrilineal totems, and conception totems may all be used to refer to or address an individual. Interestingly, when Aboriginal people in the Gascoyne–Ashburton region were assigned English names some took the totem class name as a surname, for example Chubby Yowadji, who was yawiji totem class. Others took the English translation of their totem as a surname, for example Alec Eagles and Donald Eagles (not related), both of whom were marramalu totem class and eaglehawk totem. There are several other means of naming people, including the use of personal names and toponyms. We have very little information about personal names among Mantharta language speakers because of a general ban on people uttering their own names. Personal names are almost never used to refer to or address individuals, an exception being Donald Willering whose English surname was derived from his personal name wilariny. There are several types of toponyms. People may be named after their conception site, the place where their mother is taken to have conceived them. Examples are Jack Butler, whose conception site was pirtanngura, and Joe Butler whose conception site is pirtumalkaru. These place names may be used as personal names. People may also be named after the country they inherit rights to, both through their mother (maternal descendant toponym) and father (paternal descendant toponym). There are two suffixes which are used in such names: -kara for maternal toponyms and -wari for paternal toponyms. Examples are jalyilykara for a person whose mother’s country was jalyily, and pirtuthuniwari for a person whose father’s country was pirtuthuni. The suffix -ngarti may be used optionally after wari or in place of it. Thus, we find pirtuthuniwaringarti or alternatively pirtuthuningarti as paternal toponyms. With the arrival of white settlers and their possessions, the -wari suffix seems to have been extended in function. Jack Butler’s step-father was referred to as yawartawari, based on his own father’s name yawarta ’horse’ (it seems he was kicked by a horse). Here -wari is added to a common noun, not a toponym. 1.8.5. Kinship. The Mantharta group and their western neighbours shared a common system of kinship nomenclature. Radcliffe-Brown (1930-31:211) terms this the ‘Talaindji Type’. The kinship system is a variation of the Aranda type; it excludes marriage to a cross-cousin (mother’s brother’s child, or father’s sister’s child), and preferred marriage is for a man to marry the child of his mother’s cross-cousin, that is his mother’s mother’s brother’s daughter’s daughter or his mother’s father’s sister’s daughter’s daughter. Such women are termed yakanma. Within this system there are
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four lines of patrilineal descent: 1. ego’s patriline — including papu ‘father, father’s brother’, and mayili ‘father’s father’; 2. 3. 4.
ego’s mother’s patriline — including pipi ‘mother, mother’s sister’, and thami ‘mother’s father’; ego’s father’s mother’s patriline — including ngapari ‘father’s mother’, and ngajala ‘sister’s children’; ego’s mother’s mother’s patriline — including kantharri ‘mother’s mother, mother’s mother’s sister’, and nganyi ‘mother-in-law’.
The following is some further kinship terminology for a male ego. Note that marriage was arranged at an early age for boys and girls. Text WR5 notes that both mother and father are involved in the process of promising a girl to her future spouse. +2 generation Term
Referents
mayili
father’s father, father’s father’s sister
kantharri
mother’s mother
thami
mother’s father
ngapari
father’s mother
+1 generation Term
Referents
papu
father, father’s brother
mukul
father’s sister
pipi (Ji, Ti)
mother
ngangka (Wr) ngaka (Tr) mimi
mother’s brother
nganyi
parent-in-law
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thalku
actual wife’s father
nyirti
actual wife’s mother
pungkanyu
potential wife’s mother
Ego’s generation Term kurta
older brother
marrkara younger brother kunyjan
older sister
warnira
younger sister
yakan
spouse (mother’s mother’s brother’s daughter’s daughter or father’s mother’s brother’s son’s daughter)
ngathal
same sex cross-cousin
punkali
opposite sex cross-cousin
-1 generation Term mura
son
kurntal
daughter
ngajala
sister’s child
nyirti
son of male cross-cousin (MBSS, FZSS)
ngarraya
daughter of male cross-cousin (MBSD, FZSD)
thalku
son of female cross-cousin (MBDS, FZDS)
nganyi
daughter of female cross-cousin (MBDD, FZDD)
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-2 generation Term mayili
son’s child
ngapari
sister’s son’s child
thami
daughter’s child
kantharri sister’s daughter’s child
1.8.6. Initiation. Information about initiation derives from Jack Butler (on the Jiwarli), and Warriyangka texts by Alec Eagles (Texts WR3,4). For information on similar initiation practised by the Ngarluma and Kariyarra in the Pilbara see Radcliffe-Brown (1913:167, 174). Alan Dench discussed Jiwarli initiation with Jack Butler and provides the following details (Dench, letter to Peter Austin 13 Sept 1982). Soon after a boy was born, a neighbouring group was contacted and arrangements made for the boy’s (future) initiation. Relationships between people to be involved in the initiation were thus established at an early age. In Jack Butler’s case, arrangements were made with the Nhuwala on the Ashburton river for him to be initiated (these arrangements were not carried out owing to the disruption caused by white settlement — see below). When a boy reaches initiation age he travels with his close family to the host’s country. The initiand is known as wamulu in Jiwarli (and waruparnti in Warriyangka) and the principal actor in his initiation as his nhaankurti. The nhaankurti is related to the wamulu as classificatory same sex cross-cousin (mother’s brother’s son, or father’s sister’s son) and is referred to by the wamulu as ngathalpaju ’my (same sex) cross-cousin’. Initiation involves tying tight bands of fur rope around the upper arms just above the biceps, forming a tourniquet about five centimetres wide and two centimetres thick. Also, a wide belt of human hair is wrapped around the waist. When the initiand was a noted trouble-maker native cat fur was used in the arm bands; it was considered more powerful and a more painful punishment. The bands and belt were tied by the nhaankurti who also cut murrurrpa, ceremonial scars, in the initiand’s upper arm, just below the shoulder. The initiand was also painted. In Warriyangka Text 5, Alec Eagles notes that the initiand (waruparnti) is painted with three stripes, consisting of black paint, made from ground charcoal, white paint made from clay,
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and red paint made from wilki red ochre. The characteristic pattern of paint would be recognised by anyone who saw the initiand (see also Text WR3). Initiands were taken from their families and carried on the backs of the initiators to the initiation ground; the initiand’s feet must not touch the ground before the ceremony (see Text WR3). Initiands were secluded from their families for a considerable period of time (on the order of six months to a year). During this period the initiands were unable to use their hands, being numb and weak from lack of circulation, and were also weak in the legs because of the waist belt. The initiands were often forced, through lack of strength, to crawl around on their hands and knees. After the period of seclusion the newly initiated man is returned to his family (to sit in the lap of his mother and father, according to Text WR3s11). Initiation establishes a debt (called yarnta in Warriyangka) which must be repaid to the initiator in the form of meat, spears and boomerangs (see Text WR4). After the initiation the nhaankurti is in an avoidance relationship with the wamulu. The nhaankurti absents himself and the initiand must avoid contact with him for a long period. After about a year, a meeting is arranged between the wamulu and his nhaankurti; after having met the two need not avoid one another completely. The wamulu may talk to his nhaankurti, but he must face away from him, speak from a distance, and avoid eye contact. The nhaankurti must speak and behave kurntangka ’politely’, speaking in a soft voice and acting circumspectly. The nhaankurti can tease his wamulu, but such teasing can never be responded to or returned in kind. To some extent, the siblings of a wamulu will treat his nhaankurti with this same degree of avoidance and respect. Once initiated, a man must also avoid contact with his mukulpa ’aunt’ (father’s sister), and his sisters, only being as fully relaxed as when a child with his female grandparents, kantharri ‘mother’s mother’ and ngapari ‘father’s mother’. He can never sit with his sisters and aunts, but must sit at a distance and not face them (purluu kumpinha ‘sitting face to face’). He will make his own fire and only his eldest sister may bring him food or leave it at his fire. These traditions and proscriptions broke down after white settlement, disturbing and upsetting the old people. In Text JI47 Jack Butler expresses his dismay at the way that young people influenced by the ways of whitemen now act, ignoring the old traditions. In recent times, the circumcising groups inland of the coast have been attempting to press their ceremonies on the remaining coastal people. Bates (1985:57) reports that at the turn of the century ‘some Warriwonga were adopted and circumcised by the tribes east of them’; such pressure was being exerted in the 1978s and 1980s on the descendants of Mantharta language speakers. Most initiations nowadays are carried out according to the rites of inland groups and hence include circumcision and
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subincision (see Grey 19??). 1.9.
Recent history
The first explorations by Europeans in the north-west of Western Australia were maritime voyages concerned with coastal exploration. As early as 1818, Captain P.P. King had reported on the coast east of Exmouth Gulf and between 1838 and 1841 Captains Wickham and Stokes had discovered the mouth of the Ashburton River (Webb and Webb 1983:12). Actual contact between Mantharta language speakers and Europeans began in the 1850’s with inland explorations. In 1858 Frank Gregory explored the Gasconade River and the Lyons River north as far as Mount Augustus (Green 1981:97-8, Webb and Webb 1983:11). In doing so he passed through the traditional territory of a number of Aboriginal groups, including the Maya, the Yingkarta and the Warriyangka. He contacted Aborigines in May 1858 near the present-day township of Carnarvon (Green ibid), but made no attempt to speak to them. In 1861 Gregory was engaged for a settlement expedition which explored the area from Nickol Bay south to the Ashburton River (Green 1981:98, Webb and Webb 1983:12ff) and which travelled through the traditional territory of the Thalanyji. T.C. Murray led an expedition through the Hamersley Range and down to the Ashburton in 1865 (Webb and Webb 1983:27ff). The expedition travelled along Duck Creek through the country of the Jurruru, and thence on to the Ashburton and Globe Hill Station in Thalanyji territory. Although they encountered Aborigines on 15th June 1865, the party, like its predecessors, made no attempt to communicate with them. Murray’s expedition was followed in 1866 by one led by T. Hooley who explored the Ashburton River and followed the Henry River south into Jiwarli country (Webb and Webb 1983:35ff). Other explorers entered the region and as a result of their favourable reports, settlers began to take up pastoral leases in the 1870’s. A development which had disastrous consequences for the Aborigines was the establishment of the pearling industry at Shark Bay and Cossack in the late 1860’s (Biskup 1973:16, Taylor 1980:114). Diseases such as influenza and small-pox were spread from the European settlements, and the Aborigines who had no resistance to them, died in large numbers. Taylor (1980:115) reports that: a tragic small-pox epidemic ... swept along the coast in 1866. Hundreds of Aborigines died. Bodies could be found in the mangroves and throughout the country for many months. In addition, the pearlers scoured the countryside kidnapping Aborigines to force them to work on the pearling boats, moving gradually inland from the coast as the demand for labour increased and disease wiped out the available work force. Taylor
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(1980:115) describes the so-called “nigger hunting”: during the lay-up and the willy-willy season, when boats came in for repairs and cleaning, pearlers went nigger hunting as it became known, riding about the countryside recruiting Aborigines for labour and the methods used by the pearlers (ibid:116): there developed amongst some pearlers a high regard for money and a low regard for human life as time went on. Dubious methods were used at times by some unscrupulous ones to cajole Aborigines into their boats; even kidnapping took place. There are recorded instances of them being lied to and told they were going to certain places; instead they were taken as far away as two hundred miles to the pearling grounds in the east, then abandoned there at the end of their services. In the 1870’s and 1880’s pastoralists established themselves throughout the whole of the Gascoyne-Ashburton region, evidently in the face of hostility from the local Aborigines. Aboriginal resistance was most intense in 1880’s and Green (1981:100) quotes Walter Howard as writing in 1882 the he had “never come across a worse lot then these Gascoyne, Lyons and Upper Minilya tribes”. The settlers attempted to control the Aborigines by a combination of a system of indentured labour (where people were bound to a particular station) and punitive court judgements whereby offenders were punished or transported to Carnarvon, and even Rottnest Island west of Perth. Resistance continued for many years. In 1893 a stock route was gazetted along the right bank of the Henry River to the junction of the Alma and Lyons Rivers and wells were dug for stock (Webb and Webb 1983:96-7). The Aborigines objected to the incursions into their territory and speared the settlers and their cattle, gaining a reputation for being fierce fighters. The Aborigines were reported by Taylor (1980:216-7) to be: extremely troublesome and warlike and Hooley lost three shepherds while they were attempting to protect themselves from an attack. Gradually the indenture system had the desired effect of destroying Aboriginal resistance by breaking up families, groups, and the traditional authority structures. Boys as young as seven and eight were taught to ride horses and work with stock (according to Jack Butler), and women were put to work in the houses, as well as out in the station paddocks. The following brief narrative told by Maria, a Purduna woman, and recorded by G.N. O’Grady in October 1967 (AIAS Archive tape A798b), reveals much about the attitudes of station owners, here Mrs de Pledge the
35
wife of the owner of Yanrey Station: I used to go out mustering, all the sheep, bring all the sheep into the yard, when I finish, like put’em in the yard, I go back, to the stable, I let the horse go in the horse paddock, alright, Mrs de Pledge used to say ‘Oh you can come set the table now, it’ll soon be lunch time. You can bring a dinner in then’. Contact with the white settlers resulted in further outbreaks of disease, especially influenza, measles, diphtheria, hepatitis and diarrhoea (Taylor 1980:136). Jack Butler recalled as a child playing in the bush with his brother (around 1905-6) and coming across piles of bones where the old people had walked away from the camps and died. Diseases seem to have had a major impact on children, and on women’s fertility. The Report of the Chief Protector of Aborigines for the year ending 30th June 1909 contains a police report from Onslow by Constable Joseph Fogarty (p16) which states that: ‘the approximate number of natives in the district is 190 (102 males, 88 females)’; no births were recorded during the year. In the 1910 report (pp 19–20) the population is estimated as 284, but for ‘births — only two have been recorded’. A further disastrous development was the decision by the West Australian government to establish so-called Lock Hospitals for sufferers of venereal disease on Bernier and Dorre Islands off the coast of Carnarvon in 1908 (see Report of the Chief Protector of Aborigines 1909, Jebb 1984, 1987). Two hospitals were set up, one for women on Bernier Island and another for men on Dorre, with people suspected of having venereal disease being forcibly taken from their homes in chains by police. In 1908 fifty eight women were collected and sent to the hospital; the number of patients rose to 119 in 1910. Conditions on the islands were extremely poor, with minimal shelter and provisions, yet people were put to work building roads and accommodation for the white staff. Dozens of people died on the islands in loneliness and misery, far from their families and traditional country. The hospitals which were one of the largest public health undertakings in West Australian History proved to be failures and were finally closed in 1917. There is some evidence however that as late as time of the first world war people were still living a semi-traditional lifestyle within the demands of the pastoral industry and the wider white society (see Butler and Austin 1986), however, by 1915 the initiation ceremonies had stopped and the traditional culture no longer functioned. Jack Butler reports that his initiation had been arranged when he was a child but when the time came there was no-one left to carry it out. Aboriginal languages, with a few exceptions, continued to be spoken on the stations and people grew up bilingual in English and one or more Aboriginal languages. In the 1950’s migration from the stations to the towns of Carnarvon and
36
Onslow increased, and it is here now that most people live. 1.10.
The present
The present-day descendants of Mantharta language speakers now live in the towns of Carnarvon and Onslow, to a greater or lesser extent absorbed into the wider Australian society. The languages continued to be spoken until the death of the last fluent speakers over the past decade. Younger people and children can recognise words and expressions in the languages and there has been an increasing interest in them, especially with the development of independent Aboriginal organisations. Unlike the neighbouring Kanyara languages however, they are not taught in schools and there seems little prospect of them being introduced there.
