Family Portrait Iwaidjan, a very un-australian language family

Transcription

1 Family Portrait Iwaidjan, a very un-australian language family NICHOLAS EVANS i! Abstract 4 This article surveys the Iwaidjan language family, spoken in north-western Arnhem Land, Australia. This family contains many unusual features that sei it offfwm the other Australian languages to which it is ultimately related, and is here presented in detail to show the degree to which individual subgroups of Australian languages can be typologically divergent from "Standard Average Australian". The article focusses on these features, in particular the very large inventory of liquid phonemes, initial mutation (in Iwaidja only), the complex verbal morphology, "subcategorized object prefixes", kinship verbs, impersonal constructions, and prepositions inflecting in agreement with their subject. Keywords: agreement, alignment, Australian, cross-reference, fricative, gender, head-marking, impersonal constructions, Iwaidjan, kinship verbs, liquids, mutation, phoneme inventory, polysynthesis, possessive constructions, prepositions, proprietive, sandhi, transitivity alternations, word classes 1. Introduction The widespread and almost certainly correct assumption that all Australian languages are related, and the relative homogeneity in their phonological Systems, has led to a tendency to lump them together äs variations on a single typological theme, with their similarities reinforced by millennia of conver-» gence (see Dixon 1997: for a forceful recent Statement of this position). At a slightly more detailed level, this homogenizing view may be projected onto particular regions, or onto gross genetic groupings like "Pama-Nyungan" or "non-pama-nyungan" 1 or typological groupings like "prefixing languages" (the term is due to Capell 1956) or "head-marking languages". Linguistic Typology 4 (2000), /2000/ Walter de Gruyter

2 92 Nicholas Evans Closer inspection, however, reveals striking typological diversity under the rubric of this one family - which should hardly be suφrising given the existence of around 250 languages in an area the size of Europe, or the fact that the continent has been colonized for at least 50,000 years without significant discontinuities in the archaeological record and that it is not impossible that the Australian language family may be 50,000 years old. 2 Just to consider the non-pama-nyungan languages spoken in the northwestern eighth of the continent, consider the following four very different types of grammatical organization found within an area roughly the size of Germany plus Austria. Tyemeri (Reid 1990, forthcoming) illustrates the verbclassifying languages of the Daly River with their fricatives and voicing contrast in stops, their classifying verb constructions, and incorporation of body parts (1). Bininj Gun-wok (Evans 1996b, forthcoming) typifies the canonically polysynthetic Gunwinyguan languages with their characteristic long/short contrast, glottal stops, complex syllable codas, productive noun incoφoration, double agreement, applicatives, and extensive adverbial affixation on the verb (2). Kayardild (Evans 1995b) illustrates the dependent-marking Tangkic languages with their spectacular multiple case marking and "verbal case" inflections converting nominal hosts into morphological verbs (3). And Wambaya (Nordlinger 1998) exemplifies the Jingiluan languages, which have reduced the set of inflecting verbs to the point where they have simply become a Warlpiristyle second-position auxiliary coding subject, object, and tense/aspect/mood (ΤΑΜ) (4). Wambaya has shifted from mixed prefixing/suffixing to suffixingonly by reducing old demonstratives to Suffixes, all the while keeping the same morphological peculiarities of a four-class gender System, but now marked suffixally rather than prefixally. (1) Tyemeri wudumbun-ngiti=fityi peke 3SG.shove.PERF-1SG=roll tobacco 'He rolled me a cigarette.' (Reid forthcoming) (The choice of first element, or "classifying verb", depends on the lexical semantics of the main verb (here^fy/ 'roll'), which is bound to it in a single phonological phrase.) (2) Bininj Gun-wok gorrogo nga-ban-marne-ganj-bawo-ng before l.subj-3pl.ob j-ben-meat-leave-pp Ί left meat for them before.' (3) Kayardild niya kurri-jarra ngijin-jina ba-yii-n-kina SSG.NOM see-pst ISG-MABL bite-pass-nmzr-mabl ;

3 Iwaidjan, a very un-australian language family 93 dathin-kiiwa-n-kina yarbuth-nwa-n-kina. that-viall-nmzr-mabl snake-viall-nmzr-mabl 'He saw me being bitten by that snake.' (The modal ablative (MABL) is a special use of the ablative case to mark non-subjects of clauses in the past tense (including nominalized verbs); the verbal intransitive allative (VIALL) includes in its functions the marking of demoted agents, and along with other "verbal case" Suffixes it converts its host from morphological noun to morphological verb, though in this example it has then been re-nominalized s j part of a nominalized clause, and the nominalization has been further :] inflected for the modal ablative. See Evans 1995b for a detailed anal- (4) Wambaya daguma gini-ng-a ngirra hit 3SG.M.A-1.OBJ-PST lpl.exc.acc 'He hit us.' (Nordlinger l 98: 140) (Second position is occupied by an auxiliary coding subject person and number, object person, ΤΑΜ, and directionality; historically this is a degenerate prefixed verb. Compared to the likely ancestral language, the expression of all lexical verbs has been shifted to the morphologically simple verbs here exemplified by daguma, and the expression of object number to a free pronoun.) / It would take us too far afield to discuss all the relevant typological dimensions on which these four languages contrast. A f ll discussion would consider the number of genders; the degree of elaboration of case marking; word order constraints; the use of Suffixes alone (Kayardild), prefixes plus Suffixes (Tyemeri, Bininj Gun-wok), or Suffixes with a few residual prefixes (Wambaya); the means of encoding the main predication (monomorphemic verb in Kayardild and Wambaya, complex of auxiliary plus free verb in Tyemeri, compound verb in Bininj Gun-wok); the site for encoding arguments (subject and object prefixes and incorporated nouns in Bininj Gun-wok, subject prefixes and object enclitics in Tyemeri, subject prefixes and object split between auxiliary for person and free pronoun for number in Wambaya, free NPs in Kayardild); and many other factors. These examples should suffice, however, to illustrate the point that these languages are quite heterogeneous typologically. In this brief sketch I wish to illustrate this point in more detail by considering yet another non-pama-nyungan language family - Iwaidjan - concentrating on those features which are typologically unusual or which differ from the prevailing image of a "typical" Australian or non-pama-nyungan language.

4 94 Nicholas Evans ARAFURA SEA Port Essington WURRUGU MARRGU ^ o New Year L Melville Island Greenhillfa l» Van Diemen Gulf Endyalgou I. AMURDAK North Goulburn Is. 2> South Goulbum Is. MAUNG KUNBARLANG NGADUK LANGUAGES > KUNWINJKU LAB* L1MULNGAN GAAGUDJU UMBUGARLA Map 1. Location ofthe Iwaidjan language family and adjoining languages 2. The Iwaidjan language family All the languages of the Iwaidjan family are spoken in a contiguous area of the Cobourg Peninsula and adjoining islands, Northern Temtory (see Map 1), in an area approximately 200 km from west to east and 100 km from north to south - around the area of Belgium. This is the part of Australia with the greatest concentration of linguistic diversity. The area shown on the map contains representatives of over a third of the roughly twenty-five language families in Australia: in addition to Iwaidjan are Tiwi (Tiwian family-level isolate), Kunwinjku and Kunbarlang (Gunwinyguan), Ndjebbana (Maningrida family), Gaagudju (family-level isolate), Mengerr,, Erre, and Urningangk (Geimbiyu family), Umbugarla (Umbugarlan family), Limulngan and Wulna (unnamed family-level grouping), and Larrakiya (Larrakian), äs well äs Ngaduk, which died out without documentation. In fact, reasonably füll Information is only available for languages of the first four groups mentioned above. 3 Apart from Maung and Iwaidja, which are still being learned by children and which each boast somewhere between one and two hundred Speakers, all of the Iwaidjan languages have become extinct or severely endangered in the 150 years since European contact. 4 Wurrugu is no longer spoken (one man remembers a few words); Marrgu has one Speaker left; Amurdak has at most four Speakers; Garig/Ilgar four or five Speakers; and Manangkari at most a few Speakers. Sources on each language are listed in the Appendix; for discussion of the problems in assessing speakerhood in this area, see Evans (2000b). Note

5 Iwaidjan, a very un-australian language family 95 proto-iwaidjan Goulburn Is Wurrugu Marrgu Iwaidja Garig Ilgar Manangkari Maung Amurdak \ \l f l Figure 1. Family treefor the Iwaidjan languages in passing that some spellings of language names (Iwaidja, Maung) became established before the development of phonemic orthographies; phonemically these names should be iiva/a and mawug or mawq respectively. Early work on languages of this family concentrated on Iwaidja (Capell 1962; Pym & Lammore 1979) and Maung (Capell & Hinch 1970), though for no language of the family do we yet have a grammar or dictionary anywhere near the level of detail we now have for many Australian languages. Coupled with the lack of any significant research on some of these languages (particularly Wurrugu) and the incomplete nature of our knowledge of others (especially Marrgu and Amurdak), this makes it difficult to determine the genetic position of the "outer" languages (Wurrugu, Marrgu, and Amurdak) and, in the case of Wurrugu, even to be sure that it does belong 10 the Iwaidjan family (see Evans 1996a for an evaluation of the scanty evidence). However, a preliminary family tree is given in Figure l. As that tree implies, Garig and Ugar are very closely related sister dialects, Manangkari and Maung are said to be sister dialects (but we lack good materials on Manangkari at present), and the relation between Garig/ügar on the one hand, and Iwaidja on the other, sits on the boundary between divergent sister dialects and very closely related languages (Iwaidja Speakers to whom I have played Ilgar material are puzzled and cannot understand it clearly). An impression of the relative relatedness of the Iwaidjan languages compared to two of their neighbours from other families (the isolate wi, and Kunwinjku from the Gunwinyguan family) can be gained from Table l, which displays seven sample vocabulary items. Characteristic Iwaidjan etyma are dala/jaja/yaja for 'eye' (conditioned changes between the two laminal stops d and j, and lenition of either to y, are common in Australian languages), wunpu^un for 'eyebrow', wayap for 'elbow', Juli for 'foot' (presumably replacing an earlier form, j/yaqa still survivjng in Amurdak and Wurrugu, with

6 96 Nicholas Evans 1*3 P ^ fr s.?? 9 cj q q 333 ^ ^ί ^ iii -' ""ώϊ q* : ι «G,-^J :^ - s - * \.-i t ** κ K t Ϊ f l <υ s -5 l l s: ^>

