PACIFIC LINGUISTICS Se��e� A - No. 60 PAPERS IN AUSTRALIAN LINGUISTICS No. 14 by Bruce E. Waters Peter A. Busby Department of Linguistics Research School of Pacific Studies THE AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY Waters, B. and Busby, P. editors. Papers in Australian Linguistics No. 14. A-60, vi + 183 pages. Pacific Linguistics, The Australian National University, 1980. DOI:10.15144/PL-A60.cover ©1980 Pacific Linguistics and/or the author(s). Online edition licensed 2015 CC BY-SA 4.0, with permission of PL. A sealang.net/CRCL initiative. PACIFIC LINGUISTICS is issued through the L�ng u�¢��c C��cle 06 Canbe��a and consists of four series: SERI ES A - OCCASIONAL PAPERS SERIES B - MONOGRA PHS SERIES C - BOOKS SERIES V - SPECIAL PUB LICATIONS EDITOR: S.A. Wurm. ASSOCIATE EDITORS: D.C. Laycock, C.L. Voorhoeve, D.T. Tryon, T.E. Dutton. EDITORIAL ADVISERS: B. Bender, University of Hawaii J. Lynch, University of Papua New Guinea D. Bradley, University of Melbourne K.A. MCElhanon, University of Texas A. Capell, University of Sydney J. MCKaughan, University of Hawaii S. Elbert, University of Hawaii P. Muhlhausler, Linacre College, Oxford K. Franklin, Summer Institute of G.N. O'Grady, University of Victoria, B.C. Linguistics A.K. Pawley, University of Hawaii W.W. Glover, Summer Institute of K. Pike, University of Michigan; Summer Linguistics Institute of Linguistics G. Grace, University of Hawaii E.C. Polome, University of Texas M.A.K. Halliday, university of G. Sankoff, Universite de Montreal Sydney W.A.L. Stokhof, National Center for A. Healey, Summer Institute of Language Development, Jakarta; Linguistics University of Leiden L. Hercus, Australian National E. Uhlenbeck, University of Leiden University J.W.M. Verhaar, University of N.D. Liem, University of Hawaii Indonesia, Jakarta ALL CORRESPONDENCE concerning PACIFIC LINGUISTICS, including orders and subscriptions, should be addressed to: The Secretary, PACIFIC LINGUISTICS, Department of Linguistics, School of Pacific Studies, The Australian National University, Canberra, A.C.T. 2600. Australia. Copyright (§) The Authors. First published 1980. The editors are indebted to the Australian National University for help in the production of this series. This publication was made possible by an initial grant from the Hunter Douglas Fund. National Library of Australia Card Number and ISBN 0 85883 230 5 TABLE OF CONT ENTS Page DJINANG PHONOLOGY by Bruce E. Waters 1 1. INTRODUCTION 1 2. LINGUISTIC GROUPINGS: DJINANG AND DJININY 2 3. THE SEGMENT 4 3.1. The Phoneme Set 4 3.2. The Distinctive Feature Set 5 3.3. Phoneme Contrasts 12 3.4. Phonetic Variations of Segments, and their Relation to 16 Stress 4. THE SYLLABLE 22 4.1. Syllable Types 22 4.2. Syllable Prosodies 24 4.3. Distribution of Phonemes in the Syllable 24 4.4. Consonant Clustres across Syllable Boundaries 26 5. STRESS GROUPS 5.l. Stress Groups and Rhythm 29 5.2. Prominence 32 5.3. Gemination of Voiceless Stops 34 5.4. Lenghtening of Sonorant Consonants 37 5.5. No n-Initial Stress 38 40 6. PAUSE GROUPS 6.1. Utterances 40 6.2. Alternating Prominence Peaks 46 7. RULES AND RULE ORDER 47 7.1. Rules for Stress Groups and Prominence 47 7.2. Reduplications 57 7.3. Comments on Gemination in Rembarnga 58 NOTES 62 BIBLIOGRAPHY 67 APPENDIX: Swadesh 100 Wor d List 69 111 lv Page THE DISTRIBUTION OF PHONEMES IN AUSTRAL IAN ABORIGINAL LANGUAGES by Peter A. Busby 73 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 73 INTRODUCTION 73 1. 0. CONSONANT PHONEMES 74 1.1. Stop Consonants 75 1.2. Glottal Stop 78 1.3. Second Series Stops 79 1.4. Prenasalised Stops 81 1.5. Nasals 82 1.6. Laterals 83 1.7. Prestopping 88 1.8. Prepalatalisation 88 1. 9. Rhotic Release 89 1.10. Labialisation 89 1.11. Rhotics 90 1. 12. Glides 93 1.13. Fricatives 93 2.0. VOWEL PHONEMES 95 2. 1. Symmetrical Systems 96 2. 2. Semi-Symmetrical Systems 99 2.3. Ungrouped Systems 99 2.4. Resid ue Areal Distributions 101 3.0. CONCLUSION 101 APPENDIX 1: Areal Distribution of Phonemic Systems 103 APPENDIX 2: Language References 122 BIBLIOGRAPHY 128 DJ INANG VERB MORPHOLOGY by Bruce E. Waters 141 1. INTRODUCTION 141 2. ORTHOGRAPHY 147. 3. SEMANTIC CATEGORIES OF SUFFIXES 142 4. VERB CLASSES 143 5. THE DISTINCTIVE FEA TURE SET 146 6. CONSTRAINTS AND MORPHOPHONEMIC PROCESSES 150 6. 1. Preliminary Discussion 150 6.2. The Morphophonemic Rules 152 6. 