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2 PHONOLOGY This chapter is a very first draft and needs to be completed. For the phonology it is important to distinguish between Jiwarli, Warriyangka and Thiin, which are structurally similar and Tharrkari, which is rather different as a result of having undergone a number of historical changes that resulted in a radically restructured phonological and phonotactic system. The following sections discuss the phonology of the first three languages while Tharrkari phonology is the topic of section 2.X. 2.1 Consonant phonemes The set of contrasting consonants in the languages other than Tharrkari is quite typical for languages of the Pama-Nyungan group and especially those spoken in the western half of Australia. There are 20 consonants with contrasts a six points of articulation. There is no voicing contrast for oral stops, and no fricatives or affricates. Table 2.1 sets out the array of consonants found (note that a practical orthography is used in which digraphs indicate place of articulation contrasts). Table 2.1 Consonant Phonemes Bilabial
Lamino-
Apico-
Lamino-
Apico-
Dorso-
dental
alveolar
palatal
domal
velar
Stop
p
th
t
j
rt
k
Nasal
m
nh
n
ny
rn
ng
lh
l
ly
rl
Lateral
rr
Flap
r
Continuant Glide
w
y
In contrast to this, there are just 6 vowels: three short and three long. The long vowels are written double, and have restricted occurrences. They are typically found in the first syllable of words, however there are examples of long vowels in non-first
38
syllables, including in the Jiwarli usitative verb inflection (see X.XX) which is -laartu ~ -rrartu ~ -artu. Table 2.2 sets out the vowel phonemes. Table 2.2 Vowel phonemes Front
High
Mid
short
long
i
ii
short
Back
long
short u
a
Low
long uu
aa
2.2 Minimal pairs To be written. 2.3 Phonotactics The structure of words in the Mantharta languages is typical of Australian Aboriginal languages for this part of Western Australia. All words begin with one and only one consonant, and all words must end in a vowel. Word roots can end in a consonant, but if they are unsuffixed and would otherwise surface with a final consonant then one of the two phonological affixes -ma and -pa is added. Note that these two affixes are also used when consonant cluster phonotactics would be violated (see 2.XX):
-ma is added to roots that end in a nasal, eg. yakan-ma ‘spouse’, nyinyarn-ma ‘chin’, thalany-ma ‘tongue’
-pa is added to roots that end in a lateral or flap, eg. piyal-pa ‘language’, nguthurl-pa ‘firedrill’, wartuly-pa ‘hairy’, ngarlirr-pa ‘spear barb’
The minimal word root is either:
disyllabic CVCV(C); or monosyllabic with a long vowel CVV(C), eg. nhaa ‘what’ thiin ‘Thiin language and people’, nguu ‘face’, kuurl ‘mopoke’3
In other words, roots must be heavy and contain at least two mora (where CV and V count as single mora). 3
Note that due to the word-final vowel constraint we find thiinma ‘Thiin’ and kuurlpa ‘mopoke’ as word forms with affixation of the phonological affixes.
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Consonant clusters are possible in root or word medial position, however they restricted to a maximum of two consonants (and the number of such combinations is limited – see below). This means that the template for syllables is CV(V)(C), and for roots it is CV(V)(C)(CV(V)(C)), noting that roots must contain at least two moras. As noted above, words are required to be vowel-final. Not all consonants can occur in root-intial and root-final positions. We find the following possibilities:
C root-initial can be: any stop or nasal except for the apicals, and any glide, ie. p, th, j, k, m, nh, ny, ng, w, y
C root-final can be: apico-alveolar, apico-domal and lamino-palatal nasal or lateral and the flap, ie. n, rn, ny, l, rl, ly, rr
If we reorganize the consonant chart displayed in Table 2.1 by placing natural classes of peripherals (bilabial and dorso-velar), apicals, and laminals adjacent, we find the distributions in Table 2.3. Note that ny is the only consonant that can occur in both root-initial and root-final positions. Table 2.3 Root-initial and root-final consonants Bilabial
Dorso-
Lamino-
Lamino-
Apico-
Apico-
velar
dental
palatal
alveolar
domal
Stop
p
k
th
j
t
rt
Nasal
m
ng
nh
ny
n
rn
lh
ly
l
rl
Lateral
C-root-initial rr
Flap
C-root-final
Continuant Glide
w
r
y
In root-medial position, only a restricted range of consonant clusters is allowed, comprising:
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1. homorganic nasal plus stop4, ie. mp, ngk, nth, nyj, nt, rnt 2. apical nasal or lateral or flap plus peripheral stop (p or k) 3. palatal nasal or lateral plus peripheral stop (p or k) 4. apical nasal plus dorso-velar nasal, ie. nng, rnng 5. apical nasal plus palatal stop, ie. nj, rnj The combinations of non-homorganic C1C2 clusters (types 2 and 3 in the list above) are displayed in Table 2.4 where the vertical dimension shows the possible first elements of clusters (C1) and the horizontal dimension shows the possible second elements (C2). Table 2.4 Root-medial non-homorganic consonant clusters
C2 p
k
np
nk
janpi ‘to snatch’
jankaa ‘to tie’
rnp
rnk
jarnpa ‘flame’
jiwarnka ‘little crow’
nyp
nyk
ngaanypala ‘pant’
wunhunyku ‘sweat’
lp
lk
jalpinyjarri ‘bluejay’
jalku ‘hook’
rlp
rlk
jarlpira ‘unmarried’
karlkarany ‘fork’
lyp
lyk
kulypa ‘to be sick’
pirtulykurri ‘to move’
Examples
C1
Examples with medial nasal clusters are rare but include the following: nng
minngu ‘bloodwood tree’
4
In clusters involving a place of articulation digraph (h or r) the digraph is written once only in clusters in the practical orthography, thus nh+th = nth and rn+rt = rnt.
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rnng
ngarnngarn ‘chin’
Notice that combinations of apical or laminal nasal plus m occur word internally when morphemes are combined to make complex words. So for example, the imperative suffix for first and second conjugation verbs is –nma, giving rise to words such as thikanma ‘eat! or pathanma ‘hit!’. We also find nma, rnma and nyma when the phonological affix is added to roots ending in a nasal to ensure they meet the constraint that all words must end in a vowel (see examples above). Finally, examples of an apical nasal plus lamino-palatal stop are: nj
jinji ‘fat’
rnj
kukurnjayi ‘sheep’
(notice that nj contrasts with the homorganic cluster nyj as in jinyji ‘step’)
2.4 Tharrkari phonology Tharrkari, along with its Kanyara neighbor Purduna, has undergone a number of historical phonological changes that have altered the number of contrasting consonant as well as affecting the consonant clusters that are found root medially (see Austin 1981, 1987). In addition, one dialect of Tharrkari has eliminated all laterals by replacing them with the corresponding voiced stop (it is this dialect that is represented in Klokeid 1969). In word-medial position, Tharrkari has undergone the following historical phonological changes (which are partially reflected in contemporary morphophonology of the language – see X.XX below). These changes were:
loss of all medial homorganic nasals in nasal-stop clusters and their reflection as voiceless stops, eg. *ngk becomes k
fortition of all medial non-homorganic nasals to the corresponding stop in nasal-stop clusters resulting in stop-stop clusters, eg. *nyk becomes ck (where c is a voiceless lamino-palatal stop)
descent of plain intervocalic stops as voiced stops, in contrast to voiceless stops that arise from historical homorganic nasal-stop clusters, eg. *k becomes g
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Consider the following cognates illustrating this: Gloss
Tharrkari
Jiwarli, Warriyangka
‘urine
kupu
kumpu
‘mother’
ngaka
ngangka
‘give’
watha
wantha
‘other’
yaca
yanyja
‘go down’
yiti
yinti
‘lie down’
ngurta
ngurnta
‘alive’
watka
wanka
‘elbow’
nyirtku
nyirnku
‘scorpion’
katpa
kanpa
‘to hit’
wartpi
warnpi
‘mad, crazy’
paabaa
paapaa
‘to stand’
yugarri
yukarri
‘I’
ngadha
ngatha
‘to bite’
paja
paja
‘blood’
marda
marta
This gives the following minimal and near minimal pairs illustrating the intervocalic voicing contrast for stops:
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Voiceless
Voiced
waka
‘to speak’
wagararri
‘to fly’
thaka
‘to cough’
yagan
‘spouse’
ngacarri
‘sister-in-law’
ngajarri
‘spinifex’
yaca
‘another’
yaja
‘sand’
thurta
‘to rub’
marda
‘blood’
ngurta
‘to lie’
murdurru
‘straight’
watha
‘to put, give’
ngadha
‘I’
thuthu
‘narrow’
thudhu
‘dog’
2.5 Tharrkari morphophonemics There are a number of variations in the shapes of morphemes in Tharrkari that are reflective of these historical linguistic changes. For example, the following partial case paradigm for roots with final nasals show disappearance of homorganic nasals and fortition in non-homorganic environments: Gloss
Root
Ergative
Dative
Ablative
‘spouse’
yagan
yagatu
yagatku
yagatparti
‘chin’
nyinyarn
nyinyartu
nyinyartku
nyinyartparti
‘tongue’
thalany
thalathu
thalacku
thalacparti
2.6 Synchronic evidence for historical phonology — loans There is some evidence that the historical phonological processes we have described above are still in operation in the incorporation of English loans into Tharrkari. There are a number of examples of English loans into the d-dialect described in Klokeid 1969 that show some of these processes:
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1. loss of nasal in homorganic nasal-stop clusters: wijabarri
‘Williambury’ [place name] Klokeid (1969:29)
makarungu
‘Mangaroon’ [place name] Klokeid (1969:29)
Note that this does not apply in non-homorganic clusters: piinji
‘fence’ (Klokeid 1969:29)
2. laterals in English becoming stops: wijabarri
‘Williambury’ [place name] (Klokeid 1969:29)
ngayirdan
‘island’ (Klokeid 1969:28) (cf. Jiwarli ngayirlan)
yudurru-rni-
‘to load’ (Klokeid 1969:33)
wacpada
‘whiteman’ K:29 (cf. Jiwarli walypala)
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3.
PARTS OF SPEECH AND WORD STRUCTURE
In this chapter we give a description of the parts of speech and word structure of the Mantharta languages, concentrating on data from Jiwarli with comparative notes on Thiin, Warriyangka and Tharrkari where appropriate. Non-selective suffixes, particles and interjections are also discussed and exemplified in this chapter. 3.1.
Parts of speech
Five word classes, or parts of speech, may be set up on the basis of morphosyntactic criteria. There are two major parts of speech, nominals (N) and verbs (V), and three minor parts of speech: adverbs (Adv), particles (Part) and interjections (Int). Each lexical root is strictly classified into one and only one class; there are a number of morphologically marked processes whereby stems belonging to one class may be derived from roots of another. Derivation of verbs is discussed in 4.?? and derivation of nominals is covered in 5.??. The parts of speech and their distinguishing characteristics are: [1] nominals — are those words which can serve as the arguments of predicates and which are inflected for case (4.1). Nominals may also serve as prediates in non-verb sentences (see 6.??). We can divide nominals into five subcategories: (a) substantives — these are equivalent to nouns and adjectives in languages such as English. There is no morphological contrast between the two semantically distinct types of substantives in Mantharta languages. Substantives may be further subdivided into the following classes on the basis of their morphosyntactic behaviour: (i) extended N — adjectives which require a complement in the dative case, such as nhukura ‘knowing’, kurnta ‘ashamed’, yakara ‘brave’; (ii) kinship N — nouns that may take personal possessive suffixes (see 4.??); (iii) body part N — nouns that are inalienably possessed and occur in appositive construction (see ??), and have special semantics with the comitative affix (see 4.??); (iv) plain N — other nouns and adjectives. (b) place names — these may be distinguished from other nominal types by the fact that they take dative case to mark ‘direction towards’ rather than allative case (see
46
4.?? ). (c) directionals — the cardinal direction nominals are distinguished from other types by the use of the root for locative function, the existence of special allative case forms, and the use of the suffix -parnti to code ablative case (see 4.??). (d) pronouns — a closed class of items which inflect for case and are specified by person and number. They distinguish three persons (first, second and third) and three numbers (singular, dual and plural). In the first person non-singular there is a distinction between inclusive and exclusive reference (that is, including or exluding the addressee, respectively). (e) demonstratives — comprise a set of words which inflect for case and indicate distance from the speaker of a referent. Demonstratives also take special deictic suffixes (see 4.??) and are frequently used in texts anaphorically to pick out third person referents. [2] verbs — fall into five morphologically defined conjugations and obligatorily select from a set of inflections, which mark finite (tense, mood) and non-finite (dependent clause) categories. Non-finite verbs carry affixes that encode the clause linkage type together with cross-clausal (non)co-reference of subjects (in a system of switch-reference). Some non-finite verbs may also take case markers following the dependent verb inflection to encode cross-clausal coreference with a non-subject in the main clause. Verb roots are strictly subclassified according to transitivity into one of four sub-classes (see ??). Verbs make also take valence increasing or valence decreasing word formation suffixes (see ??). [3] adverbs — provide adverbial specification of the predicate and are uninflected, except that manner adverbs take ergative case when the clause in which they occur is transitive. [4] particles — are a closed set of uninflected elements whose semantic domain is the whole clause. [5] interjections — are a closed set of items which stand alone as a complete utterance. They never take any suffixes. There is also a set of suffixes (sometimes referred to as ‘clitics’ in the study of Australian languages — see Dixon 1980:284–5) which are non-selective and may be
47
attached to words of any part of speech, except interjections, to code discourse pragmatic notions. These are discussed in 3.3. 3.2.
Inflection and derivation.