7 Iwaidjan, a very un-australian language family 97 cognates outside Iwaidjan), (gu)rana for 'moon', (wu)lawd for 'long ago', and wubaj for 'water'. Of course, the degree to which shared vocabulary is taken äs evidence of genetic relatedness depends on assumptions about the degree to which borrowing leads to high levels of shared vocabulary between neighbouring languages. Dixon (1972, 1980, 1997) has argued that name taboo and multilingualism have led to such high levels of borrowing in Australia that vocabulary is a poor guide to genetic relatedness. Recently, however, a number of linguists have argued that the degree to which borrowing has affected Australian languages is far less radical than Dixon has claimed (see Alpher & Nash 1999), especially j if one controls for different degrees of basicness (see Black 1997), and that v ; i elevated levels of shared vocabulary due to borrowing are limited to special i t j conditions, such äs alliances between a small language group and a larger one (see Harvey (1997) on the special case of borrowing into Ngandi from Ritharrngu). Most Australianists are thus swinging back to seeing vocabulary äs a ; useful though not infallible index of genetic relatedness. Nonetheless, it remains true that similarities in shared mo hological paradigms remain a more reliable guide. The comparative morphology of the Iwaidjan languages is a complex field, owing to the reshaping of the pronominal prefixes with various collapses of formal categories that have yet to be traced fully, e.g., the simplification of an ancestral System of five genders for subject and object, still found in Maung, to simpler Systems in all remaining languages though with a number of fossilized elements, such äs the presence of mutation in Iwaidja (see Evans 1998), and the simplification of what is likely to have been an ancestral three-way distinction between 'neutral', 'towards', and 'away' forms of subject and subject/object prefixes, to a single set of prefixes in Maung and perhaps also Marrgu. The füll recovery of reconstructable forms from this paradigmatic jumble will take some time, but a number of clear form-meaning pairings are already emerging, such äs Ist plural ar-, future ba(na)-ma(na)- 9 and 'away' j(a)-. For illustrative purposes here, I confine myself to a much simpler case: the possessive prefixes found on some body part nouns (here I give the Singular forms only, which are the only ones we have sufficient comparable data for). Table 2 gives the forms in all languages except Wurrugu, for which we lack relevant data. As it shows, all Iwaidjan languages for which we have data exhibit the phenomenon in some form. Although in Marrgu many nouns have generalized the 3rd person prefix and now show possession by postposed free pronoun, at least the word 'seif retains the proto-iwaidjan prefix set. The Ist person form is so widespread in Australian languages that it cannot be regarded äs a distinctive Iwaidjan innovation and is more likely a shared retention; it is found, for example, äs the Ist person possessor marker on some body part nouns in Nyulnyul 1,500 km to the west in the Kimberleys (McGregor 1996),

8 98 Nicholas Evans Table 2. Shared possessive prefixes on bodyparts Ilgar/Garig 'foot' Iwaidja 'foot' Maung 'body' Amurdak 'foot' Marrgu 'foot' Marrgu 'seif' my your bis her ag-guli yi-luli yiji-juli ga-frli aq-guli Juli ga-qijalg nu-gijalg i-gijalg ifl-gijalg ga-yaga nu-yaga wi-yaga a ji-/u yi-/ud ιυφ" yi-jud qa-liuad aq-liuad iwuiad a wi- is the commonest 3SG prefix form in Amurdak, but (y)i- is found before labials, e.g., yi-wulya 'bis/her head', yi-ina/ja 'bis/her throat' (Handelsmann 1991: 52). and in Ndjebbana just to the east (McKay 1996). 3rd person Singular masculine prefixes of the form Ci-, and feminine prefixes of the form Ciji- are also widespread. But the 2nd person singular form, a(n)g- 5 in all languages except Maung 6 and Amurdak, is not found outside Iwaidjan and appears to be a distinctive Iwaidjan innovation. 3. Salient phonological features of Iwaidjan languages In this section I look at a number of typologically, areally, or genetically unusual features of Iwaidjan phonology, to do with phoneme inventory (Section 3.1) and morphophonemic changes (Section 3.2) Phonological inventory Table 3 gives the maximal phoneme inventory found across the Iwaidjan languages, together with an indication of which phonemes are restricted to particular languages, or only tentatively postulated at this stage pending fuller phonological analysis. Most Iwaidjan languages have just three vowels, without a length distinction (a, i, u). But Maung has a five-vowel System, adding e and o, predominantly in loan-words from the Gunwinyguan languages, which have five-vowel Systems. Like most Australian languages, all the Iwaidjan languages pair stops and nasals at each point of articulation. The maximal number of points of articulation, six, is fully deyeloped only in Marrgu; the other languages appear to lack the lamino-dental series, although in Ilgar it is marginally present in a couple of words that may be loans. Four features of the Iwaidjan phoneme System are unusual typologically or areally. First, in contrast with most of the languages of Arnhem Land, they have only a single stop series, lacking the length contrast found in language families like Gunwinyguan, Burarran, and the Yolngu branch of Pama-Nyungan.

9 Table 3. Iwaidjan consonant Systems Iwaidjan, a very un-australian language family 99 i! Stop Nasal Approximant Fricative Tap Trill Lateral Flapped c Lateral Bilabial Apico- Apico- Lamino- Lamino- Velar Alveolar Retroflex Dental palatal b m W d n r l I 4 d a nj a n t Jl v ( )' (K) 1 g i) a Marrgu only, apart from a couple of loanwords into the Iwaidjic langugages, such äs Dgar mudara or Maung mudararj 'pearlshell* < Makassarese and Malay mutiara 'id.* and Ilgar dariba *trepang' < Makassarese taripag 'trepang'; see Evans (1992: 55) on the reinterpretation of the Makassarase/Malay /t/ vs. /d/ contrast äs a /d/ vs. /d/ contrast in the Iwaidjan languages. l *"* 0 Phonemic Status not yet fully established. c Absent from Maung. Secondly, they lack a phonemic glottal stop, again typical of the Gunwinyguan, Burarran, and Yolngu groups (see Harvey 1991 and Evans 1995a). Both of these gaps in the phoneme inventory are shared with Tiwi and Umbugarla, and the lack of a stop contrast is shared with Gaagudju. In any case in both these respects Iwaidjan, though locally atypical (i.e., compared to the Arnhem Land Sprachbund), is continentally typical, since both glottal stops and length-contrasting stops are unusual in Australia äs a whole. Thirdly, the Iwaidjan languages have a phoneme that is normally characterized äs a velar fricative (see Capell & Hinch 1970: 17 on Maung and Pym & Larrimore 1979: 3 on Iwaidja). Sample phonemic contrasts with the corresponding stop are Garig yamug 'sandhill' vs. gamu 'mother', Ilgar wuryal 'end of wet season' vs. murgaj 4 fat', and Maung marga 'want to' vs. waiya 'flower'. The presence of a velar fricative phoneme is an areal feature of the Cobourg region and adjoining islands and coasts, since it is also found in Kunbarlang, to the east, and Tiwi, where it is definitely a fricative (Osborne 1974: 11 describes it äs "a very narrow aperture which results in audible local friction"). From the point of view of phonological typology, the appearance of äs the sole fricative phoneme is interesting since it goes against Maddieson's (1984) findings that if languages have one fricative phoneme, 7 it is most likely to be s. 8

10 100 Nicholas Evans The fourth and most outstanding feature of the ptioneme inventory of some Iwaidjan languages is their exceptionally rieh liquid inventory, with at least eight and possibly nine liquid phonemes in the Warrkbi languages, comprising three rhotics or "r-like phonemes" (Dixon 1980: 44), and five or six laterals. Where most Australian languages contrast two "rhotics"- an apical tap/trill r and a retroflex continuant j - Iwaidjan languages have three, adding a retroflex tap f (this is not unknown elsewhere in Australia, Warlpiri being a well-known example of a language with a similar three-way contrast). Iwaidja and Ilgar examples of a near-minimal rhotic triplet are maruji 'cabbage palm' (Iwaidja, Ilgar), maiu 'who' (Iwaidja) and maiüj 'left band' (Ilgar), and mapi/i 'bandicoot' (Iwaidja, Ilgar). In Maung the Situation here is unclear - Capell & Hinch (1970: 20) postulate all three, but the most recent Maung dictionary file to be lodged at the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (Hewett et al. 1994) does not represent a separate retroflex tap phoneme, though I am unaware of any written justification of the shift in analysis. The enlarged set of laterals - which appear to be restricted to the Warrkbi languages, Amurdak and perhaps Marrgu - is the product of two or possibly three places of articulation (apico-alveolar, apico-retroflex, and possibly lamino-palatal) multiplied by two manners, regulär and flapped. To exemplify the places of articulation first (this time from Ilgar alone), contrast malujuj 'black lipped oyster', yiyaju 'no', and uxuyuy 'rock mussel'. 9 The contrast between regulär and flapped articulations for the two apical positions is illustrated by Ilgar malun 'it burns' vs. malujuj 'black-lipped oyster' and yiyaju 'no' vs. ma\u 'wind', and a near-minimal pair between apico-alveolar and retroflex flapped laterals is shown by Ilgar and Garig ya[i 'scorpion' vs. yiyafi 'he is lying down'. Again, the evidence for a flapped palatal lateral phoneme is inconclusive äs yet, but a possible example is the Ilgar proper name m&argu. It should also be mentioned that flapped laterals, though sounding like a lateral plus a corresponding stop pronounced in rapid succession, contrast with actual lateral plus stop clusters; in the former case the whole flapped lateral is syllabified äs an onset, while in the latter the lateral is syllabified äs a coda and the stop äs an onset. An Amurdak example is a[awuj 'water' vs. afäawu 'no', syllabified respectively äs a$[a$wi/ and aj$cja$wu (Handelsmann 1991: 12). A last aberrant feature worth mentioning briefly, this time pertaining to Marrgu, concerns phonotactics. Unusually for Australian languages, 10 it allows words to begin with a syllabic nasal (e.g., ngawac[ 'language; eye' has been recorded both äs nda[a and da/a) and also a syllabic lateral (e.g., Igani 'now', though this alternates with ilgani). Given the many instances where Marrgu lacks a prefixed first syllable found in the Warrkbi languages, it is likely that this reflects the final residue of first syllable loss

11 Iwaidjan, a very un-australian language family Other morphophonological characteristics All the Iwaidjan languages exhibit extensive morphophonemic changes, both within the word and across wordboundaries. Internal morphophonemic changes need not be detailed here, but an idea of their extent can be gleaned from Table 2, illustrating the alternation, after different prefixes, of f with g and j (and with J in Iwaidja), and of g with g Initial mutation. In Iwaidja, and to a lesser extent in Marrgu, there has been a development of initial mutation, which is otherwise unknown among Australian languages. In certain circumstances the root-initial consonant is mu- I l tated when exposed in word-initial position. In Iwaidja the commonest condi-! j tion is 3rd person possessors of body parts (Table 4, upper half), 3rd Singular subjects of verbs (Table 4, lower half), and a few other subject-inflectable word? classes such äs some adjectives and prepositions. For comparison, the corre- I 'i sponding 3rd person plural forms which show the underlying form of the root are given, äs are the cognate constructions in Ilgar and Maung, which have not developed mutation. Example (5) illustrates a comparable process of mutation in Marrgu, this time found with the Ist inclusive form of some verbs; our understanding of the conditioning and extent of Marrgu mutation is at a much more rudimentary stage. (5) Marrgu a. ga-lawudi b. pi-lawudi c. 0-Jawudi 1-talk 2-talk " 3-talk " - 'Italk.' 'Youtalk' '(S)he talks.' d. dawudi 12.talk ' You and I talk.' The reasons for the development of initial mutation in Iwaidja are complex, and can only be given here in the most summary form (see Evans 1998 for more detailed discussion); at this stage we can say nothing about how Marrgu mutation developed. The appearance of Iwaidja mutation is tied up with the simplification and virtual loss of the ancestral five-gender System in Iwaidja: it seems that pre-iwaidja generalized the fifth, neuter gender (see Section 4.3). This neuter gender is signalled in Maung, the most conservative language in this regard, by a prefix ak-, where K represents a morphophoneme triggering changes of the following consonant, predominantly hardening to stops. Loss of the unstressed initial vowel in Iwaidja left only the morphophonemic change in place äs the mark of this prefix. 11 This development, for the word bawur 'his/her/its arm', is represented schematically in Table 5.

