A Grammar of GaagudjuGaagudju 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). |
Contents
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| 5 | |
| 6 | |
| 9 | |
| 15 | |
| 17 | |
| 23 | |
24 Vocalic variation and contrasts | 49 |
54 Unproductive phrasal verbs | 218 |
55 The prefix complex | 223 |
56 The directional prefixes | 226 |
57 Pronominal prefixes | 231 |
58 Conjugational groupings | 235 |
59 Tense aspect and mood categories | 236 |
510 Hortative | 252 |
511 Positive imperative | 254 |
25 Intonation | 53 |
26 Placement and history of stress | 55 |
27 Realisation patterns of the long vowels | 64 |
28 Realisation patterns of short vowels | 73 |
29 Overview and history of vowel realisations | 87 |
210 Reduction of unstressed syllables at word boundaries | 91 |
3 Phonotactics and morphophonology | 93 |
32 Syllable structures | 100 |
33 Morpheme initial and final segments | 101 |
34 Morphememedial consonant clusters and intervocalic onsets | 102 |
35 Intermorphemic biconsonantal clusters | 106 |
36 Homorganic nasalstop clusters | 113 |
37 Triconsonantal clusters | 122 |
4 Nominals | 126 |
42 Nominal partsofspeech | 127 |
43 Nominal compounding and derivation | 131 |
44 Nominal reduplication | 142 |
45 Adjectives and gender marked nouns | 144 |
46 Noun class membership | 148 |
47 Agreement superclassing | 153 |
48 Personal pronouns | 157 |
49 Kin nouns and kinship terminology | 166 |
410 Demonstratives | 177 |
411 The history of noun class marking | 194 |
412 Locationals | 201 |
413 Temporals | 204 |
5 Verbs | 207 |
52 The verbal complex | 209 |
53 Compound verbs | 211 |
6 Clitics and phrasal compounds | 259 |
62 Argument marking | 260 |
63 Indirect object clitics | 261 |
64 Dative and locative clitics | 263 |
65 Quantification | 268 |
66 The ordering of clitics | 295 |
67 Phrasal compound structures | 296 |
68 Partwhole relationships | 310 |
7 Syntax | 315 |
73 Negation | 320 |
74 Grammatical relations | 333 |
75 Lexicalised crossreference patterns | 339 |
76 Transitivity | 349 |
77 Detransitivisation | 350 |
78 Causatives | 357 |
79 Ascriptive equational and existential propositions | 358 |
710 Possessive propositions | 367 |
711 Interclausal Relations | 369 |
712 Particles | 379 |
Appendices | 386 |
Gaagudju English | 404 |
3 English Gaagudju finderlist for nominals and particles | 468 |
4 English Gaagudju finderlist for verbs | 477 |
5 Mandanenj gerramaana the crying orphan story | 481 |
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