Mantharta languages have primarily agglutinating morphology that is entirely suffixing and show relative few instances of suppletion (one example is the dative case form of the first person singular pronoun which is nganaju (or nganayi in Tharrkari) that is unrelated to the root ngatha). The received view in the description of Australian languages is that a principled division may be made between affixes which are referred to as ‘derivational’ and those which are ‘inflectional’ (see eg. Dixon 1980, Blake 1987:2–3). Thus, Dixon (1980:268) states that: the pattern of word structure that is typical of Australian languages [is]: ROOT (+ one or more DERIVATIONAL affixes) + INFLECTION According to this definition, derivational affixes precede inflections and are always optional; while inflections are obligatory and there can be at most one per word. In fact, Dixon (1980:269) spells out this second point explicitly: each word has a final inflection. A noun or adjective must take a case ending, showing its function in the sentence (one possibility is absolutive, which in most Australian languages has zero realisation). A verb must have an inflection showing tense (eg. present, past or future) or aspect (eg. perfect) or mood (eg. imperative) or the like. Inflections may thus be distinguished from derivations in that the latter process is iterative and hence derivational affixes may occur a number of times in a particular word but inflections may only occur once. Dixon (ibid.) notes that: a derivational affix will form a stem from a root; then another derivational affix may form a further stem from a derived stem and so on. The Mantharta languages raise problems for a description which incorporates such a view of nominal morphology. There are three ways that these languages diverge from this view: (a) the occurrence of a ‘derivational’ affix after an (inflectional) case affix; (b) so-called ‘double case marking’ (or Suffixaufnahme — see Plank 1990) where nominals are marked twice or three times for case;
48
(c) apparent instances of agreement of ‘derivational’ affixes. We will now discuss each of these in turn. 3.2.1. Derivation after inflection. There is one situation where an affix which appears to be word-forming (‘derivational’) can occur on nominals inflected for case (and on verbs carrying a final inflection). The suffix -yirra or -yirranyu (the two forms are in free variation) in Jiwarli can be used to derive stems meaning ‘lacking’ the property denoted by the root (see 4.?? for further details). This is the privative affix common to many Australian languages (see Dixon, 1980:324). Examples of its use are: ROOT
STEM
wiriny
‘hair’
wirrinyirra(nyu)
‘hairless’
yakan
‘spouse’
yakanyirra(nyu)
‘unmarried’
minarl
‘walking ability’
minarlyirra(nyu)
‘unable to walk’
juma
‘child’
jumayirra(nyu)
‘childless’
Forms derived in this way may be inflected for case, as in: (3.1)
Ngadha nhanya-nha pawa-yirra-nha 1sg.erg see-pres water-priv-acc ‘I see the one who has no water.’ [TKBp20s5]
(3.2)
Ngunha-purra-thu that-time-top
mantharta-yirra-la-purra-thu person-priv-loc-time-top
nyirnta here.loc
ngurra-ngka world-loc
‘At that time there were no human beings here in this country.’ [JIT40s4] (3.3)
Thana kumpa-artu wirta-nyjarri-purra walypala-yirra-la-purra. they-pl live-usit boy-pl.nom-time white man-priv-loc-time ‘They used to be (that way) when they were young, when there were no white man.’ [JIT61s31]
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It is possible, however, for -yirra(nyu) to be suffixed to a noun or adjective already marked for case. Examples are: (3.3)
Pakalya-lu-yirra ngatha-thu mara-ngku-rru good-erg-priv I-def hand-erg-now ‘My hands are no good to open it.’ [JBPAN9p151s1]
warlka-lka. open-fut
(3.4)
Thuthu-ngku-yirra ngunha thika-rninyja dog-erg-priv that.acc eat-past ‘It wasn’t the dog that ate that meat.’ [JBPAN9p151s2]
pirru-thu. meat.acc-top
In addition, -yirra may follow a verb that is inflected for imperfective same-subject dependent clause inflection to negate the verb of the dependent clause. Examples are: (3.5)
Paapaa-rri-ngu-yirra nhurra crazy-inchoat-imperfSS-priv 2sg.nom ‘Sit down without being crazy!’
kumpa-ma. sit-imper
(3.6)
Warri thurni-ngu-thu paapaa-rri-ngu-yirra. not laugh-imperfSS-def mad-inchoat-imperfSS-priv ‘Don’t be silly and laugh.’ [JBPAN5p112s4]
If we analyse -yirra as a normal nominal derivational suffix then its ability to follow the inflectional affixes (both nominal case and verbal non-finite inflections) in anomalous. Clearly the relative order of the affixes here reflects the semantic scope (as predicted by the ‘mirror principle’ — see Baker 198?) of -yirra as a negator at the word level (in contrast to the particle warri ‘not’ which negates at the clause level). 3.2.2. Double case-marking. Dixon 1980 specifically states that nouns may have at most one (inflectional) case suffix. This position raises problems for him however when he comes to consider the genitive case. He notes (Dixon 1980:300):
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a noun in genitive form functions like an adjective, modifying the head (‘possessed’) noun and agreeing with it in inflection … None of [i]—[xi] can be followed by a case inflection, a genitive can. In view of this an argument can be put forward for genitive to be considered not an inflection but rather a derivational affix (like ‘with’, ‘without’ and the other derivational affixes mentioned in 10.4), serving to derive a nominal stem that then takes an inflectional ending appropriate to its function in the sentence. Whether genitive is properly an inflectional or derivational affix in Australian languages is something of a controversial question, which it would not pay us to enter into more deeply here. The items [i]—[xi] mentioned in this quotation are the nominal inflectional categories: [i] S (intransitive subject); [ii] O (transitive object); [iii] ergative; [iv] locative; [v] allative; [vi] ablative; [vii] dative; [viii] purposive; [ix] causal; [x] instrumental; [xi] aversive. There are numerous problems with the ‘derivational’ analysis of the genitive (commonly not distinct from the dative in most Australian languages), the major one being that it is not the only case which may be followed by another case suffix. The Mantharta languages (along with their Kanyara relatives) show what Plank 1990, following Finck (1910:141), has termed ‘Suffixaufnahme’, ie. the double marking of a dependent nominal both with its own case and the case of the head which it modifies (see Austin 1993). In Mantharta languages this applies to the genitive function of dative case, as in: (3.7)
Warri nganaju-nha ngurra not 1sg.dat-acc camp:acc ‘Don’t disturb my camp!’ [JIPAN5p74s3]
panyi-ma. disturb-imper
(3.8)
Juma jirrilarri-a thuthu-wu nganaju-wu child.nom be afraid-pres dog-dat 1sg.dat-dat ‘The child is afraid of my wife’s dog.’ [JIPAN13p55s3]
yakan-ku-wu. spouse-dat-dat
In addition, directional allative and ablative nominals must take an ergative case when they relate to the location of a transitive subject nominal. An example involving the ablative is:
51
(3.9)
Juma-ngku ngatha-nha nhanya-nyja maya-ngka-nguru-lu. child-erg I-acc see-past house-loc-ablat-erg ‘The child watched me from the house.’ [JIPAN10p10s3]
An allative case-marked example is: (3.10) Thuthu-ngku juma-rti-nha yanga-rninyja dog-erg child-pl-acc chase-past ‘The dog chased the children south.’ [JIPAN13p18s1]
warlpari-lu. south.allat-erg
Blake (1977:56) notes that the same is true of allative nominals in Warlpiri. Non-directional (that is, temporal) uses of the ablative case can take any argument case suffix in agreement with the nominal they relate to. The following example from a Jiwarli text illustrates this: (3.11) Nhaanha what.acc
yilu this.erg
wantha-rninyja put-past
nyirnta here.loc
ngarri-ngka ashes-loc
kajalpu-parnti-la emu-ablat-loc ‘What has he put here in the ashes after the emu?’ [JIT45s016] A further example is: (3.12) Ngatha nhukura juma-parnti-yi. 1sg.nom knowing child-ablat2-dat ‘I have known (him) from a child (i.e. since he was a child).’ [JIPAN11p24s11] Blake (1977:55) gives similar examples from Pittapitta (Western Queensland) in which he notes that: where the P [transitive object – PKA] of a transitive verb moves from a location we find the accusative marker occurs on both P and the ablative phrase ... The construction suggests that ‘meat from the woman’ is a unit of some kind to which the accusative can be added. Another way of looking at it is to see the accusative as indicating the scope of the ablative. Further examples involving the ablative in a number of languages are cited by Blake
52
(loc cit). It is clear then that inflection cannot be distinguished from derivation on the basis of single occurrence in a word. 3.2.3. Derivational agreement It is widely accepted that one of the features that distinguishes derivation from inflection is that is is not subject to syntactic requirements such as agreement (see Anderson 19??). In Mantharta languages case agreement between N that can be understood as referring to a single entity is regular and applies to all case-marked categories. Elements which could be thought of as semantically linked, such as nouns and their adjectival or demonstrative modifiers, must agree in case (though not necessarily in case inflectional form — see ??). An example is (see also ?? for more details): (3.13)
Ngatha mana-nyja yanyja-nha 1sg.erg get-past another-acc ‘I got another man Ngurtirti.’ [JIT31s7]
mantharta-nha man-acc
ngurtirti-nha. [name]-acc
Now, the same principle applies to word-forming ‘derivational’ suffixes, such as the plural number marker which has the form -nyjarri with substantives (see ??) and – malu with demonstratives, as in: (3.14) Karla-rla-laartu ngatha fire-fact-usit 1sg.erg
pulhuwa-la cold-loc
ngurnu-malu-wu-pa that dat-pl-dat-spec
ngurru-nyjarri-yi. old man-pl-dat ‘I used to make a fire for those old men when it was cold.’ [JIT60s9] The comitative ‘having’ affix also shows agreement, as in the following Tharrkari example: (3.15)
Yinha-yi this.nom-spec
kupa-inha sit-pres
kutharra-arri two–comit.nom
mura-arri son–comit.nom
pagalya-arri walhangu-warri good-comit youth-comit ‘This one is sitting with his two good sons.’ [TRTKNs13]
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From the point of view of agreement phenomena then, there is no reason to distinguish ‘derivation’ from ‘inflection’. For all these reasons, in the chapters below on nominal and verbal morphology we will identify the affixes in terms of three types, and present the basic structure of Mantharta words as: Root + (Affix Type1)* + (Affix Type2)* + (Affix Type3)* Note that Type1 and Type2 affixes are selective in the sense that only certain categories can be encoded on N and others on V, while Type3 affixes are nonselective and can be added to words of any type.
54
4.
4.1.
NOMINAL MORPHOLOGY.
Case system.
All nominals are inflected for case according to their syntactic function. For the syntactic relations transitive subject (TS), transitive object (TO) and intransitive subject (IS) case marking is distributed according to a split-ergative system (Silverstein 1976, Dixon 1979). In addition, for marking of transitive object we have two systems: ‘plain’ and ‘normal’ (Silverstein 1976, 1979). Essentially, the plain system is found in main clauses and the normal system in some dependent clauses and nominalizations (see below). Inanimate nouns and demonstratives in Jiwarli inflect according to an ergativeabsolutive system, that is, there is one form (ergative case) for transitive subject, and another for both transitive object and intransitive subject (absolutive case). Animate nouns mark transitive object function with a separate case (accusative) and hence have three forms. This system is also followed by all pronouns, except the first person singular which has only one form for both transitive subject and intransitive subject (nominative case). Occasionally in Jiwarli the second person singular inflects this way; in Tharrkari the second person singular pronoun always follows this system. It, thus, inflects in the nominative-accusative pattern. For this reason, Mantharta languages case-marking is said to be split-ergative: the splits between the different types of case-marking are lexically determined, that is, they reflect the inherent lexical content of the nominal constituent (see Silverstein 1976, 1979). The case-marking discussed above is the ‘plain’ type that is typically found in main clauses. In addition to this, under special circumstances, ‘normal’ case-marking for transitive object occurs, that is, the inherent lexical content of constituents is ignored and they are all normalized and assigned a single case: (a) allative case — is assigned to all transitive objects of purpose clauses whose subject is coreferential with the subject of the main clause (purpSS — see 3.6.3). (b) dative case — is assigned to all transitive objects of imperfective and perfective dependent clauses (regardless of whether they are same-subject or different-subject) and transitive objects of intentive clauses (see 3.6.3), as well as to objects of nominalized verbs (see X.XX). Notice that normalization of all subjects (TS or IS) occurs in dependent clauses that show coreference with the subject of the main clauses, that is in intentive, purposesame subject, imperfective-same subject and perfective-same subject clauses. In such
55
a context the dependent clause subject must be an anaphoric null (zero) and cannot be overtly expressed. This IS/TO is normalized to zero in these clauses. The following table sets out the distributions of case forms and grammatical functions under the two conditions: erg TS TS
PLAIN
[1] inanimate noun, demonstrative [2] animate noun, pronoun (except 1sg) [3] 1sg pronoun, 2sg pronoun (Tharrkari) NORMAL
[1] inanimate noun, demonstrative [2] animate noun, pronoun (except 1sg) [3] 1sg pronoun, 2sg pronoun (Tharrkari)
nom IS,TO IS TS, IS
acc
zero IS, TS IS, TS IS, TS
allat-dat TO TO TO
TO TO
In the description in this grammar, for plain inflection we set up three cases for all N category elements (nominative for IS, ergative for TS and accusative for TO), and recognize that there is case form merger according to animacy as set out above:
inanimate nouns and demonstratives show nominative-accusative merger
1sg pronoun (and 2 sg in Tharrkari) shows nominative-ergative merger
In addition to the cases mentioned above, there are four other cases which we set up for the description of Jiwarli: locative, adjacent, ablative and causal. All nominals have separate forms for each of these cases, as they do for dative and allative. The various nominal case allopmorphs are discussed in the following section; for the syntactic and semantic functions of the cases see 4.?? Split-ergative case-marking of exactly this type is found in the Kanyara languages spoken to the west (see Austin 1982 for a discussion of the facts and their implication for theories of morphological case-marking). Interestingly, Jurruru and its Ngayarta relatives to the north show consistent nominative-accusative morphology, where the modern accusative reflects a historic dative case suffix (see Austin 1983, Dench 1982). 4.2.
Substantives.
The following are the various substantive case inflections and their allomorphs:
56
[1] NOMINATIVE — marks intransitive subject function and is the unaffixed stem. Note, however, that in order to meet the vowel-final phonotactic constraint (2.XX) it is necessary to add the following phonological affixes to stems in the nominative: -ma to stems ending in n, rn, ny -pa to stems ending in l, rl, ly, rr [2] ACCUSATIVE — marks transitive object function and has one allomorph: -nha. For inanimate nouns and demonstratives the unmarked stem is used for the accusative. [3] ERGATIVE — marks transitive subject function for all nominal, and also the instrument with which an action is performed. There are a number of allomorphs for this suffix, namely -ngku, -lu, -ru, -tu, -thu, -rtu and -u. The distribution of the first three of these depends upon the number of morae (feet) in the word. Note that long vowels (a single syllable) count as two morae. Thus, ngurru ‘old man’ takes -ngku but nguurru ‘horse’ takes -lu. The allomorphs are: 1. -ngku follows vowel-final stems of two morae. 2. -lu occurs in three environments: (a) following vowel-final stems of three morae; (b) in Jiwarli only, following vowel-final stems of four or more morae (in Tharrkari and Warriyangka -ru occurs in this environment); (c) following certain exceptional nominal stems of two morae. The exceptions recorded for both Jiwarli and Warriyangka are: marnti ‘father’, ngangka ‘mother’, and yanyja ‘another’. In addition, in Warriyangka yarnta ‘repayment’ also takes this suffix; 3. -ru occurs in four environments: (a) following stems which contain the nominal derivational suffixes -marnu ‘associative’, -ngu ‘modifier’, and -ju ‘first person singular possessive’; (b) following verb stems which end in the imperfective same-subject inflections -rnu, -nhu, -ngu; (c) following verb stems inflection -rninyjalu
which
end
in
the
perfective
same-subject
Environment (c) appears to be an instance of dissimilation since the affix ends in lu, which is identical in shape to the usual moraic nominal case inflection -lu (see above). Similar dissimilation is seen in the ergative case form of the third person
57
pronoun panhalu (see **), and the ergative of location nominals and demonstratives containing the derivational affix -malu (see **). (d) added to some exceptional nominal roots of three morae ending in u. All the Mantharta languages have sets of three morae roots ending in u which take -ru for the ergative rather than the expected -lu. Apart from the root jujiku ‘boot’ in Warriyangka, all these roots end in a nasal plus u (as also do the items under (b) above, and -marnu and -ngu under (a) above). Notice that the borrowed word thawunu ‘town’ in Tharrkari also fits into this group. Thus, in Jiwarli, we have the following contrast: -ru -lu kayanu ‘one’ kajalpu ‘emu’ marntangu ‘flat rock’ nguurru ‘horse’ The following are the exceptional roots taking -ru recorded for each language: Jiwarli
Warriyangka
Tharrkari
Gloss
kayanu kujinu marntangu pungkanyu
kayanu kujinu
kayanu
‘one’ ‘doctor, medicine’ ‘flat rock’ ‘potential mother-in-law’ ‘boot’ ‘stranger’ ‘woman’ ‘town’
jujiku purlunhu macangu thawunu
(e) in Tharrkari and Warriyangka nominal roots of four or five syllables ending in u take -ru as their ergative case allomorph (see Klokeid 1969:28). Examples are Tharrkari pardupardu ‘rocky’, makarungu ‘Mangaroon Station’; and Warriyangka karlangkarangu ‘old man’. This ending is also used for polymorphemic stems longer than five syllables, as in the Tharrkari locative form yuwad-jirrangu-ra wind-priv-loc ‘out of the wind’. 4. -tu following stems ending in n. 5. -rtu following stems ending in rn. 6. -thu following stems ending in ny.