12 102 Nicholas Evans Table 4. Mutation in Iwaidja and corresponding, unmutatedforms in Ilgar and Maung Iwaidja Ilgar Maung a-mawur 3PL-arm 'their arms' bawur S.arm '(his/her/its) arm' a-mawur 3PL-arm 'their arms' yi-mawur 3.M-ann 'his/its arm' ifl-mawur 3.F-arm 'her arm' a-mawur 3PL-arm 'their arms' i-mawur 3.M-arm 'his/its arm' ifl-mawnr 3.F-arm 'her arm' abawur S.N.arm (<%ak-mawur%) 'its arm' a-maju 3PL-be.sick.NP 'They are sick.' baju 3.be.sick.NP '(He/she/it) is sick.' a-maju 3PL-be.sick.NP 'They are sick.' yi-majü 3.M-be.sick.NP 'He is sick.' iji-maju 3.F-be.sick.NP 'She is sick.' a-maju 3PL-be.sick.NP 'They are sick.' gi-maju 3.M-be.sick.NP 'He is sick.' giji-maju 3.F-be.sick.NP 'She is sick.' a-baju 3.N-be.sick.NP (<%ak-maju%) 'It is sick.' Table 5. Schematic representation ofthe development of initial mutation in Iwaidja 'his arm' 'her arm' 'its arm' proto-iwaidjic: füll 5-gender System i-mawur iji-mäwur a-bäwur pre-iwaidja: generalization of neuter form to cover other genders a-bäwur a-bäwur a-bäwur modern Iwaidja (following loss of initial vowel) bäwur bäwur bäwur

13 Iwaidjan, a very un-australian language family External sandhi. Further changes to initial elements occur in all Iwaidjan languages in connected speech through processes of external sandhi. These changes, which simplify C+C and V+V sequences and lenite stops, when these occur in intervocalic position across word boundaries within a prosodic phrase, can be illustrated by the following examples from Ilgar (6) and Maung (7, from Capell & Hinch 1970). (6) Ilgar a. amajiaga yiradad a-ma-ji laga yiradad, 1/3-get-PST DEM meat l got that meat.' b. jagarargbi laga ar-argbi DEM PLUR-man 'that man' c. malardügun malar lugun leaf yamspecies 'yamleaf' (7) Maung a. gargbin gabala gargbin gabala big boat 'big boat' b. ge abala gc gabala 'The boat goes.' c. mang gubuji mang gubuji NEG canoe 'not a canoe' d. mada wubuji mada gubuji DEM canoe 'the canoe' l Although such external sandhi processes operate extensively in all Iwaidjan languages, we so far lack any systematic study of how they relate to syntactic groupings. The Maung examples in Capell & Hinch (1970), reproduced above äs (7), suggest that the domain of external sandhi applies over something like "verbal group" or the "NP". Given the lack of any grammaticalized marking of argument role through either position or case (see Section 4), it is possible that

14 104 Nicholas Evans one way of distinguishing arguments of the verb from adjuncts is whether they can form a prosodic unit with the Verb, which is so far attested for arguments but not for adjuncts - (6a) is an example of an object doing this in Ilgar, and (7b) an example of a subject doing it in Maung. However a far greater corpus of natural Speech than we now have will be needed before we can assess this hypothesis. 4. Morphosyntactic typology j In this section I look at a number of key typological features of Iwaidjan morphosyntax. In Section 4.1 I summarize the basic grammatical type, with a particular emphasis on shared morphological characteristics of nouns, adjectives, and verbs, which partly obscure word-class differences without making them impossible to delineate. In Section 4.21 summarize the use of transitivity alternations (in the form of intransitive vs. transitive pronominal prefix sets) to encode causative, reflexive, and reciprocal constructions. In Section 4.3 I pass to another set of alternations among pronominal prefixes in the Warrkbi languages: what are diachronically object gender prefixes have been reanalysed, following the simplification of the gender System, into a set of object conjugations that mark rather elusive semantic relationships between related verbs (such äs 'eat' and 'drink'). In Section 4.4 I look at the phenomenon of verbs that encode kinship relationships, in Section 4.5 I examine impersonal constructions, and in Section 4.61 examine the expression of having and lacking, an area in which the Iwaidjan languages employ quite a different construction type to that found elsewhere in Australia. 4. l. Basic grammatical type All the Iwaidjan languages are head-marking, employ predominantly prefixation with only limited suffixation, have significanüy more complex morphology on the verb than on the noun, and lack any form of case marking on nominal arguments. Nor is phrase order used to distinguish grammatical relations. Instead, subject and object roles are determined from the pronominal prefixes to the verb. The intransitive pronominal prefixes found on verbs also appear on about half the nouns denoting body parts, on a small number of gender-paired nouns, and on some adjectives. Consider (8a-e), from Ilgar, which illustrate how changes in person and number are encoded on verb, body-part noun, and the noun for Old person'. Note that I only gloss number if it is non-singuiar. (8) Ilgar... V... a. qa-majü qa- wayaj l.abs-suffer.np 1-head have a headache (i.e., I suffer äs regards my head).'

15 Iwaidjan, a very un-australian language family 105 b. aq-maju ag-bayaj 2.ABS-suffer.NP 2-head 'You have a headache (i.e., you suffer äs regards your head).' c. iji-balgbaragan laga iji-maju i/i-bayaj 3.F-old.person DEM S.F.ABS-suffer.NP 3.F-head 'The old woman has a headache.' d. yi-walgbaragan laga yi-maju yi-waya/ 3.M-old.person DEM S.M.ABS-suffer.NP 3.M-head 'The old man has a headache.' e. a-walgbaragan laga a-maju a-wayaj 3PL-old.person DEM 3PL-suffer.NP 3PL-head 'The old people have headaches.' At first sight, examples like those above may suggest that words like 'little' and perhaps also Old person' are simply intransitive verbs (especially since, in other circumstances, the root ^/walgbaragan is translated äs 'lame'). However, there are a number of ways in which they can be distinguished from verbs, even though they share the same subject prefix set. Firstly, future prefixes are available with intransitive verbs but not with nouns and adjectives, e.g., one can use the future prefix (ma)na- to form qa-na-maju will suffer' but not ifl-mana-iijumaral 'she will be small' or a-na-walgbaragan 'they will be old people'; in order to apply the future prefix, adjectives and noun roots must first be verbalized by adding the inchoative suffix jimin, e.g., Ilgar iji-manawalgbaragaji-min 'he will be old/lame'. Similar points apply to the directional prefixes, which are only available with verbs. Some adjectives, such äs -iijumaral 'little', likewise agree in person and number with their referent. (9) Ilgar a. yi-iijumaral argbi yi-waralgan 3.M-little man 3.M.ABS-cry.NP 'The little man is crying.' b. yifl-jijumaral wuruwajba yifl-baralgan 3.F-little woman 3.F.ABS-cry.NP 'The little woman is crying.' c. a-fijumaral ar-argbi a-waralgan 3PL-little PLUR-man 3PL.ABS-cry.NP 'The little men are crying.' Moreover, only verbs are able to take transitive pronominal prefixes, which index both subject and object. 12 (Amurdak is an exception, indexing only subject by prefix, and object by enclitic; this. is discussed below.) These pronominal prefixes are ordered according to the two principles (i) l, 2 > 3, and (ii)

16 106 Nicholas Evans OBJECT > SUBJECT, of which the first is dominant, i.e., the second ordering principle only comes into play when both are 3rd person. Thus in (loa-c), in all of which both subject and object are 3rd person, the object prefix always precedes the subject prefix; these examples also illustrate the formal equivalence of the 3rd person Singular object prefixes with the intransitive set illustrated in (10) Ilgar a. wigalmu yi-wu-ialgun Jaga yiradad many 3.M.ABS-3PL.ERG-cut.NP DEM meat "They are cutting the meat.' b. jaga wuruwajba yi-qa-ialgun laga yiradad DEM woman 3.M.ABS-3.F.ERG-cut.NP DEM meat "That woman is cutting the meat.' c. yi-ni-ialgun jaga yiradad 3.M.ABS-3.M.ERG-cut.NP DEM meat 'He is cutting the meat.' On the other band, Ist and 2nd person prefixes always precede 3rd person prefixes, regardless of which is subject and object. (11) illustrates this phenomenon. (H) Ilgar a. a-ji-jalgun l.erg-3.f. ABS-CUt.NP am cutting her.' b. qan-qa-ialgun l.acc-3.f.erg-cut.np 'She is cutting me.' c. a-yun-dalgun l.erg-3pl. ACC-CUt.NP am cutting them.' d. qan-bu-ialgun l. ACC-3PL.ERG-CUt.NP 'They are cutting me.' In addition to position, there are formal differences in the prefix forms. Basically 3rd person Singular forms follow an ergative/absolutive marking pattern, Ist and 2nd singular and 3rd plural forms follow a tripartite System, while others follow a nominative/accusative System. Table 6 illustrates a subset of the Ilgar forms. In future glosses I will segment subject and object prefixes (äs in (10) and (11)) where this can be done clearly, but where it becomes involved or impossible I will gloss them äs portmanteaux.(e.g., 1/3PL 'Ist person singular subject acting on 3rd person plural object').

17 Iwaidjan, a very un-australian language family 107 Table 6. Sample Ilgarprefixforms, excerptedfrom the transitive prefix paradigm ISG 2SG 2PL llnc.pl 3.M 3.F 3PL (transitive subject) (intransitive subject) (object) a- gugurarjiiijabu- ija- a(n)g- gur- ar- i- iji- a- 5angungurunarunj- yi- an- When both subject and object are Speech act participants, one finds a ränge of unanalyseable suppletive forms (e.g., yan- '2/ ) or forms associated morphologically with just one participant (e.g., gun- /2'; gu is basically the form for '2' in transitive combinations, e.g., guny- '2/3.F' < %gu-iny-%). Aberrant morphological patterning for the combinations 1/2 and 2/1 is widespread in Arnhem Land languages (see Heath 1991). For recent discussion of the Maung pronominal prefix paradigm see Donohue (1998), which is marred by neglecting some crucial forms, and a rejoinder by Curnow (1999). Positioning of external NP arguments, äs mentioned above, is free. (12a) and (12b) illustrate OVS and SVO Orders in Garig. In many cases (e.g., (12a)) the person and number of the pronominal prefixes successfully disambiguates between possible readings, but when both are 3rd person of-the same gender and number, äs in (12b), this does not work and context, real-world knowledge and verbal semantics must be relied upon. (12) Garig a. wali; i-jj-acfbau iji-bajbaragan food 3.F.ABS-3.M.ERG-boil.NP 3.F-old.person 'The old woman is boiling food.' (OVS) b. i-wurwur arbi jalakajaj i-ni-qüiaq 3.M-young man spear 3.M.ABS-3.M.ERG-make.PST 'The young man made a spear.' (SVO) The initial prefixal position on verbs fürther encodes a three-way dkectional contrast in at least the Warrkbi languages. 13 (13) illustrates the three-way contrast with intransitive verbs, and (14) gives some transitive examples. The morphology of these forms is complex and it is not possible to analyse and segment them here, but we note the recurrent association of jia with 'towards' andy with 'away' in the Ist person Singular.

