Nyangumarta: A language of the Pilbara
region of Western Australia
By Janet Catherine Sharp
This book is a description of
the Nyangumarta language spoken by several hundred marrngu
'people' in the north-west of Western Australia. The description
is based on material which the author collected between 1983
and 1997. The book includes descriptions of the phonology,
the morphology and word classes including the pronominal systems.
It also includes detailed descriptions of Nyangumarta main
and complex clauses. Nyangumarta is of general typological
interest. There are many reasons for this. Firstly, the status
of word which emerges necessarily in the description of Nyangumarta
verbal morphology contributes to the notion of there being
a mismatch between what is regarded as a phonological word
and what is regarded as a grammatical word in some languages.
In Nyangumarta the paradigms of verbal pronouns illustrate
a division between morphemes which are phonologically bound
and those which are phonologically free; although both sets
are grammatically bound to the verb. To add to this there
is a class of derivational verbs which appear to be divided
according to their phonological/grammatical word status. The
inchoative and stative verbs are analysed as having phonological
word status whereas the monosyllabic derivational verbs such
as the affective and causative and the semantically 'empty'
-pi are analysed as bound verbalisers.
The phonological system of Nyangumarta is of interest because
its productive system of vowel assimilation within the verbal
morphology is one of the most elaborate of all the Australian
languages.
Published: 2004
PL 556, ISBN 0 85883 529 0
Pages: xxiii + 429
Prices: Australia A$119.90 (inc. GST), Overseas
AA$109.00
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