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That is, the affix for nasal-final stems is homorganic stop plus u (note that th is treated as homorganic with ny — this may reflect a period in Mantharta linguistic history when the two laminals were not distinct). In Tharrkari the final nasal is lost after the ergative case affix is added (see 2.**); thus we get the following d-dialect forms: Root yagan thadany nyinyarn 7. -u
‘spouse’ ‘tongue’ ‘chin’
Locative yagatu (or yagarru) thadathu nyinyartu
following stems ending in rr
Stems which end in a lateral take pa plus the usual polysyllabic vowel-final suffix, namely -lu (in Jiwarli) or -ru (in Tharrkari and Warriyangka). The use of -pa-lu prevents the occurence of otherwise inadmissable inter-morphemic clusters (such as ll and rll). [4] LOCATIVE — marks location at a place or a point in time. The case forms for locative are the same as for ergative except in having final a instead of u. Thus, the forms for the locative are -ngka, -la, -ra, -ta, -tha, -rta and -a. [5] ADJACENT — this affix only occurs in the Jiwarli data. It marks location adjacent or near to a thing or place. The suffix is -mirnti and examples are: yarti-mirnti ‘near the creek’ papa-mirnti ‘near the water’ wuru-minti ‘near the tree’ Dench (1991:143) reports that Panyjima has an ‘obscured locative’ -puru, marking ‘a NP behind the referent of which something is shielded from perception’. It may also be found in Yinyjiparnti. [6] DATIVE — marks beneficiary, alienable possessor, complement of some extended nominal and extended verbal predicates (see 3.6.1), as well as transitive objects in normal constructions. There are five allomorphs: -ngu
following stems containing the derivational suffix -ju ‘first person singular possessive’
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-ku
following stems ending in a consonant
In Tharrkari the stem-final nasals become stops after the dative case -ku is added (see 2.**); thus we get the following d-dialect forms: ROOT
DATIVE
yagan
‘spouse’
yagatku
warany
‘vegetable food’
waracku
pidurn
‘evening’
pidurtku
-wu
following stems ending in a and u
-yu -yi
following stems ending in i in Warriyangka and Tharrkari following stems ending in i in Jiwarli
Note that in Warriyangka and Tharrkari the allomorph for i-final stems is -yu. This suggests that historically the suffix for vowel-final stems may have been *-wu and that the glide assimilated in frontness to i giving *-yu. Jiwarli has assimilated the vowel of the suffix also, giving -yi. [7] ALLATIVE — marks the place towards which motion is directed, as well as transitive objects of purpose-same subject clauses. There are two, phonologically conditioned allomorphs: -kurla
following stems ending in a consonant.
-rla
following stems ending in a vowel.
[8] ABLATIVE 1 — marks the place from which motion or an action is directed, that is, the source. The ablative 1 case form consists of the locative plus nguru. This affix only occurs in Jiwarli. [9] ABLATIVE 2 — marks the cause or reason why some state of affairs comes about, and in Warriyangka and Tharrkari only, marks the place from which motion or an action is directed (cf. Ablative 1). In Jiwarli and Warriyangka there is a single suffix of the form -parnti but Tharrkari shows a number of allomorphs:
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-parti
following stems ending in a consonant
-warti
following stems ending in i or u
-arti
following stems ending in a
Table 4.X gives the case paradigms for a set of representative Jiwarli substantives. The following examples illustrate the use of each of the cases. Their functions are discussed in more detail in X.XX : (4.1)
Thuthu yinha ngarti-ngka dog.nom this.nom inside-loc ‘This dog is lying inside.’ [JiPAN9p3s5]
(4.2)
Mana-ma ngunha yakara-martu-nha purrarti-nha get-imper that.acc brave-pauc.acc woman-acc ‘Get those women who are brave!’ [JiPAN12p81s11]
(4.3)
Kaji nhurra ngarlpurri-ma nyirnta yirra-ngka try 2sg.nom run-imper here.loc cliff-loc ‘You try to run here on the cliff on the hill.’ [JiT39s2]
(4.4)
Maluji manyja-nhu kurrpirli-la ngurra-marnu-la pirru-ngka man.nom hunt-imperfSS kangaroo-loc camp-assoc-loc meat-loc ‘The man (went) hunting for kangaroo for meat for the people in camp.’ [WrT8s1]
(4.5)
Ngunha yana-nyja nganaju-rla marnti-yu-rla that.nom go-past 1sg.dat-allat father-dat-allat ‘He went to my father's camp.’ [WrOGN1p41s3]
(4.6)
Ngapa-nma yikaru-lu warnkarn-ma paint-imper charcoal-erg chest.acc-phon ‘Paint his chest with charcoal!’ [JiT5s2]
(4.7)
(4.8)
ngurnta-inha lie-pres
parlu-ngka rock-loc
ngurra-rla camp-allat
Wirripuka ngunha ngathi-tharri-a tharu-parnti many.nom that.nom cry-coll-pres bad.news-ablat2 ‘The mob are crying from the bad news.’ [JiPAN9p105s2] Pilyarnti galah.nom
yana-nyja-rni go-past-hence
kawari-parnti west.loc-ablat2
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martarr-jaka red.ochre-comit
parna-ngkura-jaka head-one.on-comit ‘Galah came from west with red ochre on his head.’ [JiT41s1] (4.9)
Juru-ngku sun-erg
ngatha-nha 1sg-acc
yakarrangu-ra heat-loc
kulypa-jipa-rninyja be.sick-caus-past
parna head.acc
yana-ngu walk-imperfSS
‘The sun made my head sore when I walked in the heat.’ [JiT21s3] As example (4.5) illustrates, dative case-marked nominals serving as possessors take a further case suffix in agreement with the case of the possessed nominal (note that inalienable possession is expressed by carrying the same case, as in (4.9) and not through the use of dative case on the possessor). Also, when they occur in transitive clauses, allative and ablative case-marked nominals referring to the location of the transitive subject take an ergative case marker in addition (other local cases, such as locative and adjacent do not function this way). Thus, contrast example (4.5) where the clause is intransitive with the following transitive clause: (4.10)
Juma-ngku mantharta-nha nhanya-nyja walhu-ngka-nguru-lu. child-erg man-acc see-past cave-loc-ablat1-erg ‘The child watched the man from the cave.’
This type of ergative case agreement also applies to adverbs in transitive clauses (see below).
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Table 4.X Jiwarli substantive paradigm TS
IS
TO
DATIVE
LOCATIVE
ALLATIVE
boy
wirtangku
wirta
wirtanha
wirtawu
wirtangka
wirtarla
girl
kurlkingku
kurlki
kurlkinha
kirlkiyi
kurlkingka
kurlkirla
dog
thuthungku
thuthu
thuthunha
thuthuwu
thuthungka
thuthurla
fire
karlangku
karla
karla
karlawu
karlangka
karlarla
tree
wurungku
wuru
wuru
wuruwu
wurungka
wururla
hill ‘roo
mathantu
mathanma
mathannha
mathanku
mathanta
mathankurla
tongue
thalanythu
thalanyma
thalanyma
thalanyku
thalanytha
thalanykurla
chin
nyinyarntu
nyinyarnma
nyinyarnma
nyinyarnku
nyinyarnta
nyinyarnkurla
wind
yuwalpalu
yuwalpa
yuwalpa
yuwalku
yuwalpala
yuwalkurla
cousin
ngathalpalu
ngathalpa
ngathalpanha
ngathalku
ngathalpala
ngathalkurla
barb
ngarlirrpalu
ngarlirrpa
ngarlirrpa
ngarlirrku
ngarlirrpalu
ngarlirrkurla
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Table 4.X Jiwarli additional substantive paradigms
TS
IS
TO
DATIVE
LOCATIVE
ALLATIVE
old man
ngurrungku
ngurru
ngurrunha
ngurruwu
ngurrungka
ngurrurla
horse
nguurrulu
nguurru
nguurrunha
nguurruwu
nguurrula
nguurrurla
another
yanyjalu
yanyja
yanyjanha
yanyjawu
yanyjala
yanyjarla
one
kayanuru
kayanu
kayanu
kayanuwu
kayanura
kayanurla
potential mo-in-law
pungkanyuru
pungkanyu
pungkanyunha
pungkanyuwu
pungkanyura
pungkanyurla
flat rock
marntanguru
marntangu
marntangu
marntanguwu
marntangura
marntangurla
elder.brother-my
kurtajuru
kurtaju
kurtajunha
kurtajungu
kurtajura
kurtajurla
eye-assoc
kurumarnuru
kurumarnu
kurumarnu
kurumarnuwu
kurumarnura
kurumarnurla
what
nhaalu
nhaanha
nhaanha
nhaawu
nhaala
nhaarlu
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Table 4.X Tharrkari d-dialect substantive paradigms TS
IS
TO
DATIVE
LOCATIVE
ALLATIVE
boy
wirdaku
wirda
wirdanha
wirdawu
wirdaka
wirdarda
girl
kurtkiku
kurtki
kurtkinha
kirtkiyu
kurtkika
kurtkirda
dog
thudhuku
thudhu
thudhunha
thudhuwu
thudhuka
thudhurda
fire
kardaku
karda
karda
kardawu
kardaka
kardarda
tree
wuruku
wuru
wuru
wuruwu
wuruka
wururda
hill ‘roo
madhatu
madhanma
madhannha
madhatku
madhata
madhatkurda
tongue
thadathu
thadanyma
thadanyma
thadacku
thadatha
thadackurda
chin
nyinyartu
nyinyarnma
nyinyarnma
nyinyartku
nyinyarta
nyinyartkurda
wind
yuwatpadu
yuwatpa
yuwatpa
yuwatku
yuwatpada
yuwatkurda
cousin
ngadhatpadu
ngadhatpa
ngadhatpanha
ngadhatku
ngadhatpada
ngadhatkurda
barb
ngardirrpadu
ngardirrpa
ngardirrpa
ngardirrku
ngardirrpadu
ngardirrkurda
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4.3.
Directionals.
In each Mantharta language there is a set of nominals which code the four cardinal directions (note that Tharrkari and Warriyangka have synonymous alternatives for some of the direction terms):
Jiwarli
Warriyangka
Tharrkari
Gloss
yapurru
yapurru
yawurru
north
warlpara
kakarra
warlpara, kagarra
south
wartantu
wartantu
wardatu
east
kawari
kawari, wirlura
kawari
west
In order to indicate location at a place in one of these directions, just the bare root is used. The allative and ablative case forms of the directional nominals differ from those of all other nominals. The Jiwarli forms are: Allative
Ablative
Gloss
yapurrari
yapurruparnti
‘north’
warlparari
warlparaparnti
‘south’
wartantari
wartantuparnti
‘east’
kawarilari
kawariparnti
‘west’
Special allative and ablative forms of cardinal directional terms are a feature of languages of the Pilbara and Gascoyne-Ashburton regions. Thus Dench (1991:167) describes the special allative forms of the compass terms in Panyjima, and Dench (1987:263) has similar details for Martuthunira (note the cognate allatives wartantari ‘north’ and yawurrari ‘west, downriver’). See also Wordick (1982:57) for Yinyjiparnti.
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4.4.
Pronouns.
Pronouns in Mantharta languages distinguish three persons (first, second and third) and three numbers (singular, dual and plural). The third person pronouns are only found in the Jiwarli materials and are extremely rare and only used for emphasis; demonstratives are more typically employed where English and other languages would have third person pronouns. In the first person non-singular, a distinction is drawn between inclusive reference, including the addressee(s), and exclusive reference, excluding the addressee(s). (An inclusive/exclusive contrast is absent in the neighbouring Ngayarta language Jurruru, and also in the Kanyara languge Payungu.) Pronouns inflect for case, as follows: ergative (coding TS, transitive subject), nominative (IS, intransitive subject), accusative (TO, transitive object), dative and locative. Ablative in Jiwarli consists of locative plus nguru (as for substantive ablative1), while in Warriyangka and Tharrkari -parnti is added. Allative forms all take -rla. Notice that the contrast between ergative and nominative is collapsed for first person singular and for second person singular optionally in Jiwarli and obligatorily in Tharrkari. Thus there is one form ngatha ‘1sg’ for IS and TS and nhurra ‘2sg’ for IS and TS. The forms of the pronouns can be analysed as a set of bases plus a number of affixes. To mark exclusion in the non-singular a suffix is added: Jiwarli and Warriyangka add -ju while Tharrkari adds -yi. This gives: Category
Jiwarli
Warriyangka
Tharrkari-l
Tharrkari-d
1sg 1dlincl 1dlexcl 1plincl 1plexcl 2sg 2dl 2pl
ngatha ngali ngaliju nganthurru nganthurraju nhurra nhupalu nhurrakara
ngatha ngali ngaliju nganhurru nganhurraju nhurra nhupalu nhurrakara
ngadha ngali ngaliyi nganhurru nganhurrayi nhurra nhuwalu nhurragara
ngadha ngadi ngadiyi nganhurru nganhurrayi nhurra nhuwadu nhurragara
The singular pronoun nhurra is an old plural (cf. Thalanyji and Payungu 2sg nyinta, 2pl nhurra; see also Dixon 1980:334-338) and the plural nhurrakara (Tharrkari nhurragara) clearly consists of the new singular plus a suffix –kara ~ -gara. This suffix occurs nowhere else in any Mantharta language.
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The paradigm of speech act pronoun case forms in the three languages is given in Table 4.X – the rows in each cell are Jiwarli, Warriyangka, l-Tharrkari and dTharrkari. The case forms are fairly transparently analysable and the affixes used are clearly related to some of the nominal cases. The paradigm for third person pronouns was recorded only in Jiwarli; note that some of the forms for the dual are missing from the corpus materials. IS
TS
TO
Dative
Locative
3sg
panhalu
panhaluru
panhaluna
parnumpa
panhalura
3dl
pula
?
pulanha
?
?
3pl
thana
thanalu
thananha
thanampa
thanala
The third person singular nominative (IS) form appears to be historically an old ergative TS form based on a root panha. The dative form appears to be historically a double dative, especially if we compare the demonstrative dative forms yurnu ‘this.dative’ and ngurnu ‘that.dative’. 4.5.
Demonstratives.
The following is a paradigm of demonstratives for the Mantharta languages. They distinguish two degrees of distance from the speaker: proximate (near to speaker) and distal (distant from speaker). They have the case forms: ergative (coding TS), nominative and accusative falling together (coding IS and TO), dative, locative, allative and ablative. Their analysis is also quite clear; the bases are yu-/yi- for proximate and ngu- for distal, while the inflections are: Ergative:
-lu
Absolutive:
-nha
Dative:
-rnu
Locative:
-la
Allative:
-rlu
Ablative:
locative plus nguru
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Table 4.XX Mantharta demonstratives Absolutive
Ergative
Dative
Locative
Allative
Ablative
Proximate
yinha
yulu
yurnu
yula
yurlu
yulanguru
Distal
ngunha
ngulu
ngurnu
ngulu
ngurlu
ngulanguru
These demonstrative forms may take a further suffix -pa in Jiwarli and -ka in Warriyangka (-ga in Tharrkari) which seems to be a marker of specific reference and is used to single out a particular referent from the context.