18 108 Nicholas Evans (13) Ilgar ' a. qa-na-wani ajbud 1-FUT-sit.NP beach TU sit/be on the beach.' b. jia-n-ija gubur TOWARDS.l-FUT-return tomorrow TU come back tomorrow.' c. ja-na-ja ajbud AWAY.l-FUT-go.NP beach TU go to the beach.' (14) Ilgar a. guna-ma jaga TOWARDS.2/3.M-take.iMP DEM 'You bring it!' b. yijbunqa-mafl AWAY.3.F.A.3PL.o-take.PST 'She took them away.' Amurdak (Handelsmann 1991) differs from the other Iwaidjan languages in not registering objects in the preflx System to the verb. Instead, it represents them by apronominal enclitic to the verb, äs in (15a). With objects, particularly inanimates, an alternative is to incorporate the root "body" after the verb (15b). Inco oration is otherwise unknown within Iwaidjan, in marked contrast to the very productive processes of incorporation found in its neighbours Tiwi (to the west across Dundas Strait) and the Gunwinyguan languages to the south and east. (There is, however, the possibility of prosbdic Integration of arguments immediately following the verb, äs discussed in Section ) (15) Amurdak a. urawuiug awudaganbu urawu^ug awur-jagan=wu 2DU 2DU.PST-see=3SG.OBJ 'You two saw him.' b. anjalu urudalg an-ya=[u unidalg l.pst-eat=body mudcrab ate the mudcrab.' (cf. jja-/u 'my body, nu-[u 'your body' etc.) We can riow summarize the mo hological possibilities of nouns, adjectives, and verbs, taking the Warrkbi languages äs canonical. Although, äs mentioned at the beginning of this section, the intransitive pronominal series shows identical forms across all three word classes, it is nonetheless easy to distinguish verbs from the rest once one looks at the whole set of morphological slots.

19 Iwaidjan, a very un-australian language family 109 Verbs have far and away the most complex possibilities. We have already exemplified the existence of prefixes for subject, object, and direction. We have also given, en passant, examples of a distinct prefix for future (see (13)); a more systematic pair is qawani sit, am' vs. ganawani will sit, be'. The complex of directional, subject, object (if transitive), and future (where relevant) forms a block at the left edge, whose internal segmentation is not always straightforward. Then comes the root, followed where needed by partial rightreduplication for repetitive aspect, then a reciprocal suffix (confined to a few verbs), then an obligatory suffix for tense/aspect/mood (cf. i-maju 'he is sick, he is dying', i-majugan 'he died'). 14 (16) summarizes the mo hological possibilities for verbs in Ilgar: (16) (Direc) SUBJ(:OBJ)(:FUT) ROOT (REDUP) (RECIP) Nouns and adjectives have much more limited possibilities. For both of these classes there is a division into prefixing and non-prefixing, and both have a rather irregulär ränge of plural Suffixes, the commonest forms being -ud and -ad. With nouns prefixes are limited to body parts and other nouns of representation (e.g., voice, shadow, name), in which case the prefix denotes the possessor, äs well äs a couple of gender-paired age terms such äs ^walgbaragan Old person' and ^/wurwur 'young person', where the prefix gives the number and gender of the referent; examples were given above. Even so, there are a good number of body part nouns (e.g., yapa 'eye') that do not take possessor prefixes. A few non-prefixing nouns form their plurals by partial left-reduplication: cf. argbi 'person, man'; ar-argbi 'people, men', and for a few nouns there are specialized plural prefixes, e.g., Iwaidja ufaggufa Old woman', war-ufaggufa Old women'. With adjectives the proportion of words taking prefixes is much higher, though there are a few (like Iwaidja mafan 'little') which don't. There is no obvious semantic principle behind which adjectives do not take prefixes. With adjectives, the prefixes denote the person, number, and gender of the referent; the prefixed form may function äs a main clausal predicate, äs an attributive, or äs a Substantive in its own right, without the need for an overt head. Some Iwaidja examples, mostly drawn from Pym & Larrimore (1979), are: (17) Iwaidja a. ga-widbaragan 1-white (i) Tm white.' (ii), the white one'

20 110 Nicholas Evans b. a-widbaragan-ud 3-white-PLUR (i) "They are white.' (ii) 'they white ones' c. buruli walij 3.good food 'goodfood' : d. ag-buruli 2-good (i) 'You're good/ (ii) 'you, the good one' e. gud-burul-ad 2PL-good-PLUR (i) 'You (pl) are good.' (ii) 'you good ones' (18) summarizes these possibilities for different types of nouns and adjectives: (18a) is the pattern for prefixing nouns (mostly body parts) and most adjectives, (18b) for non-prefixing nouns (i.e., most other nouns) and adjectives (a very few only), (18c) for a very few plural-prefixing nouns: (18) a. (pronominal prefix) ROOT (plural) b. ROOT (plural) c. (plural prefix) ROOT (plural) In most Iwaidjan languages possessive NPs do not receive any overt marking other than juxtaposition. There is no genitive marker, pronouns have the same form when used äs possessor (19a) äs when used äs subject (19b) or object, and apart from the special case of prefixed body parts, discussed above, the head does not receive any marking for possessor. (19) Ilgar a. gabi wunag, gabi malülguj 1SG country ISG island 'mycountry, my islands' b. jaga gabi ga-yirag a-na-wura a-na-malalgu that ISG 1-self l/3.m-fut-tie.np l/3.m-fut-cook.np magalbijuju turtle TU take that turtle myself, tie it up, and cook it.' For pronouns to have the same form whether used äs subject, object, or possessor, äs with gabi in (19a-b), is a general feature of the Iwaidjan languages (and contrasts strongly with the Situation with most Australian languages, which have clearly different possessive forms). The multifunctional r

21 Iwaidjan, a very un-australian language family 111 which has the same form and functional ränge in Ilgar, Iwaidja, and Garig, is parallelled by the behaviour of gacjab, me, my' in Marrgu. Other person/number values behave similarly. However, the two Iwaidjan languages at the south-east extremity of the Iwaidjan area have specific possessive alternatives, though optional in each case. In Amurdak there is a special possessive pronoun series, formed by adding the 3rd Singular pronoun wajyag to the cardinal pronoun form, thus gayiwa, me' but gayiwapjag 'my, mine', e.g., uiuwajba[u gayiwapjag 'my wife'. However, it is equally acceptable (and in fact commoner) to use the cardinal form äs a possessive, e.g., gayiwa ufuwajbaju (Handelsmann 1991: 50). In Maung, which has a well-developed System of gender agreement marked on article-like demonstratives, there is a special construction for encoding possession, in which both the possessor and the possessed are preceded by the article, inflected for the gender of the possessed noun - e.g., vegetable for 'ear', and masculine for 'bag' (Capell & Hinch 1970: 60). (20) Maung a. mada gabi mada largalg V.ART ISG V.ART ear. v 'my ear' b. ja ijianad ja yagafi M.ART 3SG.F 'her bag' M.ART bag 4.2. Use of alternative prefixesfor transitivity alternations»» We have already seen that in the Warrkbi languages the argument prefixes have distinct forms with intransitive and transitive verbs. Substitution of intransitive prefixes by transitives, or vice versa, is used for a ränge of diathesis-altering functions in all the Iwaidjic languages (for an early discussion of this phenomenon in Maung, see Capell & Hinch 1970: 80-84). For most construction types no further marking is employed. Although such alternations are well-known in languages such äs English, they stand out äs unusual in Australia, where changes in transitivity are usually signalled overtly by applicatives, causative affixes, and so forth: "every verb in an Australian language is strictly transitive - occurring with subject (A) and object (O) NPs - or strictly intransitive - occurring just with a subject (S) core NR It is usually a simple matter to determine transitivity" (Dixon 1980: 378). 15 The existence of such zero-marked alternations in transitivity is therefore a typological anomaly in Australian (though not in world) terms, and merits discussion here. The main functions are: (i) REFLEXIVE PROM TRANSITIVE VERB: intransitive prefix series substituted for transitive, optionally followed by reflexive pronoun series.

22 112 Nicholas Evans» (21) Ilgar ' gabi ga-ialgnn ga-yirag laga mapjawag ISO lsg.abs-cut.pr ISG-self DEM knife Ί cut myself with a knife.' (cf. l SG.ERG form a- in (19b) above) > (22) Maung a. geyan ja arargbi l/3.m.see.np M.ART man Ί see the man.' (Capell & Hinch 1970: 81) b. gayan duga bad mag l.abs.see.np N.DEM miitor Ί look at myself in the mirror.' (ii) DERIVATION OF CAUSATIVES (all Iwaidjic languages). In this case, basic intransitive verbs replace their usual intransitive prefix by a transitive. Although in some cases the meaning difference is purely the causal element, s in (23)-(25), in other cases there is additional semantics, s with the derivation of 'leave' from 'lie' by using transitive prefixes with the root yali 'lie' in (26); in Iwaidja the corresponding verb a/u means 'lie' with an intransitive prefix and 'wait for' with a transitive prefix. 16 (23) Ilgar a. jagabaja ip-malgba-fl muryalal then 3.F.ABS-emerge-PST outside 'Then she came outside.' b. yi-ga-malgba-fl 3.M.ABS-3.F.ERG-take.OUt-PST 'She took him outside.' (24) Iwaidja a. ji-ifa-n TOWARDS.l-return-PST ' γ 'Ireturned.' '-*r' b. j2a(j[-i[a-ii TOWARDS.l/3-return-PST Ί brought it back.' (25) Maung a. jnada gubuji mamirgbulgan V.ART canoe 3.v.ABS.overturn.NP 'The canoe overturns.' (Capell & Hinch 1970: 85) b. mada gubuji gajiamirgbulgan V.ART canoe l/3.v.overturn.np Ί overturn the canoe.' (Capell & Hinch 1970: 85)

23 Iwaidjan, a very un-australian language family 113 (26) Ilgar a. galawubu i/i-aä gurbalud, iji-maju-gan Ngalawubu S.F.ABS-lie.NP Lawson.Island 3.F-die-PST iji-ali wurbalud S.F.ABS-lie.NP Lawson.Island 'Ngalawubu, (her body) lies on Lawson Island, she died at Lawson Island and she lies there.' b. a-na-yafi gubur l/3.m-fut-lie.np tomorrow TU leave it for tomorrow.' (iii) RECIPROCAL FROM TRANSITIVE VERB: intransitive prefix series substituted for transitive, but in this case there is an additional marker in the form of a reciprocal suffix -ji/ifiii (this is the non-past form). An Iwaidja example (Pym & Larrimore 1979: 78-79) is: (27) Iwaidja... a. bu-ialgu-n 3PL/3-CUt-NP 'They cut it.' b. a-ialgun-jili-n 3S-CUt-RECIP-NP 'They fight each other with spears.' (lit. cut each other) In the next section we shall see how additional derivations of lexical verb meaning can be signalled by a switch in "subcategorized object prefix" of the verb, and how, despite the loss of productive gender-marked object agreement in the Warrkbi languages, relict object gender markers remain äs a way of signalling a ränge of alternations in verb meaning, more or less relatable to differences in object type The reduction of gender agreement and the development of subcategorized object prefixes There is evidence that proto-iwaidjic 17 had five genders, marked on modifiers (demonstratives, adjectives) and on the verb (subject and object). Only Maung still has this System in füll (the initial g- prefixes on the verb appear to be a Maung innovation). (28) illustrates the Operation of gender agreement with intransitive subjects across the five genders (masculine, feminine, vegetable, neuter, and miscellaneous, though the semantic principles are in fact more complex). 18

