A grammatical description of Warlmanpa: A Ngumpin-Yapa language spoken around Tennant Creek (Northern Territory)

Abstract

This thesis is a descriptive analysis of the grammar of Warlmanpa (ISO-639 identifier: wrl), an endangered language (presently) spoken in and around Tennant Creek (Northern Territory, Australia). Warlmanpa is a member of the Ngumpin-Yapa subgroup of the Pama-Nyungan language family. The domains of grammar analysed are phonetics & phonology (Chapter 2), word classes (Chapter 3), nominals (Chapter 4), inflecting verbs & coverbs (Chapter 5), syntax (Chapters 8 and 9), the complex agreement system referred to as ‘the auxiliary complex’ (Chapter 6), and particles, interjections and clitics (Chapter 7).Warlmanpa speech has five places of articulation with a contrastive stop and nasal for every place of articulation. The analysis of the contrastive inventory is complicated by the possibility of a tense/lax contrast in the stop series, a process which is contrastive in a neighbouring but not closely related language Warumungu. I argue that in Warlmanpa the apparent tense/lax contrast can be ascribed to post-tonic lengthening applicable to a lexically-specified class of nominals. This chapter also presents an acoustic analysis of the triangular vowel system, as well as an analysis of iconic extra long vowels. These vowels are particularly interesting in comparison with their corresponding short vowel articulations, as they bear little, if any resemblance in terms of formant structures. There are also a number of morphophonological processes, mostly relating to vowel assimilation described in this chapter.Warlmanpa possesses a rich nominal case system. The division between types of nominal morphology (e.g. case morphology, derivational suffixes) is of particular interest, as there is not a straightforward distinction between inflectional and derivational morphs. Core relations are marked on nominals according to an ergative/absolutive alignment. Other commonly used cases include dative, locative, allative, elative, privative, and aversive. The syntax of Warlmanpa utilises nominal morphology to mark both inter- and intra-clausal relations, complicated by the dispreference for case-stacking.Warlmanpa, like other Ngumpin-Yapa languages, possesses a complex agreement system, referred to as the auxiliary complex. The auxiliary complex comprises an optional auxiliary base, to which bound pronouns (or ‘pronominal enclitics’) attach, which distinguish arguments according to person (with a clusivity distinction), number (singular, dual, plural), and grammatical relation (generally subject/non-subject). The combinatorial forms of the bound pronouns are particularly complex. Unlike nominals, the bound pronouns obligatorily register core arguments.Predicates in Warlmanpa can be verbal or nominal. Verbal predicates can further be subcategorised as simplex predicates, comprising just an inflecting verb, or complex predicates, comprising one or more ‘coverbs’ in addition to an inflecting verb. Tense/aspect/mood (TAM) marking is obligatorily marked on a finite and inflecting verb, though some additional TAM information may also be contributed by the auxiliary base. Warlmanpa makes a three-way realis tense distinction between past/present/future in addition to a two-way irrealis tense distinction between past/non-past. Additionally, inflecting verbs can derive into verbs which denote associated motion or the inception of a situation, in addition to their original meaning. Coverbs may combine with a number of inflecting verbs, with much variation regarding the combinatorial possibilities. Distinguishing between coverbs and adverbs is also a point of interest. Subordination in Warlmanpa utilises complementisers (with word status) for finite subordination, and a suffixing system (drawn primarily from the case system) for non-finite subordination, in which each (word-level) constituent of the subordinate clause takes a suffix which indicates its relation to the matrix clause. There is some debate across many Australian languages whether subordinate clauses are syntactically embedded or adjacent. I argue that unlike Warlpiri, subordinate clauses in Warlmanpa are syntactically embedded.