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Table 4.XX Speech act pronouns in Mantharta languages The order in cells is from top to bottom: Jiwarli, Warriyangka, l-Tharrkari, d-Tharrkari IS
TS
TO
Dative
Locative
ngatha
ngatha
ngathanha
nganaju
ngathala
ngatha ngadha ngadha
ngatha ngadha ngadha
ngathanha ngadhanha ngadhanha
nganaju nganayi nganayi
ngathala ngadhala ngadhada
1dl incl
ngali ngali ngali ngadi
ngalilu ngalilu ngalilu ngadidu
ngalinha ngalinha ngalinha ngadinha
ngalimpa ngalimpa ngalipa ngadipa
ngalila ngalila ngalila ngadida
1dl excl
ngaliju
ngalijuru
ngalijunha
ngalijungu
ngalijura
ngaliju ngaliyi ngadiyi
ngalijuru ngaliyiru ngadiyiru
ngalijunha ngaliyinha ngadiyinha
ngalijungu ngaliyingu ngadiyingu
ngalijura ngaliyira ngadiyira
nganthurru
nganthurralu
nganthurranha
nganthurrampa
nganthurrala
nganhurru nganhurru nganhurru
nganhurralu nganhurralu nganhurradu
nganhurranha nganhurranha nganhurranha
nganhurrangu nganhurrangu nganhurrangu
nganhurrala nganhurrala nganhurrada
1sg
1pl incl
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nganthurraju
nganthurrajuru
nganthurrajunha
nganthurrajungu
nganthurrajura
nganhurraju nganhurrayi nganhurrayi
nganhurrajuru nganhurrayilu nganhurrayidu
nganhurrajunha nganhurrayinha nganhurrayinha
nganhurrajungu nganhurrayingu nganhurrayingu
nganhurrajula nganhurrayila nganhurrayida
2sg
nhurra nhurra nhurra nhurra
nhurralu nhurralu nhurra nhurra
nhurranha nhurranha nhurranha nhurranha
nhurrampa nhurrampa nhurrapa nhurrapa
nhurrala nhurrala nhurrala nhurrada
2dl
nhupalu
nhupaluru
nhupalunha
nhupalumpa
nhupalura
nhupalu nhuwalu nhuwadu
nhupaluru nhuwaluru nhuwaduru
nhupalunha nhuwalunha nhuwadunha
nhupalumpa nhuwalupa nhuwadupa
nhupalura nhuwalura nhuwadura
nhurrakara
nhurrakaralu
nhurrakaranha
nhurrakarampa
nhurrakarala
nhurrakara nhurragara nhurragara
nhurrakaralu nhurragaralu nhurragaradu
nhurrakaranha nhurragaranha nhurragaranha
nhurrakarampa nhurragarapa nhurragarapa
nhurrakarala nhurragarala nhurragarada
1pl excl
2pl
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The following examples illustrate the pronouns and the demonstratives: (4.11)
Yana-ma nhurra go-imper 2sg nom ‘Go quickly.’
(4.12)
Mangarrpa-rninyja ngatha-nha ngarlirr-pa-lu scratch-past 1sg-acc barb-phon-erg ‘The spear barb scratched me.’ [JiADN1p4s1]
(4.13)
Nganthurra-ju kumpa-inha thika-rnu 1pl-excl.nom sit-pres eat-imperfSS ‘We are all sitting eating meat.’ [JiPAN5p73s3]
(4.14)
Kanya-artu ngunha ngali-ju-ru carry-usit that.acc 1dl-excl-erg ‘We used to carry them.’ [JiT61s46]
4.6.
tharti. quick
pirru-wu meat-dat
Interrogatives and indefinites.
Jiwarli has the following words which function as interrogatives and indefinites. Words based on the root nhaa cover nominals with non-human reference, those based on ngana are used for humans. When these forms function as interrrogatives they must occur in sentence-initial position. When serving as indefinites they can be followed by the ignorative particle ngulha. Thus, nhaanha ngulha means ‘something or other’, and ngana ngulha means ‘someone or other’. Nominals
IS, TO TS Dative Locative Allative Ablat1 Ablat2
Pronouns
‘what, something’
‘who, someone’
nhaanha nhaalu nhaawu nhaala nhaarlu nhaalanguru nhaaparnti
ngana nganalu (Tharrkari ngatu) nganawu nganala nganarla nganalanguru
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‘how many’ nhaanya
Nom
‘where, somewhere’ wanthala wanthalu wanthanguru
Loc Allat Ablat ‘when’
wantharta
4.7 Interrogative verbs The interrogative nhaa may be converted into an intransitive or transitive verb by the addition of category changing affixal morphology. This gives: nhaa-rri-
‘to be what/something (intransitive)’
nhaa-rla-
‘to do what/something (transitive)’
Examples of their use in Jiwarli and Warriyangka are (see also 8.21): (4.15)
Nhaa-rri-nyja ngunha mantharta what-inchoat-past that.nom person.nom ‘What happened to that person?’ [JiT26s1]
(4.16)
Nhaa-rla-rninyja ngulu-pa what-fact-past that.erg-spec ‘What has he done with (them)?’ [JiT43s36]
(4.17)
Nhaa-rla-rnu nhurra kumpa-inha what-fact-imperfSS 2sg.nom sit-pres ‘What are you doing?’ [WrOGN1p39s3]
Notice that this is a common strategy in Mantharta languages for asking the reason why some state of affairs holds, as in the following from Jiwarli: (4.18)
Nhaa-rri-nyja what-inchoat-past
nhurra 2sg.nom
warri not
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kurlkayi-rnu hear-imperfSS
wangka-iniya-wu nganaju speak-imperfDS-dat 1sg.dat ‘Why don't you listen to what I am saying?’ [JiT40s7] Notice that in (4.X) the main clause is ‘You become what’ and there is a dependent clause ‘listening to me’ which takes a further dependent clause ‘talking’, so the sentence literally means ‘What happened that you didn’t listen to me talking’. Note the TO of the dependent imperfSS clause is in the dative case, and the dependent imperDS clause agrees in case with this object (see chapter 8 for further discussion). An alternative to this is to have the nhaa-rri- element in a dependent clause, as in these examples from Jiwarli, Thiin and Tharrkari: (4.19)
(4.20)
Nhaa-rri-ngu nhurra-lu kanya-nyja-rni what-inchoat-imperfSS 2sg-erg carry-past-hence ‘Why did you bring this?’ [JiPAN5p114s1] Nhaa-rri-ngu what-inchoatimperfSS
nhupalu 2dl.nom
kumpa-inha sit-pres
warri not
yinha-nha this-acc
wapa-inha-rni go-pres-hence
tharrpa-yi nyarnta enter-purpSS here.loc ‘Why are you two sitting not coming in here?’ [TiOGN1p21s1] (4.21)
Nhaa-rri-ngu nhurra-gara-yi kupa-inha what-inchoat-imperfSS 2-pl-top sit-pres ‘Why are you all sitting here?’ [TrTKNs9]
4.7
Nominal word formation.
There are a number of morphemes which typically can occur between a nominal root and its case inflection (note that the dative case form of demonstratives serves as the base to which these morphemes are added). The affixes fall into five groups according to their semantic functions, which also affect the relative ordering of the suffixes with respect to one another: [1] possessive suffixes — immediately follow the root and precede all other affixes. These are: -ju first person singular possessive ‘my’ -(ng)ku second person singular possessive ‘your’
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-ngali -kura
first person non-singular possessive ‘our’ third person anaphoric possessive ‘own’
[2] word building suffixes: -marnu associative -nyungu provenience -ngkura one on -ngkaji one with -kuji side -ji agent -marta liker -marri collective -rarri among -pirri among [3] number suffixes: -rti Ji,Wr, -rdi Tr -nyjarri~-jarri -kutharra -martu -rtan
irregular plural (added to word for ‘child’) plural dual group all
[4] ‘having’ and ‘lacking’ — there are two suffixes which may both precede and follow number suffixes depending upon semantic function. These are: -yirra(nyu) -jaka Ji, -parri Wr, Tr
privative comitative
‘lacking’ ‘having’
[5] kin dual and plural — these two affixes derive kin nominal stems. They do not cooccur with other stem-froming affixes: -karra ~ -yarra ~ -rra -parnti
kin dual kin plural
In the following sections each of these affixes is discussed and exemplified in turn:
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(a) -ju ‘my’ is added to nominals in Jiwarli with kin reference and marks first person singular possessive ‘my’. Note that -ma and -pa are suffixed to consonant-final roots before -ju; the ergative following -ju is -ru, the locative -ra, and the dative -ngu. Nominal root ngathal kunyjan kurta pipi papu kantharri thami mimi ngajala
Nominal stem ‘parallel cousin’ ‘elder sister’ ‘elder brother’ ‘mother’ ‘father’ ‘mother’s mother’ ‘father’s father’ ‘mother’s brother’ ‘sister’s child’
ngathal-pa-ju kunyjan-ma-ju kurta-ju pipi-ju papu-ju kantharri-ju thami-ju mimi-ju ngajala-ju
Tharrkari has a first person singular possessive derivation of the form: -wi following u -yi following other vowels Examples from Klokeid’s notes are: Nominal root mugu mura kantharri
Nominal stem ‘father’s sister’ ‘son’ ‘mother’s mother’
mugu-wi mura-yi kantharri-yi
It may be that this suffix has the form -ji following a consonant; there are no relevant examples in the sources. A first person singular possessive -ju also occurs in Kanyara languages (except that Purduna has -ji, like Tharrkari). In Martuthunira one of the allomorphs of the first person possessive (that which follows consonant-final stems) is -yu (Dench 1987:216ff). Examples of the use of this affix are:
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(4.22)
Pipi-ju-ngarla mother-my.nom-also yana-nyja go-past
papu-ju-ngarla father-my.nom-also
karta-wu-rru direct-dat-now
kawarilari east.allat
mimpurn-parnti Glenn Florrie-ablat2 ngurnta-yi lie-purpSS
yarrkiya-la place.name-loc
jirlirr-a papa ngurnta-iniya jirlirr-a. claypan-loc water.nom lie-imperfDS claypan-loc ‘My mother and father went from Glenn Florrie direct east to camp at Yarrkiya claypan where there was water in the claypan.’ [JIT64s1] (4.23)
Ngurnu kurta-ju-ngu murtu wantha-rru that.dat e.brother-1sg.poss-dat baby put-purpSS ‘(I) will leave that elder brother of mine’s baby.’ [JIADN1p8s4
(b) -ngku ‘your’, marks a second person singular possessor. Following roots ending in a consonant this affix reduces to –ku. Examples of its use are: (4.24)
Ngangka-ngku-lu nhurra-mpa-lu nhanya-nyja nhurra-nha puni-ya-rni. mother-your-erg you-dat-erg see-past you-acc go-imperfDS-hence ‘Your mother saw you coming.’ [JIPAN9p129s5]
(4.25)
Ngatha kurta-ngku-nha kanya-nha pirru-rla 1sg.erg e.brother-2sg.poss-acc carry-pres meat-allat ‘I am taking your brother to get meat.’ [JIPAN12p44s1
(4.26)
Ngatha 1sg.erg
nhanya-nyja see-past
mukul-ku-wu father’s.sister-2sg.poss-dat
juma-rti-nha child-pl-acc
puthi-niya hit-imperfDS
mana-ngku get-purpSS
nganaju-wu 1sg.dat-dat
thuthu-wu dog-dat
‘I saw the children hit my aunt’s dog.’ [JIPAN13p55s4] (c) -ngali ‘our’ in Jiwarli marks a first person non-singular possessor. This category collapses the dual–plural number distinction and the inclusive–exclusive reference distinction made in free pronouns. An example of its use is:
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(4.27)
Papu-ngali-lu kampa-rninyja ngurra nganthurra-mpa mantharta-wu-rru. father-our-erg burn-past place.acc we.pl-dat man-dat-now ‘Our fathers (the ancestral beings) burned the ground for us men.’ [JIT47s40]
(d) -kura ‘own’ in Jiwarli marks a third person anaphoric possessive. It is suffixed to kin terms and words denoting human beings and may have singular, dual or plural reference. It can also be used anaphorically to refer back to a previous mention. Note that the nominal carrying the anaphoric possessive suffix can be in subject or object function, ie. it is not the case that the anaphor needs to be ‘bound’ by some ccommanding argument. Nominal root pipi papu marnti mura kantharri walhangu
Nominal stem ‘mother’ ‘father’ ‘father’ ‘son’ ‘mother’s mother’ ‘youth’
pipi-kura papu-kura marnti-kura mura-kura kantharri-kura walhangu-kura
Examples of the use of -kura are:
(4.28)
Ngunha puni-a nhanya-ngku marnti-kura-rla that.nom go-pres see-purpSS father-own-allat ‘He is going to see his father.’ [JBPAT11s1]
(4.29)
Papu ngathi-nyja mura-kura-wu father.nom cry-past son-own-dat ‘The father cried for his son.’ [JBPAT11s4]
(4.30)
Kantharri-kura-lu puthi-rninyja. mother’s.mother-own-erg hit-past ‘His own grandmother hit (him).’ [JBPAN5p109s2]
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parnu-mpa-rla. 3sg-dat-allat
parnu-mpa-wu. 3sg-dat-dat
(4.31)
Ngurnu-malu-wu papu-kura puni-a-rni. that.dat-pl-dat father-own.nom come-pres-hence ‘Those people’s father is coming.’ [JBPAN12p46s2]
Tharrkari has a suffix -nhanu which Klokeid (1969:21) glosses as one’s own’ and explains as: ‘seems to indicate one’s biological kin, as opposed to classificatory relatives’. The examples given suggest that the suffix in fact may be equivalent to Jiwarli -kura. The following instance comes from Klokeid’s book: (4.32)
Ngadha 1sg.erg
waka-ira speak-fut
warrka-nha-rni come-pres-hence
ngunhi-la there.loc-loc
wica-ka old.man-loc
mayili-nhanu-warri father’s.father-own-comit
ngunha-arra that.nom-rel
ngunha that.nom
warrka-langu come-might
‘I will talk to the old man coming with his grandchildren in case he comes.’ [TRTKBp48s1] Martuthunira has a third person possessive suffix added to kin terms of the form -nhanu (Dench 1987:216). Interestingly, Warlpiri from central Australia has a third person anaphoric possessive of the form -nyanu. (c) -marnu ‘associative’, produces a stem which denotes an entity functionally associated with referent denoted by root (typically as a goal or an intended instrument). Note that the form of the ergative added after this suffix is -ru, and the locative -ra., as would be expected for polymoraic stems ending in nasal+u. Typically, the stem resulting from the addition of -marnu is used to denote an inanimate object, however, in the case of terms such as pirru-marnu ‘meatassociative’, it typically denotes a dog one uses in hunting to catch game (see Jiwarli Text 15s9). This affix is used productively in the coining of new words to describe introduced articles of European clothing, as seen in the first seven examples below. It can also be attached to interrogative nominals, to mean ‘what/who for’ (see also Tharrkari examples in Klokeid 1969:21).