24 114 Nicholas Evans (28) Maung a. ja ilijab ja arargbi g-i-wani M.ART M.small M.ART man FRES-3.M.S-sit 'That small man sits.' b. jida nijialijab jida waramugbig g-ip-bani F.ART F.small F.ART woman pres-3.f.s-sit 'That small woman sits.' c. mada ma-lijab mada wajg ga-ma-wani V.ART v-small V.ART tree pres-3.v.s-sit 'That small tree sits.' d. da wu-lijab da gunag g-ag-bani N.ART N-small N.ART camp PRES-3.N.S-sit 'That small camp sits (i.e., there is a small camp).' e. da awa-lijab da walij g-a-bani MIS.ART Mis-small MIS.ART food pres-3.mis.s-sit 'That small (amount of) food sits.' (Verb is underlyingly %g-akwani%) The same System of agreement applies with objects, äs illustrated in (29), with masculine subjects in the left band column and feminine (and other) subjects in the right hand column. (29) Maung a. yi-ni-wug a f. yi-ga-wug 3.M.O-3.M.A-hit 3.M.O-3.F.A-hit 'He hit him.' 'She hit him.' (also used if subject is in v, N, or MIS class) b. yiji-i-wug b'. yiji-ga-wug 3.F.O-3.M.A-hit 3.F.O-3.F.A-hit 'He hit her.'. 'She hit her.' (also used if subject 5 is in v, N, or MIS class).c. ma-ni-wug c'. ma-ga-wuq 3.v.o-3.M.A-hit 3.v.o-3.F.A-hit 'He hit it (v).' 'She (etc.) hit it (v).' d. a-ni-wug d'. a-ga-wug 3.N.ö-3.M.A-hit 3.N.O-3.F.A-hit 'He hit it (N).' 'She (etc.) hit it (N).' (prefixes are underlyingly %ag-ni% and %ag-ga% respectively) e. [form not attested] e'. a-ga-wug 3.MIS.O-3.F.A-hit - 'She (etc.) hit it (MIS).' (prefix is underlyingly %ak-ga%)

25 Iwaidjan, a very un-australian language family 115 Table 7. Collapse of proto-iwaidjan gender Systems in Iwaidja and Ilgar/Garig (simplified) Ilgar/Garig Proto-Iwaidjan and Maung Iwaidja 3SG.ABS 3SG.ABS 3SG.ABS MIS F J/l- F //!- M y/- M v N y/- maaqak- -(a/u)k The Warrkbi languages have all simplified this System. In terms of actual agreement, Ilgar and Garig have retained the masculine and feminine genders (left hand side of Table 7), while Iwaidja has generalized the miscellaneous gender (right hand side of Table 7), which appears äs -uk when ordered after other prefixes, and äs K (i.e., äs a trigger for initial mutation) when in initial Position (Section 3.2.1). Thus Iwaidja uses the form bani for 'he/she/it sits', regardless of gender, äs compared to awani for 'they sit'. 19 Ilgar and Garig retain gender agreement for just the masculine and feminine genders (see (8) and (9) above for examples). In these varieties the old vegetable and neuter genders survive with just a few verbs (30). (30) Ilgar a. ma-iu mi[ag 3.MA.ABS-smoke grass 'The grass is smouldering.' b. ma- jaga a[ir S.MA.ABS-stand DEM tree 'There is a tree.' c. ma-iaramarj milag 3.MA.ABS-burn grass 'The grass is burning.' d. jaga gabal aij-btfimbiji DEM iloodplain 3. ANG.ABS-dry.up 'The iloodplain has dried up.' Although the vegetable and neuter gender object prefixes no longer function productively in Iwaidja, Ilgar, and Garig, their forms have been retained with some verbs and function äs what I shall call "subcategorized object prefixes", for want of a better term. Since these no longer function äs gender they will here simply be glossed by form, i.e., ANG (reflecting the old neuter gender) and MA (reflecting the old vegetable gender).

26 116 Nicholas Evans In terms of their syntactic function, these prefixes ränge from genuine absolutive (S/O) arguments, through cognate objects/subjects, to derivational affixes adding in a particular modification of the event description, to purely formal markers that are subcategorized for by particular verb roots. The more argument-like uses are found where the type of absolutive argument can be related to the original semantics of the relevant gender, äs applied to a particular type of object: typically ANG for 'water' (31 a, 33a, c), 'ground, earth' (32a, b), and 'abstract/language/thought' (34), and MA for 'food' (31b, 33b, d) and 'plant, bush' (35). According to the verb, the ANG prefix may be automatically required with a particular meaning (e.g., with (31a)) or may be only used when the object belongs to a particular semantic category - cf. the use of ANG with 'ground, place' äs an object in (32b), with the use of the regulär masculine and feminine object prefixes in (32c, d) when the object is human. In many cases the best translation is with an English intransitive verb; Capell (1962) described it äs the use of the ANG prefix for "transitive verbs which do not have a specified object prefix" (Capell 1962: 148) or, with the verb 'know', where the object is "something undefined or referred to in a preceding Statement" (Capell 1962: 137). (31) Iwaidja a. aq-bu-hjbun 3.ANG.ABS-3SG/PL.A-collect.water.NP 'He/she/they collect water.' b. mam-bu-marun MA.O-3.A-eat.NP 'He/she/they eat (food).' (32) Ilgar a. ag-bu-yawun 3.ANG.ABS-3.A-dig.NP 'They are digging (the ground).' b. aq-b-ayan 3.ANG.ABS-3.A-see.NP t 'They're looking at the place.' c. i-w-ayan 3.M.ABS-3.PL-ERG-see.NP 'They're looking at him.' d. iji-b-ayan ' F.ABS-3.PL-ERG-See.NP 'They're looking at her.' (33) Garig a. a-fl-iia 3.ANG-3.M.A-eat.NP 'Hedrinks.'

27 hvaidjan, a very un-australian language fatnily 117 b. f-n-ffa 3.M.ABS-3.M.ERG-eat.NP *Hc eats.' c. a-;j-/ja 3.ANG.ABS-3.F.ERG-eat.NP 4 She drinks/ d. i-g-ifa 3.M.ABS-3.F.ERG-eat.NP 4 She cats/ (34) Ilgar a. gur-uij-burun 2PL.A-3.AN f G.ABS-know.NP 4 You (pl.) know' b. a-ni-wunin 3.ANG.ABS-3.M.ERG-knOW.NP 4 He knows.' (< %a/j-ni-wurun%) (35) Ilgar a. /na-n-urun 3.MA.ABS-3.M.ERG-make.fire 4 He's burning off (the bush)/ b. ma-g-ürun 3.MA.ABS-3.F.ERG-make.fire "She^s burning off (the bush).' In other cases the subcategorized object prefix forms a lexical pair with a Standard transitive verb (i.e., one where the object prefix manifests proper agreement in person/number/gender) and/or an intransitive verb (see Section 4.2 above). Thus in Dgar and Iwaidja -ünma, with an intransitive prefix, means c try' (36a), with a Standard transitive prefix it means 'count, mark, assess' (36b), and with an ANG- object prefix it means 4 tell a story' (36c). (36) Dgar a. iaga gindi ga-n-unma-n DEM whatfor l.abs-fut-try-np 4 I'm going to try (for something).' b. a-n-unma lalya, yi-walawudin, la/3.m-fut-assess.np sea S.M.ABS-be.full.NP ad-ban-ugan Jäga maqalbijuju lpl-fut-look.for.np DEM turtle Tm going to check the tide, when it's füll we'll look around for turtles/

28 118 Nicholas Evans c. aq-gan-unma laga iji-bani, r bigu l/3.ang-fut-tell.np DEM 3.F-sit.NP what y-ija-maji, 3.F.ABS-3.F.ERG-get.PST mudcrab «T* Fm going to teil the story about her, what did she catch, crab?' Some verbs with subcategorized object prefixes adjoin a further word after the verb äs part of a complex lexeme. Consider the root -ma 'get, grasp, hold, have', which with an ANG object means 'understand' (i.e., 'grasp (abstract)'), and when further combined with the word guwa, normally an ad verb meaning 'true', it means 'believe' (i.e., 'hold for true; understand to be true'): (37) Ilgar yiyalu a-ni-maq guwa NEG 3.ANG.O-3.M.A-get.NP true 'He doesn'tbelieve (it).' It is likely that the System of subcategorized object prefixes developed in the following way. First there would have been regulär gender agreement, Maungstyle, äs discussed above. In a second stage, certain verb lexemes would regularly have combined with specified gender prefixes that represented predictable semantic categories for the particular verb meaning. Finally, with the loss of a productive System of gender agreement in the Warrkbi languages, the object prefixes would have become paradigmatically stranded, and effectively reanalysed äs a (discontinuous) part of the verb lexeme, resulting in a System where the one verbal slot hosts filiers of two types: both gender agreement (masculine and feminine object prefixes) and a sort of derivational marker that is conjugationally determined by the verb. It is possible that more detailed study of Maung will reveal that the second stage is actually found there, in the sense of particular verb lexemes licensing a sort of cognate object use of certain gender prefixes. Howeyer, an actual example of a language spanning stages l and 2 is furnished by Gaagudju, spoken just to the south east of the Iwaidjan family (Harvey 1992: ). Gaagudju has a typical Australian four-gender System (masculine, feminine, vegetable, and neuter), cross-referenced in both subject and object slots on the verb. An example.of regulär gender agreement with a vegetable-class noun djaamu 'tucker (food)' is (38). (38) Gaagudju djaamu ma-rree-yaba=yu tucker 3.v.ABS-l.ERG-send.PP=3.iO sent the tucker to her.' (Harvey 1992: 336)

29 Iwaidjan, a very un-australian language family 119 In other cases, however, object pronominal prefixes reflect lexicalized choices of the vegetable and neuter prefixes, with varying degrees of possible linkage to actual nouns with which agreement can be postulated: in a case like (39a) the vegetable prefix could be analysed äs agreeing with an ellipsed vegetable-gender noun maba'laala 'corroboree, song', and in (39b) the neuter prefix could be analysed äs agreeing with an ellipsed neuter-class noun dja'gaardu 'language, noise, word'. (39) Gaagudju a. ma-nga-n-barläa-bu 3.V.ABS-3.M.ERG-FUT-sing-AUX 4 He will sing.' (Harvey 1992: 338) b. gu-nga-n-baläa-bu 3.N.ABS-3.M.ERG-FUT-talk-AUX 'He will talk.' (Harvey 1992: 338) But in other cases there is no clear-cut noun responsible for triggering agreement. An example is (40), in which the choice of neuter object prefix with the verb ga'lamarrwa 'to be jealous^ cannot be linked to any clear referent, and the gu- neuter prefix "must simply be analysed äs lexicalised" (Harvey 1992: 340). (40) Gaagudju gu-nga-n-ga *leemarr-wa=nu 3.N.ABS-3.M.ERG-FUT-jealous-AUX=3.M.IO 'He will be jealous of him.' It appears that Amurdak has taken the process of lexicalizing these prefixes even further, to the point where they have simply become conjugationallydetermined prefixes of particular verbs. Thus while most verbs have 1SG past prefix a-, the verb ^/miyalma 'want' takes a lsg prefix of form aqa- (Handelsmann 1991: 71). This is reminiscent of the use of the ANG prefix in the Warrkbi languages with the cognate verb miyarmag 'want': cf. Iwaidja aqmiyarmajj like (something undefined)' (where ag represents the combination 1/3 ANG) but abiyarmag yiradad like meat', where the initial sequence ab derives from prefixal ak- (1/3) plus miyarmai) (example orthographically adapted from Capell 1962: 137). On the basis of the material we have on Amurdak, it appears that it has simply reanalyzed the ANG forms of the prefixes äs conjugationally-determined by some verbs. Combined with the generalization of the directional forms äs conjugationally-determined by other verbs, such äs 'go' (see examples (13) and (14) above), this has given rise to an extremely complicated set of alternative prefixal forms in Amurdak. 20