3. Discussion of the Rules 155 7. CONCLUSION 165 v Page NOTES 166 BIBLIOGRAPHY 169 APPENDIX 1: Consonant Cl usters 171 APPENDIX 2: Verb Data 173 Waters, B. and Busby, P. editors. Papers in Australian Linguistics No. 14. A-60, vi + 183 pages. Pacific Linguistics, The Australian National University, 1980. DOI:10.15144/PL-A60.cover ©1980 Pacific Linguistics and/or the author(s). Online edition licensed 2015 CC BY-SA 4.0, with permission of PL. A sealang.net/CRCL initiative. DJINANG PHONOLOGY BRUCE E. WATERS 1. INTRODUCTION The Djinang language of north-central Arnhem Land is a member of the Murngic group of the Pama-Nyungan family. It is a viable language for about three hundred speakers who live in the region of the Glyde river, south of Milingimbi. Djinang is the westernmost member of the Yolngu languagesl of north­ east Arnhem Land. These languages have some very interesting phono­ logical features. For example, vowel length appears to be contrastive, and yet vowels rarely are long in unstressed syllables in Yolngu lan­ guages. Gupapuyngu for instance, has both long and short vowels in its orthography. When I tested literate and non-literate Djinang speakers for their intuitions about vowel length, I could not get sufficient unambiguous data to allow me to posit vowel length as contrastive. In this paper I will give an explanation for this, and claim that vowel length (in Djinang at least) is non-contrastive. Also, glottal stop is a feature of Yolngu phonologies that is usually treated as a segment, and yet very clearly has a prosodic function affecting the previous syllable (Wood 1978). There is also, in Djinang at least, a very definite rhythmic patterning within an utterance. Another interesting feature is a contrast between fortis (voiceless, tense) and lenis (voiced, lax) stops which occurs not only in Yolngu languages (including Djinang) but also in non-Pama-Nyungan languages nearby (Glasgow and Glasgow 1967; McKay 1975). This opposition has sometimes been analysed as a contrast between (fortis) geminated stops and (lenis) non-geminated stops (McKay 1975). However, in this paper I show that this is not possible in Djinang, because gemination is en­ tirely predictable in terms of the distribution of stressed syllables. 1 Waters, B.E. "Djinang Phonology". In Waters, B. and Busby, P. editors, Papers in Australian Linguistics No. 14. A-60:1-72. Pacific Linguistics, The Australian National University, 1980. DOI:10.15144/PL-A60.1 ©1980 Pacific Linguistics and/or the author(s). Online edition licensed 2015 CC BY-SA 4.0, with permission of PL. A sealang.net/CRCL initiative. BRUCE E. WATERS 2 It is interesting that Kirton (personal communication) reports that gemination of voiceless stops also occurs in Yanyuwa, an 'isolate' language in the east of the Northern Territory. Yolngu languages apparently neutralise the voice/voiceless distinc­ tion in stops when they occur word-initially (and inp/b other, tj/dj, envir onmentk/g , s); and yet there are very clear initial contrasts of and in Djinang. There are other phenomena in Djinang that are of interest. For example: why are high vowels characteristically lowered to a 'mid' tongue height position in the initial and/or final syllables of a word? Or again, why does glottal stop very often terminate a Djinang word when spoken in isolation, and yet is only very occasionally present in longer utterances? Also, Djinang speakers very clearly segment their utterances into discrete 'units' by distributing pauses within them. It is principally these phenomena that occupy my attention in this paper. The paper is written in a transformational generative phonology framework; and distinctive features suitable for Djinang are given early in the paper. Then follow discussions of the data in a less technical manner. Towards the end of the paper I develop rules for handling the phenomena discussed earlier. The paper finishes with an ordered list of the transformational cyclic rules for generating cor­ rectly segmented (into rhythmic units) terminal (phonetic) strings. The data in this paper comes predominantly from speakers in the Murrungun, Marrangu and Manyarrngu clans; and primarily from the Murrungun clan. I express my thanks particularly to Manbarrarra, and Jack Merritji for their willingness and patience in teaching me Djinang. I would like to thank George Huttar (Senior Linguistics Consultant, Summer Institute of Linguistics, Australian Aborigines Branch) for his editorial assistance and helpful ideas; and thanks to my wife for typin2. LIg NGtheUI STICdraft GRO manUPuscriINGS: ptDJIN. ANG AND DJININY In his paper 'Some Yuulngu Phonological Patterns' (1978) Wood gives linguistic groupings for the Yolngu languages. In this section I will attempt to clarify the picture for the two major linguistic groupings in the Glyde river area: Djinang, and Djininy (the latter is called Djining in Wood's Ipaper ). The communalect and clan names given below are written using the standard orthodjowingraphyg cuyirrrentritjily ngin use for Yolngu languages, except use /ndhg/uwa for /Q/.yi rrit ja, The Djinang moiety names are and which correspond to the more widely known and respectively. Djinang DJINANG PHONOLOGY 3 ya n 'Language, word' speakers use as a co'tverthis ',erm for a major linguistic groupdj i niingng . , rather than the word meaning which in DJinangdj in anisg yan, djHeinnceang . they refer to their linguistic grouping as or Just The other major ling'tuisticongue '.