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Nominal root
Nominal stem
kuru jina thina nyuurr murlu wulu parna karla ngurra thulhany nguwan
‘eye’ ‘foot’ ‘foot’ ‘nasal mucus’ ‘chest’ ‘thigh’ ‘head’ ‘fire’ ‘camp’ ‘tasty’ ‘sleep’
kuru-marnu jina-marnu thina-marnu nyuurr-marnu murlu-marnu wulu-marnu parna-marnu karla-marnu ngurra-marnu thulhany-marnu nguwan-marnu
kucpa thurti pirru
‘sickness’ ‘veg food’ ‘meat’
kucpa-marnu thurti-marnu pirru-marnu
kurrpirli
‘kangaroo’
kurrpirli-marnu
nhaa ngana
‘what’ ‘who’
nhaa-marnu ngana-marnu
‘glasses’ ‘shoe, track’ [Ji] ‘shoe’ [Wr] ‘handkerchief’ [Ji,Wr] ‘shirt’ [Wr] ‘trousers’ [Wr] ‘hat’ [Wr] ‘fireplace’ ‘for those in camp’ [Wr] ‘for taste’ [Wr] ‘night’ (as measure of duration) — see AEOGT10s6 [Wr] ‘for sickness, medicine’ [Tr] ‘for vegetable food’ [Tr] ‘meat getter [a dog used in hunting]’ ‘kangaroo getter [a hunting dog]’ ‘what for’ [Ji,Tr] ‘for whom’
An associative affix -marnu occurs in Kanyara languages and also in the Ngayarta language Martuthunira (Dench 1987:173). Examples are: (4.33)
Ngatha 1sg.nom
ngurruntha-rri-nyja-rru sorrow-inchoat-past-now
wartajunu-wu poor fellow-dat
pirru-marnu-wu meat-assoc-dat
kurrpirli-marnu-wu. plains kangaroo-assoc-dat ‘I felt sorry for that poor fellow meat-getter kangaroo-getter.’ [JIT17s9] (4.34)
Yana-nyja go-past
jina-marnu foot-assoc.nom
jina-marnu foot-assoc.nom
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parlu-ngka hill-loc
kurla-rnu climb-imperfSS
yirrapirti-la warrkalarri-ngu-rru kurla-rnu. ledge-loc crawl-imperfSS-now climb-imperfSS ‘(We) went for the tracks climbing the ledge on the hill crawling and climbing.’ [JIT66s44] (d) -nyungu ‘provenience’ is added to nominal roots in Jiwarli, Warriyangka and Tharrkari with the resulting stem denoting a person or thing which is locationally associated with the place denoted by the root (cf. Klokeid 1969:20). This affix is added to the dative form of demonstratives. Notice that jirnti-nyungu is used both to denote both the pre-contact concept ‘ancestral being, god’ and the post-contact concept ‘aeroplane’. This suffix is commonly added to cardinal directional terms to signify a person who comes from that direction, thus warlpara-nyungu ‘easterner’, wartantu-nyungu ‘westerner’. The term wartu-nyungu ‘scrub dweller’ is used to describe someone or something that is wild or untamed — it was used as a nickname for Donald Eagles who had a well-known aversion to mixing with groups of people (see Jiwarli Text 41). This suffix can be used after English place names to denote people from that place; thus, Jiwarli Text 60s7 contains Carnarvon-nyungu ‘those from Carnarvon’. Nominal root
Nominal stem
jirnti
‘sky’
jirnti-nyungu
jirti wartu parlu ngurra minngu
‘sky’ ‘scrub’ ‘hill’ ‘place’ ‘bloodwood tree’
jirti-nyungu wartu-nyungu parlu-nyungu ngurra-nyungu minngu-nyungu
‘god, ancestral being, sacred, aeroplane’ [Ji] ‘aeroplane’ [Tr] ‘scrub dweller’ ‘hill dweller’ ‘one from the place’ ‘one from bloodwood tree’
warlpara wartantu kawari yawurru
‘south’ ‘east’ ‘west’ ‘north’
warlpara-nyungu wartantu-nyungu kawari-nyungu yawurru-nyungu
‘southerner’ ‘easterner’ ‘westerner’ ‘northerner’ [Tr]
wantha
‘where’
wantha-nyungu
‘one from where’
yurnu ngurnu
‘this dat’ ‘that dat’
yurnu-nyungu ngurnu-nyungu
‘one from here’ ‘one from there’
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Examples are: (4.35)
Yurnu-nyungu-thu warri wapa-inha thungkari-rla. this dat-assoc.nom-top not go-pres grave-allat ‘The people from here are not going to the grave.’ [JIT9s1]
(4.36)
Nhanya-ngku ngurnu-malu-rla Carnarvon-nyungu-rla mantharta-rla. see-purpSS that dat-pl-allat Carnarvon-provenience-allat man-allat ‘To see those Carnarvon people.’ [JIT69s7]
(4.37)
Jirnti-nyungu maranyjirri-nyja sky-assoc.nom land-past ‘The aeroplane landed.’ [WROGV2p11s1]
An affix -nyungu with similar form and function is found throughout the GascoyneAshburton and Pilbara regions, occurring in the Kanyara (Austin in prep) and Ngayarta languages (Martuthunira (Dench 1987:171), Panyjima (Dench 1990:28), Ngarluma (Hale’s wordlist (see Wangka Maya 1990) gives parlkarra-nyingu ‘plain dweller’), and Yinyjiparnti Wordick 1982:108). In Marthuthunira Dench glosses it as “dweller”, and says that it is “attached to nominal describing the habitual dwelling place of a person, animal or, in rare cases, an inanimate object.” (e) -ngkura ‘one on’, is attached to body part nominals and produces a stem that denotes a nominal which is located on the body part. Notice that this suffix semantically complements the use of the agent suffix -ji after locative case inflected body part terms (-ngka-ji see (h) below). Nominals containing -ngkura denote the item located on the body part, nominals containing -ngkaji denote the person or animate being that has something on that body part. Examples of -ngkura have only been recorded for Jiwarli, and include: Nominal root jimpi wirlka mara
Nominal stem ‘hip’ ‘shoulder’ ‘hand’
jimpi-ngkura wirlka-ngkura mara-ngkura
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‘one on the hip’ ‘one on the shoulder’ ‘one in the hand’
Consider the following examples: (4.38)
Pilyarnti galah.nom
yana-nyja-rni go-past-hence
kawari-parnti west-ablat2
martarr-jaka red ochre-comit.nom
parna-ngkura-jaka. head-one on-comit.nom ‘Galah came from west with red ochre on his head.’ [JBPAT36s1] (4.39)
Ngunha nhurra-lu that.acc you-erg
karla-rninyja-rni send-past-hence
yakan-ma-ngku spouse-phon-your.acc
murtu-jaka baby-comit.ac
karti-ngkura-jaka mangkarn-ma mana-nyjalu kamara-lu. side-one.on-comit.acc photograph.acc-phon get-perfSS camera-erg ‘You sent me that photograph of your wife and the baby in her arms that had been taken with a camera.’ [JBPAT31s14] (f) -kuji ‘side’, indicates something that is at the side of the nominal denoted by the root. It can be suffixed to directionals and the dative inflected form of demonstratives: Nominal root
Nominal stem
yirrara purlu ngarra
‘above’ ‘down’ ‘rear’
yirrara-kuji purlu-kuji ngarra-kuji
‘down’ ‘below’ ‘behind’
wartantu kawari
‘west’ ‘south’
wartantu-kuji kawari-kuji
‘west side’ ‘south side’
yurnu ngurnu
‘this’ ‘that’
yurnu-kuji ngurnu-kuji
‘this side’ ‘that side’
Examples of their use are: (4.40)
Ngatha yana-nyja 1sg.nom go-past
juma-purra-thu child.nom-time-top
83
puka-ru visit-purpSS
ngurnu-kuji-rla that dat-side-allat
parlu-ngka kumpa-iniya. hill-loc stay-imperfDS ‘When I was a child I went to visit those over there on that side staying in the hills.’ [JIT63s1] (4.41)
Ngunhi-rru there.loc-now kayanu-kuji-la one-side-loc
ngurnta-ira lie-fut
ngunha that.nom
juwiri-jaka-rru mark-comit.acc-now
martamarta red.nom
yajina-nyjarri-thu sweet food-pl.nom-top
parlu-nyjarri-thu stone-pl.acc-top
wanta mana-rarringu separate.acc get-intent ‘The red berries will lie on one side, separated from the stones with a mark.’ [JIT66s20] (4.42)
Para-nma kanthi-kuji ngarta jump-imper one.side-side leg.nom ‘Jump on one leg!’ [WROGV2p16s16]
(h) -ji ‘agent’ is used with a few body part nominals to indicate an agentive relationship with the nominal denoted by the root. It may also follow the locative case inflected from of a root to designate someone involved with (typically carrying) something on the body part denoted by the root. The same affix is added to verbs to form agentive nominalisations (see ??). Examples have only been recorded for Jiwarli and are: Nominal root
Nominal stem
wirlka-ngka
‘shoulder-loc’
wirlka-ngka-ji
parna-ngka
‘head-loc’
parna-ngka-ji
mara-ngka
‘hand-loc’
mara-ngka-ji
mara
‘hand’
mara-ji
Instances of the use of these include:
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‘one with something on the shoulder’ ‘one with something on the head’ ‘one with something in the hand’ ‘destitute’
(4.43)
Mara-ji ngatha kumpa-inha hand-agent 1sg.nom sit-pres ‘I have nothing now.’ [JBADT58s38] Kuwarti-manta now-still
(4.44)
yana-nyja-rni go-past-hence
kuwarti. now
parna-ngka-ji head-loc-agent
wuna-rri-ngu-rru long time-inchoat-imperfSS-now
ngunha parna-ngka-ji mantharta-purra-thu pilyarnti-thu. that.nom head-loc-agent man-time-def galah-def ‘He is still coming now carrying it on his head taking a long time that galah man.’ [JBPAT36s12] (i) -marta ‘liker’ in Jiwarli forms a nominal denoting someone who likes the object denoted by the root. Most of the examples involve this affix being added to a nominal with animate reference. The exception is thuraji ‘rice’, a loan from English which has been phonologically modified to fit Jiwarli phonotactics. All the examples except thuraji-marta ‘Chinese person’ were elicited: Nominal root purrarti
Nominal stem ‘woman’
purrarti-marta
‘man who likes women, womaniser’
mantharta
‘man’
mantharta-marta
‘woman who likes men, man chaser’
thuthu
‘dog’
thuthu-marta
‘one who likes dogs’
thuraji
‘rice’
thuraji-marta
‘Chinese person’ (lit. “rice liker”)
An example is: (4.45)
Yinha purrarti mantharta-marta kurupaku this.nom woman.nom person-liker larrikin ‘This woman chases men and is a larrikin.’ [JIPAN9p110s3]
An alternative way of expressing great like for an inaminate object is to form a compound with kurlka ‘ear’. Thus I elicited the following:
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(4.46)
Papa kurlka juma -rti water ear child-pl ‘The children are water lovers.’ [JIPAN9p114s7]
An affix of this form and function is found in Kanyara languages (for example Payungu thuraji-marta ‘Chinese person’, ngulhangkumarta ‘liar’). Note that the usual proprietive (‘having’) suffix in Martuthunira is -marta (Dench 1987:176), and the agentive suffix for verbs in Yanyjiparnti is -(rn)marta (Wordick 1982:107). (j) -marri ‘collective’, forms a nominal denoting a group of individuals collectively having the characteristic denoted by the root. An affix of the same shape also occurs on verbs to indicate collective activity (see ??). Examples recorded are: Nominal root
Nominal stem
kuju
‘side’
kuju-marri
‘on each side’
ngarra
‘rear’
ngarra-marri
‘in indian file’
purluu
‘face to face’
purluu-marri
‘facing one another’
Examples of their use are the following: (4.47) Yana-rarringu go-intent
ngarra-marri behind-coll
ngunha that
kumpa-iniya sit-imperfDS
ngurnta-nhu lie-imperfSS
malu-ngka. shade-loc ‘They walked along one behind another while the other fellow was sitting in the shade.’ [JIT37s17] (4.48) Kurntal-jaka thana kumpa-inha purluu-marri-rru. daughter-comit they-pl sit-pres face-to-face-coll-now ‘They sit face-to-face with their daughters.’ [JIT42s34] (k) -rarri and -pirri ‘among’, indicates location in the midst of a group of scattered objects. These suffixes are almost always followed by the locative case marker. The two forms appear to be in complementary distribution, with their distribution lexically determined. The following forms have been recorded:
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Nominal root
Nominal stem
thirri pukarti warrapa
‘spinifex’ ‘snakewood’ ‘grass’
thirri-rarri pukarti-rarri warrapa-rarri
‘among the spinifex’ ‘among the snakewood’ ‘among the grass’
kujilara wuru wurrkara
‘mulga’ ‘tree’ ‘rock’
kujilara-pirri wuru-pirri wurrkara-pirri
‘among the mulga’ ‘among the trees’ ‘among the rocks’
Examples of their use are: (4.49)
Nhurra 2sg.nom
yana-ma go-imper
parlkarra-la flat ground-loc
pukarti-rarri-la snakewood-among-loc
malu-ngka shade-loc
ngurnta-yi lie-purpSS
kumpa-yi live-purpSS
pukarti-la snakewood-loc
kujilara-pirri-la. mulga-among-loc ‘You go to live amongst the snakewood on the flat to lie in the snakewood and among the mulga.’ [JBPAT37s18] (4.50)
Yanyja-martu-thu other-pauc.nom-def
ngunha that.nom
thungkari grave.nom
warrapa-rarri-rru grass-among-now
ngapa-rninyja-rru. cover-past-now ‘Other graves have been covered among the grass.’ [JBPAT52s54] (4.51)
Ngunha kumpa-inha wurrkara-pirri-la. that.nom sit-pres rock-among-loc ‘He sits among the rocks.’ [JBPAN9p111s3]
Note that affixes with this function have not been recorded for any other language in the Gascoyne-Ashburton area in either the Mantharta or Kanyara groups.
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Number suffixes (a) -rti ‘plural’, occurs only with the root for ‘child’ in each language: Jiwarli juma, Warriyangka jumpa, Tharrkari jupa (giving jupardi). Klokeid (1969:23) also says that kanyara ‘man’ (a loan from one of the Kanyara languages) takes this plural affix. (b) -nyjarri ‘plural’, suffixed to all roots other than the word for ‘child’ (and kanyara in Tharrkari). Following a root ending in a consonant the affix has the form -jarri. Note that humans, adjectives referring to properties of humans, non-human animates, and inanimates may all be marked for plurality in Mantharta languages. Nominal root mantharta purrarti wirta kurlki ngurru jarntira warnira kunyjan julyu
‘man’ ‘woman’ ‘boy’ ‘girl’ ‘old man’ ‘old woman’ ‘younger sister’ ‘older sister’ ‘grey hair’
Nominal stem mantharta-nyjarri purrarti-nyjarri wirta-nyjarri kurlki-nyjarri ngurru-nyjarri jarntira-nyjarri warnira-nyjarri kunyjan-jarri julyu-nyjarri
kamu pampura
‘hunger’ ‘blind’
kamu-nyjarri pampura-nyjarri
‘hungry ones’ ‘blind ones’
minga thuthu walangu
‘ant’ ‘dog’ ‘bird’
minga-nyjarri thuthu-nyjarri walangu-nyjarri
‘ants’ ‘dogs’ ‘birds’
kuurl piyal
‘mopoke’ ‘word’
kuurl-jarri piyal-jarri
‘mopokes’ ‘words’
karla kujuru parlu
‘fire’ ‘story’ ‘rock’
karla-nyjarri kujuru-nyjarri parlu-nyjarri
‘fires’ ‘stories’ ‘rocks’
wuru yini
‘tree’ ‘name’
wuru-nyjarri yini-nyjarri
‘trees’ ‘names’
ngurnu yirnu
‘that dat’ ‘this dat’
ngurnu-nyjarri yirnu-nyjarri
‘those’ ‘these’
‘men’ ‘women’ ‘boys’ ‘girls’ ‘old men’ ‘old women’ ‘younger sisters’ ‘older sisters’ ‘grey-haired ones, old people’
(c) -kutharra ‘dual’, suffixed to all nominal roots (N.B. this is clearly related to the nominal kutharra ‘two’ but is a suffix, not a nominal root).