30 120 Nicholas Evans 4,4, Klnxhlp verbs We now pass lo a fcaturc of thc Iwaidjan languages that it has dcvclopcd morc fully than any othcr subgroup in Australia, and that, apart from in the Iwaidjan languagcs, appcars to bc rcstrictcd to a fcw languagc familics of North America: 21 thc usc of morphological vcrbs to cxprcss kinship rclations äs well äs a fcw othcr social rclationships likc 'lovcr' and 'boss'. 22 This formulation on thc rcstrictcd naturc of kinship vcrbs crosslinguistically discounts such uscs äs English His girlfrien d mothers Hirn, He fathered a child, or Don't "uncle" me! 9 nonc of which cxprcss pure kinship rclations, Thc first rcfcrs to a bchaviour typical of kin, and notc that the subject nced not bc an actual mothcr, Thc sccond rcfcrs simply to thc act of biological begetting, with no ncccssary implication of a subscqucnt social rclationship, and the usagc is not availablc with othcr kinship rclations (*He uncleda child). Thc third is a spccial quotativc usc of addrcss terms, that is not confincd to kinship tcrms - cf. Don't "darlinx" mef. To qualify äs a languagc with truc kinship vcrbs, I would arguc, thcy should cxprcss a pure kinship relationship, in thc sensc of combining social and biological clemcnts (i.e., K, rathcr than 'call K', 'act like a K*, etc.) and kinship vcrbs should bc usablc to cxprcss most kinship relations (äs opposcd to just "bcget", for cxample). Again lack of data outsidc the Iwaidjic subgroup of Iwaidjan means wc will coniinc our discussion to Iwaidja and Ilgar/Garig, though Maung also exhibits this phenomenon and thcre is suggestive data from Amurdak äs well, 23 In all of thc Iwaidjic languagcs, although kinship nouns exist, primarily for ADDRESS, thc normal way of REFERRINO to kin is with words which havc virtually thc füll ränge of inflcctional possibilitics of canonical transitive verbs. For virtually cvcry "downward" kinship relation K therc is a single verbal root covcring K (and K's sibling). Pronominal prcfixcs disambiguate thcsc various interprctations, Considcr thc following Ilgar cxprcssions (thc nominal cquiva- Icnts uscd primarily in addrcss contcxts arc givcn in brackets): i (41) ; Ilgar a. ijnn-ijn-wulmj l.o-3.f.a-bc.mothcr.to.np 'my mothcr' (shc is mother to mc) (cf. nominal gamu 'mother') b. - -wti/mj l.o-3.m. A-bc.mothcr.to.NP 'my matcrnal unclc' (he is (äs a) mothcr to me) (cf. nominal yaja 'unclc') c. a-wu/w/ l,a/3.m,o-be.mothcr.to.np 'my son (fcmalc Speaker), my sistcr's son (male Speaker)' (cf. nominal ijawiji 'child') l

31 Iwaidjan, a very un-australian language family 121 d. ap-bulaq l.a/3.f.o-be.mother.to.np 'my daughter (female Speaker), my sister's daughter (male Speaker)' (cf. nominal ijawiji 'child') e. ayun-bulag l.a/3pl.o-be.mother.to.np 4 my children (female Speaker), my sister's children (male Speaker)' (cf. nominal gawijjun '(female speaker's) children')! As these examples illustrate, there is a fundamental difference in how nominal and verbal kin terms work. In both cases they represent a two-place predicate (X be K to Y), but in the case of nominals used äs address terms the two arguments are not explicitly encoded: X is taken to be the hearer and the Speaker (e.g., gamu '(you who are) (my) mother'). In the case of kinship verbs both arguments are represented explicitly; the argument linkage is set up so it is always the senior kin who is the subject and the junior kin the object. Either subject or object can be the pivot of the verb, i.e., the referent of the expression, leaving the remaining argument to be the propositus or "anchor". 24 For example, in (41 a) the reading 'my mother' is obtained by taking the subject äs the referent (shown in bold) and the object äs the anchor - lit. '(the one such that) SHE is mother to me', while in (41c) the reading 'my son' is obtained by taking the object äs the referent and the subject äs anchor, lit. '(the one such that) I am mother TO HIM'. In general, if one argument is 3rd person and the other is a Speech act participant, the 3rd person argument is taken äs Üie referent and the other äs the anchor, äs in (42). (42) Ilgar gabi a-ji-maga-n yi-ga-wu-n 1SG l.erg-3.f.abs-be.husband.to-np 3.M.ABS-3.F.ERG-hit-NP yi-murarj ijiaili 3.M-big yam 'My wife is digging up a big yam (lit, (the one such that) I am husband to her, she is digging up a big yam).' Where both arguments are 3rd person there is more scope for ambiguity; two strategies for deciding which is the referent (neither foolproof) are: (i) juxtaposition of a pronoun, interpreted äs being in possessive function and therefore the anchor; in Ilgar/Garig but not Iwaidja the 3rd person Singular pronouns distinguish gender so this can distinguish 'his wife' from 'her husband' (43a); (ii) juxtaposition of some other descriptive material, such äs an adjective like 'little', to distinguish such terms äs older vs. younger sibling (43b).

32 122 Nicholas Evans (43) Ilgar» a. yiji-i-yalma~q anad 3.F.ABS-3.M.ERG-search.for-NP 3SG.M iji-i-maga-n 3.F.ABS-3.M.ERG-be.husband.to-NP 'He is looking for bis wife.' b. yi-q-adbu 3.M.ABS-3.F.ERG-find.NP yi-ni-wujagbu 3.M.ABS-3.ERG-be.older.brother.to.NP 3.M-small 'She finds the younger brother (lit., she finds (the one such that) he is older sibling to him, (namely) the small one).' This possibility of taking either subject or object äs pivot is a general feature of relativized verbs in these languages, which is simply carried over to kinship verbs in this particular case. Examples of the same phenomenon with other types of verb are given below: (44) illustrates a subject pivot, and (45) an object pivot. As these examples illustrate, the relativized verb may be preceded by a demonstrative pronoun, äs with laga ma-ni-iarurug in (44), but need not be, äs qanflayan yijibani in (45) illustrates. Kinship verbs exhibit a comparable optionality with regard to whether some overt marker of relativization is needed for them to be used referentially, although in general they have more freedom to occur without overt markers of nominalization than less lexicalized relativizations such äs those in (44a) and (44b). Examples with a preposed pronoun are (42), (43a), and (46a), while examples with no overt marker of nominalization are (43b) and (46b). (44) Ilgar a. maqu laga ma-ni-iaruruq lagaga qabi who DEM 3.V.ABS-3.M.ERG-burn.NP DEM.PL 1SG i'v v. wunag jaga malalguj? country DEM islands 'Who's that who's burning off my country and islands there?' b. qanji-aya-n yiji-bani maqu laga wuruwajba? lpl/3.f-see-np S.F.ABS-sit.NP who DEM woman 'Who's that woman who we can see sitting there?' Returning to the impact of the choice of wordclass (verbal vs. nominal kin terms) on the structure of the lexicon, the possibility of taking either subject or object of relativized verbs äs referent means that the number of lexical roots for kinship relations can be economized on. This is partly done, äs we have seen, by confining them to senior terms (grandfather, mother, older sibling, etc.),

33 Iwaidjan, a very un-ausiralian languagefamily 123 and gctting thc corresponding junior tcrm (grandchild, child, younger sibling, etc.) by taking the objcct äs rcfercnt. And crosslinguistically, it is striking that languagcs with kinship vcrbs almost always structurc thcir kinship lexicon in this way, using only roots for senior kin relations (see Evans 2000a). A furthcr rcduction in Ihc number of roots required follows from the possibilities of marking gender for both subjcct and object, which allows one to treat such pairs äs 'brother, sister', *son, daughter', 'mother, mother's brother' and so on äs gender-specific variants of a single more abstract structural position in the kinship System. (In Australian kinship terminologies it is normal to treat all siblings äs structurally equivalent at some level of analysis - see Scheffler 1978 for a classic treatment.) Table 8 illustrates how these economies work for four sample kinship relationships. So far our Illustration of verb-like morphology for these words has been confined to thc subject/object prefixes, which äs we saw in Scction 4.1 are confincd to verbs. 25 Howcver, it is also the case that kinship verbs can productively vary the value expressed by future prefixes and suffixal inflections, though the scmantics of kinship relations naturally limits the frequency with which this happens. Two examples of this usage are (45), illustrating the use of a future prefix in Iwaidja, and (46), illustrating the use of the past suffix in Ilgar and Iwaidja. With the affinal terms like 'husband/wife' the past tense can be translated äs cithcr 'ex-' or Mate', while with consanguineal terms it can only bc translatedas Mate'. (45) Iwaidja a. tjabi a-bana-majyarwu-n ISO 1/3-FUT-be.father.to-NP *my future son (e.g. f if wife is expecting a son)' or father.' b. bana-wiuagbu-n 3/3.FUT-be.older.sibling.to-NP '(When he's born,) he'll be his younger brother.' (46) a. Ilgar jagabaja yi-wu-wu- Jjabi that 3.M.ABS-3PL.ERG-kill-PST l SO will be his a-maiyarwu-p aijmun-majiargbu-n jaga l/3.m-be.father.to-pst 2/3PL-clean.out-NP DEM ar-argbi PLUR-person f A father is summoning up a cloud of poisonous gas to avcnge his son's dcath:] 'Bccause thcy killcd my late son (i.e., the one whom I was father to), you clean out thosc pcople.'

34 124 Nicholas Evans g c ο & o.8- S* Λ t o g 00 O ~ s M S, co *^Λ C <D 3 ω) o g ^ o t3 >* ajimagan 'my wife (ilgumu) sg es & ~* 0 g >> ε ^ o s JS, J oj j- s t s~> o ^ co 3 "U, Sw ε s C\J ^ >^ co C M t-l <υ s " o * > «H l p 'EP 3 - C 1Γ d co ^ «Λ g C M S * Ι i l s s ~ g * M C/3?3 t-i (D s s * l c*»? 2 Ja, " ^ s s 5) * s:»** Q C g ^^4 ^^ c: a bo.ss c? c«** *- x^ 1s? ^,f i * ijangamaga 'my husban & JA " 'S!ί ^ % *> tis -** -s: v. l-i (υ o t-g' il & 3 11 S) -S g 3 g i-e 1 s5-3»-< c fl) ^ a ^} jj* 00 g v -S ^-4 r* JD δ.03 O H s: o ing o Me o W.S 33 C! *^ a h a o 2 l 'S% l-i <υ v* &* «M "^^ es

