A Grammar of Gaagudju (Mouton Grammar Library [MGL] Book 24)

Gaagudju is a previously undescribed and now nearly extinct language of northern Australia. This grammar provides an overall description of the language. Australian languages generally show a high degree of structural similarity to one another. Gaagudju conforms to some of the common Australian patterns, yet diverges significantly from others. Thus while it has a standard Australian phonological inventory, its prosodic systems differ from those of most Australian languages, with stressed and unstressed syllables showing marked differences in realisation. Like many northern languages, it has complex systems of both prefixation and suffixation to nominals and verbs. Prefixation provides information about nominal classification (4 classes), mood, and pronominal cross-reference (Subjects, Objects, and Indirect Objects). Suffixation provides information about case, tense, and aspect. As in many languages, there is a clear distinction between productive and unproductive morphology. Gaagudju differs from most Australian languages in that a considerable amount of its morphology is unproductive, showing complex and irregular allomorphic variation. Gaagudju is like most Australian languages in that it may be described as a free word order language. However, word order is not totally free and strictly ordered phrasal compounding structures are significant (e.g. in the formation of denominal verbs). Acknowledgements 5 List of Tables, Figures and Maps 11 Abbreviations 12 1 Language owners and speakers 17 1.1 Location and contact history of Gaagudju language owners and speakers 17 1.2 Previous work 21 1.3 Consultants 22 1.4 Languages spoken in the area 25 1.5 Linguistics relationships of Gaagudju 31 2 Segmental phonology 33 2.1 Phonemic inventory and orthography 33 2.3 Consonantal variation and contrasts 39 2.4 Vocalic variation and contrasts 65 2.5 Intonation 69 2.6 Placement and history of stress 71 2.7 Realisation patterns of the long vowels 80 2.8 Realisation patterns of short vowels 89 2.9 Overview and history of vowel realisations 103 2.10 Reduction of unstressed syllables at word boundaries 107 3 Phonotactics and morphophonology 109 3.1 Affixation, clisis, and phonological words 109 3.2 Syllable structures 116 3.3 Morpheme initial and final segments 117 3.4 Morpheme-medial consonant clusters and intervocalic onsets 118 3.5 Inter-morphemic biconsonantal clusters 122 3.6 Homorganic nasal-stop clusters 129 3.7 Triconsonantal clusters 138 4 Nominals 142 4.1 Parts of speech 142 4.2 Nominal parts-of-speech 143 4.3 Nominal compounding and derivation 147 4.4 Nominal reduplication 158 4.5 Adjectives and gender marked nouns 160 4.6 Noun class membership 164 4.7 Agreement superclassing 169 4.8 Personal pronouns 173 4.9 Kin nouns and kinship terminology 182 4.10 Demonstratives 193 4.11 The history of noun class marking 210 4.12 Locationals 217 4.13 Temporals 220 5 Verbs 223 5.1 Verbal predicate structures 223 5.2 The verbal complex 225 5.3 Compound verbs 227 5.4 Unproductive phrasal verbs 234 5.5 The prefix complex 239 5.6 The directional prefixes 242 5.7 Pronominal prefixes 247 5.8 Conjugational groupings 251 5.9 Tense, aspect, and mood categories 252 5.10 Hortative 268 5.11 Positive imperative 270 6 Clitics and phrasal compounds 275 6.1 Clitics 275 6.2 Argument marking 276 6.3 Indirect object clitics 277 6.4 Dative and locative clitics 279 6.5 Quantification 284 6.6 The ordering of clitics 311 6.7 Phrasal compound structures 312 6.8 Part-whole relationships 326 7 Syntax 331 7.1 Word order, proposition classes and clause types 331 7.2 The noun phrase 331 7.3 Negation 336 7.4 Grammatical relations 349 7.5 Lexicalised cross-reference patterns 355 7.6 Transitivity 365 7.7 Detransitivisation 366 7.8 Causatives 373 7.9 Ascriptive, equational and existential propositions 374 7.10 Possessive propositions 383 7.11 Interclausal Relations 385 7.12 Particles 395 Appendices 402 1 Nominals and particles: Gaagudju – English 402 2 Verbs: Gaagudju – English 420 3 English – Gaagudju finderlist for nominals and particles 484 4 English – Gaagudju finderlist for verbs 493 5 Mandanenj gerramaana, the crying orphan story 497 References 502 Author index 506 Land and language index 507 Subject index 509 Main description: This grammar provides an overall description of Gaagudju, a now nearly extinct language of northern Australia. Gaagudju differs from most previously described Australian languages in a number of ways. It shows marked differences in the realizations of stressed and unstressed syllables. It has complex systems of prefixation as well as suffixation. There is a clear distinction between productive and unproductive morphology, with a large amount of the morphology being unproductive. While word order is generally free, strictly ordered phrasal compounding structures are important Background contact history of Gaagudju speakers; literature review; language owners; neighbouring languages - Amurdak, Bibinj Gunwok, Giimbiyu, Gonbudj, Limilngan, Umbugarla; phonology; phonotactics and morphophonology; nominals - kinship terms; verbs; clitics and phrasal compounds; syntax; nominals, particles and verbs - Gaagudju / English wordlist; brief reference to Big Bill Nayiidj (Neidjie), Nelson Mulurrinj, Priscilla Girrabul, Jonathon and Lydia Maralngurra Acknowledgements -- Lists Of Tables, Figures And Maps -- Abbreviations -- 1. Language Owners And Speaker -- 2. Segmental Phonology -- 3. Phonotactics And Morphophonology -- 4. Nominals -- 5. Verbs -- 6. Clitics And Phrasal Compounds -- 7. Syntax -- Appendices -- References -- Indices. Mark Harvey. Includes Bibliographical References And Index.