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Nominal root
Nominal stem
mantharta thuthu wuru
‘man’ ‘dog’ ‘tree’
mantharta-kutharra thuthu-kutharra wuru-kutharra
‘two men’ ‘two dogs’ ‘two trees’
ngurnu yirnu
‘that’ ‘this’
ngurnu-kutharra yirnu-kutharra
‘those two’ ‘these two’
(d) -martu ‘paucal’, is suffixed to roots to produce a stem meaning ‘a group of’, that is a restricted plural (possibly countable) as against the unrestricted plural -nyjarri. Often the derived stem is used to refer to a set of objects in series, such as a set of steps, or it has a distributive sense, as in one camp after another. Nominal root
Nominal stem
julyu yanyja yakara janta
‘old man’ ‘others’ ‘game, brave’ ‘cripple’
julyu-martu yanyja-martu yakara-martu janta-martu
‘group of old people’ ‘another group’ ‘group of brave ones’ ‘group of cripples’
mampu ngurra jinyji
‘bone’ ‘camp’ ‘step’
mampu-martu ngurra-martu jinyji-martu
‘heap of bones’ ‘series of camps’ ‘series of steps, stairs’
Examples of the use of the -martu suffix as a paucal include the following: (4.52)
Wiyanu rock wallaby.nom jinyji-martu-la step-pauc-loc
ngunha that.nom
ngunha that.nom
ngarlpurri-nyja run-past
juma-rti-la small-pl-loc
yirrapirti-la ledge-loc
tharrpa-yi enter-purpSS
walhu-ngka juma-ngka. cave-loc small-loc ‘Rock wallaby ran here on the little steps on the ledge and went into a little cave.’ [JIT34s12]
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(4.53)
Yana-nyja ngatha ngurra-martu-rla kurni-ngu juma-rti-yi go-past 1sg.nom camp-pauc-allat look for-imperfSS child-pl-dat ‘I went from camp to camp looking for the children.’ [JBPAN9p152s3]
(e) -rtan ‘all’, suffixed to roots to produce a stem meaning ‘all ...’. The following examples occur: Nominal root mimi thami
Nominal stem ‘mother’s brother’ ‘father’s father’
mimi-rtan thami-rtan
Notice that -rtan follows the possessive suffixes discussed above. It also takes the phonological clitic -ma when it is the last element in a word. An example is the following: (4.54)
Ngurru-martu old man-group
wangka-artu talk-usit
ngatha-la 1sg-loc
thami-ju-rtan-ma father’s.father-my-all-clitic
nganaju mimi-ju-rtan-ma. 1sg.dat mother’s.brother-my-all-clitic ‘The old men used to tell me, all my grandfathers and uncles.’ [JBT41s42] AFFIXES OCCURING BETWEEN POSITIONS 1 AND 2 OR 2 AND 3. There are two affixes which may precede or follow the number suffixes of position 2. They are the comitative (‘having’) and privative (‘lacking’). (a) ‘comitative’, has the following forms: -jaka
in Jiwarli and Thiin
-parri
in Warriyangka
In Tharrkari there are three allomorphs (see Klokeid 1969:19):
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-parri
following a consonant
-warri
following i or u
-arri
following a
Examples are: Nominal root ngurrun pirrimayi thudhu kudharra pawa
Nominal stem ngurrut-parri pirrimayi-warri thudhu-warri kudharra-arri pawa-arri
‘head cold’ ‘woman’ ‘dog’ ‘two’ ‘water’
‘having a head cold’ ‘having a woman’ ‘having a dog’ ‘having two’ ‘having water’
Notice that the comitative in Tharrkari and Warriyangka is homophonous with an instrumental nominalising suffix added to verbs (see ???). In Jiwarli the instrumental nominaliser is homophonous with one of the dependent verb inflections (see 5.??). Addition of the comitative suffix produces a stem having the characteristics of the root or indicating accompaniment. This affix may be added to terms for body parts: when added to external (often removable) body parts such as ‘hair’ or ‘beard’ it indicates that the person or animal has that characteristic. When added to other body parts it indicates that the body part is sore or affected. Nominal root wiriny
‘hair’
Nominal stem wiriny-jaka
‘hairy’
ngarnka
‘beard’
ngarnka-jaka
‘bearded’
mara
‘hand’
mara-jaka
‘having a sore hand’
thina
‘foot’
thina-jaka
‘having a sore foot’
parna
‘head’
parna-jaka
‘having a headache’
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thuthu
‘dog’
murtu yakan pirru kurrpirli nguurru pakalya
‘baby’ ‘spouse’ ‘meat’ ‘kangaroo’ ‘horse’ ‘good’
thuthu-jaka thuthu-parri thudhu-warri murtu-parri yakan-jaka pirru-parri kurrpirli-parri nguurru-parri pakalya-parri
‘with a dog’ [Ji] ‘with a dog’ [Wr] ‘with a dog’ [Tr] ‘with a baby [Wr] ‘married’ ‘with meat’ [Wr] ‘with a kangaroo’ [Wr] ‘with a horse’ [Wr] ‘with a good one’ [Wr]
(b) -yirra(nyu) ‘privative’ (in Tharrkari -yirra(ngu)), produces a stem indicating a lack of the characteristic denoted by the root. This lack can be the result of several factors: 1. congenital lack — as in wiriny-irranyu ‘hairless’, used to describe a hermaphrodite; 2. temporary lack as a result of loss or removal — eg. parlu-yirranyu ‘penniless’, 3. permanent lack as a result of loss — eg. minarl-yirranyu ‘unable to walk’ 4. permanent lack as a result of bereavement — used with kinship terms, as in kunyjan-irranyu ‘bereaved sister’, warnira-yirranyu ‘bereaved brother’ (there are special terms for bereaved parents, kujarri ‘bereaved mother’ and kungala ‘bereaved father’) 5. lack as a result of not yet acquiring the characteristic, typically used with the temporal clitic -purra ‘time’, eg. walypala-yirra-la-purra ‘before there were white people’ Note that the suffixes -yirra and -yirranyu appear to freely vary; following ny, initial y is deleted. Klokeid (1969:20) and Klokeid’s notes give -jirra(ngu) as the Tharrkari form found after consonant final roots.
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Nominal root wiriny majirr yuwat japurta mantharta yakan juma walypala wurnta pilikan pirru parlu minarl
Nominal stem ‘hair’ ‘matches’ ‘wind’ ‘beard’ ‘person’ ‘spouse’ ‘child’ ‘whiteman’ ‘shield’ ‘billycan’ ‘meat’ ‘stone, money’ ‘walking ability’
wirriny-irranyu majirr-jirrangu yuwat-jirrangu japurta-yirranyu mantharta-yirra yakan-yirranyu juma-yirra walypala-yirra wurnta-yirra pilikan-yirra pirru-yirranyu parlu-yirra minarl-yirra
‘hairless’ ‘lacking matches’ [Tr] ‘out of the wind’ [Tr] ‘beardless’ ‘unpopulated’ ‘unmarried’ ‘childless’ ‘without whitemen’ ‘without a shield’ ‘without billycans’ ‘without any meat’ [Ji,Ti] ‘without any money’ ‘unable to walk’
Examples illustrating the occurrence of these two suffixes before and after number suffixes are: before:
thuthu-jaka-nyjarri juma-yirra-kutharra
‘those with dogs’ ‘two childless ones’
after:
juma-rti-jaka thuthu-kutharra-yirra
‘with children’ ‘without two dogs’
The following are examples of the use of the privative: (4.55)
Yana-ra kupa-yi ngunhi murduga yuwat-jirrangu-ra. go-fut sit-purpSS there.loc car wind-priv-loc ‘Let’s go and sit in the car out of the wind.’ [CYTKN1p75s1]
(4.56)
Ngunha-purra-thu mantharta-yirra-la-purra-thu nyirnta ngurra-ngka. that-time-def human.being-priv-loc-time-def here.loc country-loc ‘At that time there were no human beings here in this country.’ [JBPAT35s4]
(4.57)
Ngunha-rru that-now
ngunha that.nom
kumpa-inha-thu live-pres-def
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kuwarti-thu now-def
jiriparri echidna.nom
minarl-yirranyu-rru. walking-priv-now ‘That’s how echidna is now unable to walk.’ [JBPAT35s26] The privative can be used together with the comitative whenever it is semantically reasonable to do so. Consider the following example where the privative is within the scope of the accompaniment meaning of the comitative: (4.58)
Juma child.nom
kumpa-inha sit-pres
mantharta-jaka man-comit
janta-jaka lame-comit
minarl-yirranyu-jaka-rru. walking-priv-comit-now ‘The child is sitting with the lame man unable to walk.’ [JBPAN13p45s1] KIN DUAL AND PLURAL These are two number suffixes whose derivational position with respect to the other word-forming suffixes has not been determined. They are suffixed to nominals with human or kin reference and form stems used to refer to pairs of groups of individuals in a particular relationship. We can paraphrase N-karra as ‘pair of persons, one of whom is N to the others’, and N-parnti as ‘group of persons, at least one of whom is N to the others’. With reciprocal terms like yakan ‘spouse’ or mayili ‘father’s father, son’s son’ then the relationship expressed is symmetrical. The two affixes involved are: 1. -karra ~ -yarra ~ -rra ‘kin dual’, added to a kin-term root forms a dual stem functioning as a kin reference or address term. The allomorphs are distributed as follows: -karra -yarra -rra
following a consonant following i following a
2. -parnti ‘kin dual’, added to a kin-term root forms a plural stem functioning as a kin reference or address term. Note that this siffix is homophonous with the ablative case suffix in Warriyangka and Tharrkari and with the causal case in Jiwarli. Examples of derived stems are the following, first kin reference terms (used to refer to pairs or groups of kin but not to address them):
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Dual
Plural
Ego based singular
brothers
kurtarra
kurtaparnti
kurta ‘elder brother’
sisters
kunyjankarra
kunyjanparnti
kunyjan ‘elder sister’
MM/DD
kantharriyarra
kantharriparnti
kantharri ‘mother’s mother’
FF/SS
mayiliyarra
mayiliparnti
mayili ‘father’s father’
spouses
yakankarra
yakanparnti
yakan ‘spouse’
Note that the relationship expressed is that holding between the members of the group (sisters, brothers, spouses, etc.) and not that holding between the speaker and those being refered to. Thus, yakankarra could be used to refer to one’s parents (who are clearly spouses, but not the speaker’s). The kin address terms are used to address two or more people in a specified relationship to the speaker and to each other. They may be most simply stated in terms of section membership. Thus for two male addressees, and a speaker in the Karimarra section, we find the following set (the plural terms involve suffixing -parnti to the roots; the terms for mixtures of three or four sections were not elicited): Speaker Ka
Addressees Ka & Ka Pu & Pu Pan & Pan Pal & Pal Ka & Pu Ka & Pal Ka & Pan Pal & Pu Pal & Pan Pu & Pan
Examples of Speaker’s Kin B & FF F&S ZH & FMB ZS & MB B&S B & MB B & WB ZS & S ZS & FMB S & WB
Address term kurtarra kurtarra ngapariyarra mimiyarra mukulkarra kaalkarra ngathalkarra ngathalkarra murarra ngajalarra
Note that one root, kaal, does not occur as a kin term outside these derived forms. Also, there are ten logical possibilities for speaker-addressee relationships, but only eight terms. That is, a Karimarra uses the same term (kurtarra) speaking to two Karimarra and also two Purungu, and a Karimarra uses the same term (ngathalkarra) speaking to a Karimarra and Panaka pair as he does to a Palyarri and Purungu pair. In the former case, brothers in ego’s patrimoiety are addressed in the same way,
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regardless of generation level. In the latter case, harmonic males in opposite patimoieties are addressed in the same way. The address term collapse distinctions of patrimoiety and generation level (harmony) kept separate in the kin terms themselves. Kin dual and plural formatives are also found in Kanyara and Ngayarta languages, as well as more widely in Australia. Dench (1990:24) gives -karra/-yarra/-warra/-rra as the dual kin term formative for Panyjima (where the allomorphs are distributed in similar fashion to Jiwarli). Almost identical forms for the dual formative are to be found in Nyangumarta (O’Grady and Mooney 1973), Western Desert dialects (@@@), Wajarri (examples in @@@). Dyirbal (Dixon 1972:??) has an affix -karra meaning “one of a pair”. 4.8.
Verbalization.