35 Iwaidjan, a very un-australian language family 125 b. Iwaidja ji-maga-ndug 3.M/3-be.husband.to-PST 'bis ex-wife, his late wife' (Pym & Larrimore 1979: 58-S9) 26 Up till now we have concentrated on the features that show these words to be verbs on morphological grounds. What about their syntax? Here we face the general problem of giving syntactic criteria for distinguishing nouns from verbs in the Iwaidjan languages. These problems stem from the lack of obligatory determiners that can be used to argue for NP äs a unit, the freedom with - which all major word classes (noun, adjective, and verb) can be used both * äs predicates and äs referring expressions (the optionality of determiners like * i 'that' or 'my' when verbs are used äs headless relatives was discussed above), : and the lack of formal distinction between possessive and core-argument use of pronouns like gabi, me, my' in (46a). Should the phrase gabi amajyarwuji \ in (46a) be analysed syntactically äs '(the one such that) I (gabi) was father to him', or äs 'my (gabi) one-that-i-fathered-him'? Such indeterminacies are common in polysynthetic languages (cf. Sasse 1991, 1993), and at this stage even the possibility of a probabilistic analysis is ruled out by the very limited textual corpus that we have so far for any of these languages. We are therefore unable to make clear arguments at this stage regarding the syntactic, äs opposed to morphological, Status of kinship verbs. Impressionistically, however, it is striking that their argument use (äs in all the examples given so far) seems to be commoner than their predicate use, äs in (47a), and in fact kinship nouns seem to be preferred in predicate use (e.g., (47b)), except in non-present contexts where the possibility of marking on kinship verbs favours the verbal construction, e.g., (45b). 27 (47) Ilgar a. iji-anad iji-i-maga-n F-3SG 3.F.ABS-3.M.ERG-be.husband.to-NP 'She is his wife.' (Lit. 'she, he is husband to her') b. jaga nuyi gamu, gabi gamu jaga DEM 2sG mother 1SG mother DEM 'That one's your mother, my mother is this one.' The attentive reader will note that the apparent structure of the kinship verb predicate use in (47a), with a pronoun followed by a verb, parallels that of the first two words of (40), which receive an argumental Interpretation. What are the clues to these differences in Interpretation? It appears that the two major cues are (i) broader discourse context, in terms of what is new and what is given Information, (ii) prosody, with two prosodic phrases being used for

36 126 Nicholas Evans the subject-predicate structure in (47a) but a single'phrase for the referringexpression structure in (42). It seems likely, therefore, that a satisfying account of how predicate vs. argumental readings are chosen will not be possible until we have properly analysed the prosodic System of these languages and its relation to discourse. This task has barely begun. Kinship verbs are fundamentally important for studies of word class typology generally, and in particular for the noun/verb distinction. Because of their special semantic characteristics, in particular the fact that they are non-dynamic relational expressions linking two human participants, they highlight a different ontological contrast to those normally cited äs determining lexicalization äs noun or verb. By separating two ontological dimensions which normally correlate - kinship predicates are relational, but not dynamic - they often result in a special class which shows an idiosyncratic mix of nominal and verbal characteristics, äs Amith & Smith-Stark (1994a, b) illustrate for Central Guerrero Nahuatl. But the Iwaidjan languages provide important evidence that this need not be the case, since kinship verbs here appear to be less distinct from canonical verbs than in other languages with the phenomenon (see Evans 2000a for more detailed argumentation). Kinship verbs may also detach functions from morphosyntactic categories in unusual ways: in Ilgar and Iwaidja, predications about kinship relations appear from our preliminary data to be more typically carried out by morphological nouns than mo hological verbs, with the morphological verbs used more often for reference. Finally, new data about the lexicalization of kin terms, and in particular the preferential linking of subject role to senior kin, will demand a broadening of our theories of how particular thematic roles link to argument structure Impersonal constructions In Australia there is a marked areal, typological, and genetic skewing in the distribution of so-called impersonal constructions, in which experiencers are encoded äs objects with a subject that is either a dummy or represents some cause like 'headache', 'pain', or 'hunger'. Of the Australian languages listed in Walsh (1987) äs having this phenomenon, all are non-pama-nyungan, all are found in the north-western eighth of the continent, and all are head-marking, encoding at least two arguments on the verb. R. M. W. Dixon, in a comment on an earlier draft of this paper, has pointed out that Dyirbal is an example of a language with such constructions from another part of Australia, namely have a toothache/rheumatism', for example, one says 'toothache/rheumatism (A) bites me (O)' (note that Dyirbal is generally considered Pama-Nyungan, though Dixon himself does not consider this a useful genetic label). Nonetheless, even if the construction is not uniquely confined to north-western Australia, it is certainly an areal feature of that re- north-east» 4 Queensland - to say

37 Iwaidjan, a very un-australian language family 127 gion. And it must be an extremely old areal feature, since Tiwi, which is likely to have been almost completely isolated from other Australian languages for at least 9,000 years, also has these constructions (see Osborne 1974: 40 for an example with 'die'). In any case, the construction type is well-attested in the Iwaidjan languages. Examples from Ilgar, Iwaidja, Maung, and Marrgu, in which the experiencer is encoded s object with a dummy-like third person Singular subject, are (48-50). For (49b) Capell & Hinch (1970: 187) suggest the etymology 'it headbites me', noting that -manbu means 'bite' (this would denasalize to banbu after a stop) and - i/acj- means 'top, to do with head'. i (48) Ilgar ι qani-mifl qug S 3/1-do/say.PP? 28 i T m f ll.'! (49) a. Iwaidja ji-jjacjbanbun 3/3-headache.NP '(S)he has a headache.' (Pym & Larrimore 1979: 87) b. Maung qani-gaclbanbun 3.M/l-headache.NP Ί have a headache.' c. Ilgar 3.F.ABS-3.M.ERG-headache.NP 'She has a headache.' (50) a. Ilgar jaga gani-ma-ji wurwifl, jaga yini-ma-fl DEM 3/1-get-PST shame DEM 3.M/3.M-get-PST yi-ma^ba ini-gu/igu/i-ji 3.M-different 3.M/3.M-swear-PST Ί got ashamed (lit., 'shame grabbed me') because he did things the wrong way, by swearing.' b. Marrgu man-mayi wurgam gunu 3/1-grab.PST shame DEM Ί got ashamed (lit., 'shame grabbed me').' 4.6. Constructions ofhaving and lacking The Iwaidjic languages employ a construction for expressing 'have; with' and 'lack, not have; without' that is quite different from what is found anywhere

38 128 Nicholas Evans eise in Australia, using relators inflected for subject and,placed directly in front of their object. They are not verbs, taking no distinctly verbal morphological categories, but inflect in agreement with the possessor or lacker, and are placed directly before the possessed (or lacked) object. The words used in this special construction do not fit neatly into any Standard word class, although a plausible approach would be to consider them s an inflecting prepositional subclass of adjectives, an analysis we develop below. Before examining these constructions it will be helpful to look at the more Standard method found in Australia. Kayardild (Tangkic) is typical (Evans 1995b): it employs case Suffixes, using the proprietive to express 'having, with' and the privative case to express 'lacking, without'. 29 These may be used adnominally, to derive complex NPs of the type 'the X with/without Y' (51 a, b), or in nominal predicates to express 'X has/does not have a Y' (52a, b). (51) Kayardild a. niya karrngi-ja dun-kuru-ya maka-y 3SG.NOM keep-act husband-prop-mloc 30 woman-mloc 'He is living with a married woman (i.e., with a woman with a husband).' b. ngakurra warra-ja dangka-wam-wu dulk-u IINC.DU.NOM go-ροτ person-priv-mprop place-mprop 'We will go to uninhabited places (i.e., to places without people).' (52) Kayardild a. dathin-a dangka-a kiyarrng-kuru maka-wuru that-nom man-nom two-prop woman-prop 'That man has two wives.' b. ngada wimn-mam ISG.NOM money-priv Ί don't have any money.' ; The second commonest method for expressing possession is to use a verb meaning 'have'; this method is used in a few non-pama-nyungan languages, such s Murrinhpatha (Walsh 1976: 288), Gaagudju (Harvey 1992: 380), and Kunwinjku/Mayali (Evans forthcoming b). And a third method, found in Tiwi, is just to juxtapose two nominals, so that X Y can meari either 'X is Y' or 'X has a Y' according to context (Osborne 1974: 60-61). For a comprehensive survey of having constructions in Australian languages, the reader is referred to Saulwick (1996); there is no comparable survey of 'lacking' constructions. Turning now to the constructions in Iwaidjan, their predicate use can be illustrated by (53-54). For the moment the relevant roots will be glossed WITH and WITHOUT.

39 (53) a. Ilgar/Iwaidja ag-bujiag gabala 2-wiTH boat Iwaidjan, a very un-australian language family 129 'You have a boat.' b. Garig ag-bujiag iradad nuyi gunag 2-wiTH meat you camp 'Have you got any meat in your camp?' c. Maung juga nijibujiag wagbac[ F.DEM 3.F-WITH pouch ( l 'She (the female wallaby) has a pouch.','' *? (54) a. Iwaidja, Ilgar gabi ga-wunaji gabala ISG 1-wiTHOUT boat Ί don't have a boat.' b. Garig i-wuiiaii u[a 3.M-WITHOUT womb '(The dog) has been spayed, it lacks a womb.' c. Maung nuga ja ηιι-ννυιμπ waramumbig M.this M.ART 3.M-WITHOUT woman 'He is unmamed, he does not have a woman.' The adnominal use of these forms is illustrated by (55). (55) Iwaidja a. warbi bujiag manjag man 3.WITH beard '(the) bearded man' (Pym & Larrimore 1979: 153) b. ar-arbi a-wujiag-ud uruwajba PLUR-man SPL-WITH-PLUR woman 'married men' (Pym & Larrimore 1979: 62) In determining the word class Status of these words there are a number of possibilities: are they verbs, nouns or adjectives, or prepositions? We now consider each of these possibilities in turn. First, they are VERBS: ^wujiag means 'have' and <Jwwim means 'lack'. The prefixes to these verbs are the regul r verbal prefixes. This analysis is easy to falsify. For a Start, having pronominal prefixes is not a uniquely verbal feature, s we saw in Section 4.1, since this series occurs on nouns and adjectives s well s intransitive verbs. More importantly, unlike

40 130 Nicholas Evans verbs, these two roots do not inflect for tense; for example they cannot take the future prefix (56a). If they must be used in a non-present clause, they are either simply combined with an appropriate adverb without inflection for tense (56b), or they are first converted to an inchoative verb and then inflected (56c). The fact that they can combine with the inchoative suffix -(ji)min/-bin, is further evidence against them being verbs, since this is otherwise restricted to nouns/adjectives (cf. Ilgar ^/murag 'big', murajimin 'become big'). (56) Iwaidja, Ilgar a. *ga-na-wujiag gabala I.S-FUT-WITH boat will have a boat.' b. wuragag ga-wujiag gabala before l.s-with boat c. 'Before I had a boat.' ga-na-wujiag-bin gabala : I.S-FUT-WITH-INCH.NP boat will have a boat.' f Finally, accounting for the argument structure is problematic if they are verbs: although two-place predicates, they take the intransitive prefix set, so would require us to postulate a separate type of argument structure just for these verbs, where, exceptionally, the object is not marked by pronominal prefix and, further, is stipulated to follow the verb. Second, they are NOMINAL or ADJECTIVAL ROOTS; prefixes to them denote the subject of a nominal predicate (thus ag-bupag in (53a) is roughly 'you (are) the owner' or 'you are endowed (with)'). In support of this view, the plural suffix -ud, exemplified in (55b) and (57), is otherwise restricted to the noun/adjective class; the Maung prefix forms also belong to a special set otherwise restricted to adjectives (Capell & Hinch 1970: 56)^ "' ; ': ; ' -_j> " ' (57) Ilgar jaga ar-argbi a-v/ujiag-ud maiaraj DEM PLUR-man SPL-WITH-PLUR lover 'Those men have got girlfriends.' Arguments from combinability with -ud, however, do not narrow down the choice between noun and adjective, since this suffix is found with both. The draft Iwaidja dictionary by Pym & Larrimore lists bujiag and buiian äs nouns, with the meanings 'the one having, possessing' and 'the one lacking'; a similar approach is taken in the draft Maung dictionary (Hewett et al. 1994). But a problem with treating them äs nouns is that, for the main type of prefixing