There are a number of affixal morphemes in Mantharta languages which may be attached to a nominal or particle stem in order to derive a verb root, which may them take verb derivational or inflectional morphology. These syntactic class changing suffixes can be classified into two groups: those producing intransitive roots and those producing transitive roots. They are described briefly in the following paragraphs. 4.8.1. Intransitive Verbalizers. There are five intransitive verbalizers: (i) inchoative — this has the form -rri-a (-arri-a following consonant final stems), deriving a verb root in the -a conjugation (for Tharrkari see Klokeid 1969:35,36). It adds the meaning ‘become ...’, as in: Nominal root jirril kunyjil pathany
Verb root ‘afraid’ ‘warm’ ‘sweat’
jirril-arrikunyjil-arripathany-arri-
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‘to become afraid’ [Ji,Wr] ‘to become warm’ ‘to sweat’
jalaa kamu kunka kurtu manganya mujuru mulhara ngurrkunyja ngurru nhukura nyaku nyangku paabaa pakalya paku parnka picu
‘mad’ ‘hunger’ ‘afraid’ ‘black’ ‘tired’ ‘angry’ ‘ahead’ ‘sorrow’ ‘old man’ ‘knowing’ ‘fun’ ‘fun’ ‘angry’ ‘good’ ‘fun’ ‘big’ ‘sweat’
jalaa-rrikamu-rrikunka-rrikurtu-rrimanganya-rrimujuru-rrimulhara-rringurrkunyja-rringurru-rrinhukura-rrinyaku-rrinyangku-rripaabaa-rripakalya-rripaku-rriparnka-rripicu-rri-
‘to become mad’ ‘to become hungry’ ‘to become afraid’ [Wr] ‘to become black’ [Wr] ‘to become tired’ [Tr] ‘to become angry’ [Tr] ‘to go ahead’ [Tr] ‘to feel sorry’ ‘to become an old man’ ‘to learn’ [Ji,Ti,Wr] ‘to play [Tr] ‘to play [Ti] ‘to become angry’ [Tr] ‘to become good’ ‘to play’ ‘to grow, become big’ ‘to sweat’ [Tr]
pulhuwa thari walhi wanta wirntu yinka
‘cold’ ‘cold’ ‘bad’ ‘separate’ ‘dead’ ‘fun’
pulhuwa-rrithari-rriwalhi-rriwanta-rriwirntu-rriyinka-rri-
‘to become cold’ [Ji,Ti] ‘to become cold’ [Tr] ‘to become bad’ [Ji,Wr] ‘to separate’ ‘to die’ [Ji,Ti] ‘to play’ [Ji]
NOTE: when the inchoative is added to the nominal root kuru the resultant verb kuru-rri- has an idiosyncratic meaning, namely ‘to be born’. There are examples of nominal stems containing a nominal derivational affix to which -rri-a is added. They include:
minarl-yirra-rriwalking ability-priv-inchoat‘to become unable to walk’
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wartu-nyungu-rriscrub-provenience-inchoat‘to become wild/untamed’ (4.59) Nguurru ngunha wartu-nyungu-rri-nyja-rru. horse.nom that.nom scrub-provenience-inchoat-past-now ‘The horse went wild.’ [JBPAN12p40s1] The inchoative can also be added to case-inflected nominals. Examples with locative and allative inflected nominals followed by the inchoative have been elicited. These examples raise questions about the issue of the inflectional status of case inflections — if inflections are assigned in the syntax then they should not be available for word formation processes such as the category changing derivation like the inchoative. (4.60)
Wantha-la-rri-ra nganthurra. where-loc-inchoat-fut 1pl.nom ‘Where will we be?’ [JBPAN12p81s6]
(4.61)
Ngatha wartantari-rri-nyja-rru. 1sg.nom east allat-inchoat-past-now ‘I went east.’ [JBPAN13p43s3]
The inchoative verbalizer may be suffixed to the particle warri ‘no, none’ to derive an intransitive verb warri-rri- ‘to become none, to disappear’. The inchoative suffix is added to English intransitive verbs to derive Mantharta intransitive verb stems. Jiwarli examples are: muuka-rri-
‘to smoke’
warrkamu-rri- ‘to work’
(see JBPAT52s17) (see JBPAT12s1,3; T43s24; T60s21,22)
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Klokeid (1969:34ff) includes the following in his list of ‘a-class verbs’ in Tharrkari: piila-rri-
‘to rest, have a spell’
thuranuwi-rri- ‘to run away’ wiimu-rri-
‘to swim’
muugu-rri-
‘to smoke’
warrkamu-rri- ‘to work’ Notice the simplification of word-initial English consonant clusters through dropping of initial ‘s’ in ‘sp’, ‘sw’, ‘sm’ clusters. The inchoative verbaliser in Kanyara languages is similar to the Mantharta form -rri-. Yinyjiparnti has -rri- as one of its regular inchoative suffixes (Wordick 1982:87), as does Ngarluma (Wangka Maya 1990). Panyima has -(ya)yi~-w(ay)i-, while in Martuthunira Dench (1987:311) says that -rri- ‘derives intransitive verbs describing involuntary bodily processes, or the involuntary development of mental states’. (ii) psychological — this has the form -nguli-ngku and derives a verb root in the -ngku conjugation. It can be added to adjectival substantives denoting a psychological state, and adds the meaning ‘become ...’, ‘enter ... psychological state’. It can also be added to body part nominals, in which case the resultant verb means ‘to be sore in ...’ or ‘to have a sore ...’; in this use it is equvalent to the meaning of -jaka.with body part nominals. There is also one example with an inanimate noun, yungu ‘rain’, where the resultant derived verb means ‘to be rained on’. Examples are: Nominal root
Verb root
kamu nguwan pulhuwa thari thawu
‘hunger’ ‘sleep’ ‘cold’ ‘cold’ unknown
kamu-ngulinguwan-ngulipulhuwa-ngulithari-ngulithawu-nguli-
‘to be hungry’ ‘to become sleepy’ ‘to feel cold’ [Ji] ‘to feel cold’ [Tr] ‘to go to sleep (of a body part)’
jina ngarta parna
‘foot ‘shin’ ‘head’
jina-ngulingarta-nguliparna-nguli-
‘to have a sore foot’ ‘to have a sore leg’ ‘to have a sore head, have a head-ache’
yungu
‘rain’
yungu-nguli-
‘to be rained on’
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Notice that there is a semantic contrast between the two different intransitive verbs that can be derived from the roots pulhuwa ‘cold’ and kamu ‘hunger’. The inchoative verb pulhuwa-rri- means ‘to become cold’, and is used to describe meteorological conditions (similarly kamu-rri- means ‘to become hungry’ and describes an objective state of affairs). The psychological verb pulhuwa-nguli- means ‘to feel cold’, and it is used to describe the experiential state (so also kamu-nguli- means ‘to feel hungry’). Examples of their use are: (4.62)
Yungu-nguli-ngu-rru yirtiya-la yana-nyja-rni. rain-psych-imperfSS-now road-loc go-past-hence ‘(They) came back on the road and were rained on.’ [JIT17s2]
(4.63)
Karla-rla-laartu pulhuwa-la-rru ngurnu-pa pulhuwa-nguli-ya-ngu. fire-fact-usit cold-loc-now that.dat-spec cold-psych-imperfDS-dat ‘When it was cold I used to make a fire for them when they felt cold.’ [JBPAT52s38]
An identical suffix -nguli- is found in all the Kanyara languages, and in Panyjima (Dench 1990:31), Martuthunira (Dench 1987:313), and Yanyjiparnti (Wordick 1982:??). (iii) excretive — this has the form -ja-ru (in Tharrkari -ya-ru) deriving a verb root in the -ru conjugation. It is added to two nominals used to refer to bodily excretions: Nominal root
Verb root
kuna
‘faeces’
kumpu
‘urine’
kuna-jakuna-yakumpu-jakupi-ya-
‘to defecate’ [Ji,Ti] ‘to defecate’ [Tr] ‘to urinate’ [Ji,Ti] ‘to urinate’ [Tr]
Wordick (1982:86) lists -yi- as a special verbaliser (‘shoot out, expell’) for the words for ‘faeces’ and ‘urine’ in Yinyjiparnti. (iv) stance — this has the form -karri-a deriving a verb root of the -a conjugation [in Tharrkari the affix is -arri-a]. It is used with body parts to indicate use of that body part in some way.
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Nominal root
Verb root
mara
‘hand’
mara-karri-
‘to hold out one’s hand’ [Ji]
ngulyura
‘snore’
ngulyura-arri-
‘to snore’ [Tr]
An example is (see also (4.71) for a Tharrkari example): (4.64)
Ngunha mara-karri-a pirru-wu. that.nom hand-stance-pres meat-dat ‘He holds his hand out for meat.’ [JBPAN9p135s6]
An identical affix is found in the Kanyara languages. (v) produce — there is one example in the corpus of a nominal converted into an intransitive verb by adding -wirri-a. The example is: (4.65) Marta-wirri-a-rru. blood-produce-pres-now ‘It is bleeding.’ [JBPAN5p104s3] 4.8.2. Transitive Verbalisers. There are five suffixes which derive transitive verb roots from nominal stems. Two of these are quite widely used while the other three appear to be lexically restricted. One general verbaliser is a causative (meaning something like ‘cause/make ...’), while the second productive one is a factitive (meaning ‘make/create ...). The other three transitivisers each occur with just a few nominals in the corpus. (i) causative — this has the form -rni-ru in all Mantharta languages and derives a verb root in the -ru conjugation. (Note that consonant final roots take a phonological clitic (see ??) before -rni- is added.) It adds the meaning ‘make/cause ...’. Examples are:
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Nominal root punthurr jalaa jurirrikalapa kayanu kurlparu marrungku marta murlurru nhukura pakalya pagaja parlura pirdija piyarta pulhuwa wanarra
‘heap’
Verb root punthurr-pa-rni-
‘to make a heap’
‘mad’ ‘sharp’ ‘thus’ ‘one’ ‘dust’ ‘forever’ ‘blood’ ‘straight’ ‘knowing’ ‘good’ ‘good’ ‘sated’ ‘clean’ ‘dry’ ‘cold’ ‘long’
jalaa-rnijurirri-rnikalapa-rnikayanu-rnikurlparu-rnimarrungku-rnimarta-rnimurlurru-rninhukura-rnipakalya-rnipagaja-rniparlura-rnipirdija-rnipiyarta-rnipulhuwa-rniwanarra-rni-
‘to make mad’ ‘to sharpen’ ‘to make like this’ ‘to make one’ [Wr] ‘to make dust’ ‘to make (last) forever’ ‘to make bleed’ ‘to straighten’ ‘to teach’ [Ji,Wr] ‘to make well’ [Ji] ‘to make well [Tr] ‘to make full’ ‘to clean’ [Tr] ‘to dry’ ‘to make cold’ ‘to make long’ [Tr]
The causative -rni-ru can be suffixed to nouns stems that contain one or more stem forming affixes. The following examples show it after -nyungu ‘provenience’, -yirra ‘privative’, and -rti ‘plural’:
(4.66)
Nhaa-lu wartu-nyungu-rni-rninyja. what-erg scrub-provenience-causat-past ‘What made him go wild?’ [JBPAN13p40s1]
(4.67)
Nhaa-lu nhurra-nha minarl-yirra-rni-rninyja. what-erg you-acc walking-priv-causat-past ‘What made you unable to walk?’ [JBPAN13p40s2]
(4.68)
Juma-rti-rni-nma. small-pl-causat-imper ‘Make (it) small pieces!’ [JBPAN9p76s2]
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In Tharrkari, -rni-ru is added to English (or pidgin English) transitive verbs to produce a Tharrkarri transitive verb. Examples include (taken from Klokeid 1969:33): kiinimu-rni-ru ‘to skin’
(from ‘skin ‘em’)
ringamu-rni-ru ‘to telephone’ (from ‘ring ‘em’) yudurru-rni-ru ‘to load, put on’ Notice the last example is derived from English “load” by addition of an initial syllable yu (since Tharrkari words may not begin with a voiced stop (derived historically from a lateral — see ??? and ???) and the substitution of rr for “t” (recall that Tharrkari has no contrast between these two sounds intervocalically — see ???). Wordick (1982:83) mentions a transitive verbaliser in Yinyjiparnti of the form -rni-. He says it “is the preferred verbaliser for borrowed English nouns”. (ii) factitive — this has the form -rla-ru deriving a verb root in the -ru conjugation (Klokeid (1969:38) give the Tharrkari form as -da-ru but this is almost certainly a mishearing of -rda-ru which would be the d-dialect form). It adds the meaning ‘create/make ...’. Examples are: Nominal root karla kurlka kurtu malhu mulku nhaa parla pintha pulhu thari thukuthuku wanka yiri yurlu
‘fire’ ‘ear’ ‘dark’ ‘hole’ ‘presence’ ‘what’ ‘closed’ ‘mud’ ‘short’ ‘cool’ ‘hot’ ‘alive’ ‘sharp’ ‘powder’
Verb root karla-rlakurlka-rlakurtu-rlamalhu-rlamulku-rlanhaa-rlaparla-rlapintha-rlapulhu-rlathari-rlathukuthuku-rlawanka-rlayiri-rlayurlu-rla-
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‘to make/light a fire’ ‘to teach’ [Wr] ‘to make dark’ ‘to make a hole’ ‘to make alive’ ‘to make what’ ‘to close’ ‘to turn to mud’ ‘to shorten’ ‘to cool’ [Ji,Tr] ‘to heat’ ‘to make live’ [Ji,Wr] ‘to sharpen’ ‘to powder’ [Ji,Wr]
(iii) transitiviser — the suffix -jipa-ru (in Tharrkari -yiba-) occurs with just two noun roots to make a causative verb stem. Note that -jipa-ru also occurs as a transitiviser attached to intransitive verb roots (see ??? ): Nominal root jirril puwa kuru
Verb root jirril-jipapuwa-yibakuru-jipakuri-yiba-
‘fear’ ‘fear’ ‘eye’
‘to make afraid’ [Ji, Ti] ‘to make afraid’ [Tr] ‘to wake up, awaken’ ‘to wake up, awaken’ [Tr]
Representative examples of these two are: (4.69)
Yungu rain.nom
yinha this.nom
warni-nha-rru fall-pres-now
ngali-la 1dl-loc
nyirnta here.loc
kumpa-iniya-la wangka-arni jirril-jipa-rnu-rru ngali-mpa. sit-imperfDS-loc talk-non.sing fear-trans-imperfSS-now 1dl-dat ‘The rain is falling on us sitting here talking making us afraid.’ [JBPAN9p11s6] (4.70)
Kuru-jipa-nma ngunha ngurnta-iniya-nha eye-trans-imper that.acc lie-imperfDS-acc ‘Wake up that one lying asleep!’ [JBADN1p11s2]
nguwan-ma. sleep-clitic
(4.71)
Kuru-yiba-nma yinha-ga ngulyura-arri-ya-nha eye-trans-imper this.acc-spec snore-stance-imperfDS-acc ‘Wake this one up who is snoring!’ [TrTKNs8]
(iv) transitiviser — the suffix -ma- occurs with just four noun roots to make a transitive verb stem. In three instances the resulting verb is a causative, while for ‘play’ the result is an applied construction (the derived verb means ‘play with’ not ‘cause to play’) — it is quite common elsewhere in Australia to find that ‘play’ creates an applied verb rather than a causative (see Austin 1993).
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Nominal root yinka ngunthun wanta nhaa
Verb root yinka-manguthun-mawanta-manhaa-ma-
‘play, fun’ ‘cough’ ‘separate’ ‘what’
‘to play with, tease’ ‘to cough’ ‘to separate’ ‘to do what’
Examples of their use are: (4.71)
Juma-ngku yinka-ma-lkurni-a yinha child-erg play-causat-cont-pres this.acc ‘The child is playing with this knife.’ [JIT7s1]
(4.72)
Ngulu-pa wanta-ma-rninyja-rru that.erg-spec separate-trans-past-now ‘He separated the people.’ [JBPAN9p139s1]
(4.73)
Nhaa-ma-lkarringu. what-causat-intent ‘What will we do?’ [JIT37s29]
pithu. knife.acc
mantharta-nha. man-acc
Note that these roots occur with the intransitive inchoative verbaliser to make intransitive verb roots: yinka-rri- ‘to play’, yinka-marri- ‘to play together’, wanta-rri- ‘to separate’. The regular causative/factitive verbaliser in Ngayarta languages has the form -ma- (for Panyjima see Dench 1990:30, Martuthunira see Dench 1987:308, and Yinyjiparnti see Wordick 1982:83). (v) transport — the suffix -ngka- occurs with body part terms to make a transitive verb meaning ‘to carry in/on ...’, as in:
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Nominal root jimpi jirli karti mara parna purra wirlka
‘back’ ‘lower back’ ‘side, flank’ ‘hand’ ‘head’ ‘lap’ ‘shoulder
Verb root jimpi-ngkajirli-ngkakarti-ngkamara-ngkaparna-ngkapurra-ngkawirlka-ngka-
‘to carry on the back’ ‘to carry on the back’ ‘to carry on the hip’ ‘to carry in the hand’ ‘to carry on the head’ ‘to carry in the lap’ ‘to carry on the shoulder’
Examples are: (4.74)
Nguu face.nom kuwarti-rru now-now
mulamula-rri-ngu-rru wrinkled-inchoat-imperfSS-now ngatha 1sg.erg
wirta-nyjarri-jipi-rru youth-pl.nom-conj-now
jimpi-ngka-rninyjaparnti back-transp-perfDS
‘The boy's faces are wrinkled now too, those that I used to carry on my back.’ [JiT47s118] (4.75)
Wirlka-ngka-ji-lu nhanya-nyja thuthu-nha pirru-jaka-nha shoulder-transp-agent see-past dog-acc meat-comit-acc ‘The one with (a child) on his shoulders saw the dog with some meat.’ [JiPAN12p36s3]
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