41 Iwaidjan, a very un-australian language family 131 t nouns (body parts), the prefix denotes the possessor, so lhat on this constructional template ag-bu/iag, for example, should mean 'your owner' ralher than *you are the owner'. This problem could be avoided by invoking the small number of prefixing nouns of the type *old person', discussed in Section 4.1, in which the prefix denotes the referent rather than the possessor. A second and more serious problem, for both noun and adjective analyses, is that there are no other two-place nouns or adjectives to establish a parallel for the syntactic behaviour of two-place members of the class - if the terms really mean something like 'owner' then it should be possible to combine them with pronouns used possessively, on the lines of hypothetical janad bujiag for 'his/her owner' in Iwaidja. I have seen no such examples. We have already seen that the commonest type of two-place noun in the world's languages, namely kinship terms, are lexicalized äs verbs in the Iwaidjic languages. Related to this problem is the need to account for the strict word order - so far no other nouns or adjectives have been found with ordering restrictions, but this may reflect the lack of any other two-place nouns. Third, they are PREPOSITIONS, but unlike more Standard prepositions 31 like Iwaidja wanji 'near', äs in wanji gujali 'near the fire', they have the special feature of inflecting for their subject (äs Welsh or Hungarian prepositions can inflect in agreement with the object). On this analysis aq-bujiag in (53a) is roughly 'you (are) with (a) boat' (cf. English She is with child). Analysing them äs prepositions would account for the strict ordering restrictions, particularly striking in languages with such free word order. Although it is possible to postpose their subject, this must still be placed after the object of the would-be preposition, so äs not to disrupt the unit WITH + OBJ (58). Treating them äs prepositions would also solve the problem of them being two-place predicates, since this is of course normal in adpositions. 32 (58) Iwaidja buijaji mirinayaj laga gunag 3.WITHOUT crocodile DEM place 'This place has got no crocodiles.' On the other band, treating them äs prepositions fails to account for the presence of distinctive noun/adjective plural morphology, äs discussed above, and requires us to add prepositions to the class of words feeding the inchoative derivation (see the VERBS section). Summarizing the arguments above, we can reject outright the view that these words are verbs, but the position of the noun/adjective and preposition analyses is less clear: basically treating them äs noun/adjectives accounts for their morphological properties, while treating them äs inflecting prepositions accounts for their semantic and syntactic features. A way to integrate these two advan-

42 132 Nicholas Evans r tages would be to treat inflecting prepositions äs a subclass of noun/adjectives, with the particular semantic and syntactic properties just described. 5. Conclusion It should be clear from the foregoing that there are many ways in which the typological profile of the Iwaidjan family is noteworthy. In some cases, such äs the existence of transitivity alternations that receive no overt derivational marking, the presence of a fricative phoneme, or the presence of mutation, the phenomenon is not unusual in general crosslinguistic terms, but happens to be marked among Australian languages. Other cases, such äs the large inventory of liquid phonemes, the development and employment of kinship verbs, the use of subcategorized object agreement äs a device for deriving new verb lexemes, and the presence of what appear to be prepositions inflecting in agreement with their subject, which reflects a peculiar encoding of the "having/lacking" relation, present features that are highly unusual, and in some cases perhaps unique, among the world's languages. The degree to which these features are interrelated, if at all, requires us to set them against other languages displaying combinations of some of these features but not others; in the case of rather novel features like kinship verbs and subject-inflected prepositions we obviously do not have a broad enough crosslinguistic database to evaluate typological correlations yet. However, at least the phenonemon of kinship verbs appears to correlate strongly with the degree of head-marking: I point out in Evans (2000a) that developed sets of true kinship verbs have so far only been found in languages with double agreement on the verb for subject and object categories. My purpose in writing this article has not been to claim that the Iwaidjan languages are any more typologically unusual than other non-pama-nyungan subgroups. Rather, äs stated in the introduction, my intent has been to use the Iwaidjan languages äs a case study illustraüng the füll extent of typological diversity that exists within Australian languages, so that typologists will not be led to under-sample simply because all Australian languages are said to belong to a single family-level grouping, or because large numbers of non-pama- Nyungan families are lumped together under such rubrics äs "head-marking" or "prefixing". I conclude by recapitulating a further feature of the Iwaidjan languages, mentioned at the beginning of this article: all are endangered, most are extinct or on the verge of extinction, 33 most are only sketchily documented and even the "best-described" (Iwaidja and Maung) lack a book-length grammar or dictionary comparable to those now available for scores of other Australian languages. 34 The treatment of many of the topics in this article has of necessity been tentative and preliminary, given the lack of detailed grammatical treat-

43 Iwaidjan, a very un-australian language family 133 ments or a text corpus of any reasonable size. I hope, however, that it will have the effect of stimulating further interest in this unusual group of languages. Received: 20 January 2000 Revised: 17April 2000 University of Melbourne Appendix: Primary sources on Iwaidjan languages Amurdak: Handelsmann (1991,1997) and subsequent unpublished work. Garig: Oscar Whitehead (unpublished field notes taken in ), Pym (1977), Evans field notes. i Ilgar: Evans field notes, recorded i Iwaidja: Capell (1962), Pym & Lammore (1979), Pym (1979); Evans field j notes, recorded Marrgu: Capell (1963), Hinch (1966), Evans field notes, recorded 1991-? Maung: Capell & Hinch (1970), Hewett et al. (1994). Wurrugu: Earl (1846), Evans (1996a). Notes Correspondence address: Department of Linguistics and Applied Linguistics, University of Melbourne, Parkville VIC 3052, Australia; n.evans@lingidstics.unimelb.edu.au I would like to thank the following people and institutions for their help in writing this paper. My foremost debt is to the Speakers who have instructed me in their languages over the years, especially Charlie Wardaga (Ilgar, Marrgu), Mick Yarmirr (Marrgu), Nelson Mulurinj (Garig), Robert Cunningham (Wurrugu), Khaki Marrala, Brian Yambikbik, David Minjumak, Goldie Blyth, Joy Williams, and Charlie Mangulda (Iwaidja). I would also like to record my gratitude to Robert Handelsmann, Oscar Whitehead, and Noreen Pym for making available their own field materials on Amurdak, Garig, and Iwaidja respectively. The following people have given me useful comments on various issues covered in this article: Lyle Campbell, Bob Dixon, Robert Handelsmann, Mark Harvey, Bill McGregor, David Nash, John Newman, Hia Pejros, Frans Plank, Hans-Jürgen Sasse, and two anonymous reviewers for Linguistic Typology, I also thank the audience at a colloquium on this topic given at the University of Konstanz in November 1998 for their useful feedback. Research on the Iwaidjan languages was supported by three Grants frorn the Australian Research Council: "Non-Pama-Nyungan Languages of Northern Australia", "Polysemy and Semantic Change in Australian Languages", and "Describing Australian Aboriginal Languages"; the Northern Land Council also supported several field trips, and part of this paper was revised while on a Humboldt Fellowship; I thank all these bodies for their support. The following abbreviations are used in glosses: ACT actual, ART article, AUX auxiliary, BEN benefactive, DEM demonstrative, DU dual, F feminine, EXC exclu-

44 134 Nicholas Evans 'j sive, FUT future, IMP imperative, INCH inchoative, IO indirect object, M masculine, MABL modal ablative, MIS miscellaneous gender, MLOC modal locative, MPROP modal proprietive, N neuter, NEG negative, NOM nominative, NMZR nominalizer, NP nonpast, OBJ object, PASS passive, PERF perfective, PL plural inflection, PLUR plural derivation, POT potential, PP past perfective, PR present, PRIV privative, PROP proprietive, PST past, RECIP reciprocal, SO Singular - not usually marked, SUB J subject, V vegetable gender, VIALL verbal intransitive allative, l, 2, 3 Ist person, 2nd person, 3rd person, 12 Ist person inclusive, i.e., Speaker plus hearer(s). In glossing pronominal prefixes I sometimes employ the Dixonian abbreviations A (transitive subject), s (intransitive subject), and 0 (object), sometimes the case-type terms AB s (absolutive), ACC (accusative), and ERG (ergative), and sometimes the notation of type 1/3PL (Ist singular subject acting on 3rd plural object) according to my expository goal in the particular example. See Section 4.3 for an explanation of the glosses ANG and MA(M). Clitic boundaries are marked with '='. 1. The term "Pama-Nyungan", coined by O'Grady, Wurm, & Haie (1966) (see also O'Grady, Voegelin, & Voegelin 1966), is used to cover the relatively closely-related group of languages covering all of the continent except the northwestern eighth. It is based on terms for 'man, person' at the north-eastern and south-western extremities of the continent, respectively pama and nyunga. The term "non-pama-nyungan" is simply a residual characterization of the remaining languages, which exhibit much greater genetic diversity. 2. Such a date would follow from the conjunction of the colonization date, the lack of significant archaeological discontinuity that would be expected to accompany colonization by another language group, and the likelihood (increasingly plausible äs evidence accumulates, but not yet conclusively proven) that all Australian languages are genetically related (cf. Dixon 1997, Evans forthcoming a). Of course this date requires us to reconsider our belief that languages change at a constant rate, since the normal "maximum age" for language families is usually taken to be 10,000 years or so, but this is an issue beyond the scope of this article. 3. See Osborne (1974) on Tiwi, Gates (1964), Carroll (1976), and Evans (forthcoming b) on Bininj Gun-wok (the first two concentrating on the Kunwinjku dialect), McKay (2000) on Ndjibbana, and Harvey (1992) on Gaagudju. For salvage studies with less complete Information on other languages of the area, see Harvey (forthcoming) on Limulngan, Davies (1989) on Umbugarla, and Capell (1984) on Laragia (= Larrakiya). 4. A very rough estimate of the total population of Speakers of Iwaidjan languages before European and Macassan contact would put it somewhere between 800 and 2,000. The first European contacts in the region came with with short-lived settlements at Fort Wellington at Raffles Bay in 1827 and Victoria at Port Essington from 1838 to 1849 (see Spillett 1972); a mission was established on Croker Island between the two world wars. Before the first European contacts there had been contact with Macassans seeking beche-de-mer, tortoise shell, and other tradeable items, probably for two to three centuries (see MacKnight 1976); this led to several score loan words from Macassarese and Malay (see Evans 1992, 1997), almost all nouns, but no other significant linguistic influence.

45 Iwaidjan, a very un-australian language family The usual surface form is ai;-, but the fuller form aiuj- appears where both nasals can be syllabified acceptably, namely with vowel initial roots: cf. Ilgar a/j-bayaj 'your head', amj-amba/g 'yourarmpit'. 6. Maung has a 2nd person subject prefix an- with verbs, suggesting the a(hjij-prefix on possessed nouns has been extended out in the Warrkbi languages from the verbal paradigm. Preliminary evidence from Marrgu suggests this suffix, in addition to the 'seif paradigm given, also occurs äs a prefix to adjectives used subjectively - cf. dagagü '(s)he's no good' (i.e., feeling no good), qan-dagugu Tm no good', an-dagagu 'you're no good'. 7. Another way to save Maddieson's generalization would be to argue that / / is in fact a continuant rather than a fricative. The exact phonetic and phonological Status of this phoneme requires further research; impressionistically the phonetic realization ranges from very clear frication in Tiwi (äs demonstrated by the above quote from Osborne) to a barely audible and very open continuant-like articulation in Ilgar. It seems possible, therefore, that / / may be best analysed äs a fricative in some languages of the region, such äs Tiwi, and äs a continuant in others, such äs Ilgar. 8. In fact s is present in a couple of relatively unassimilated Macassan (i.e., the mixture of Malay and Macassarese spoken aboard boats from the port of Macassar) loanwords into Iwaidjan languages, e.g., Garig salatajj 'south wind', from Macassarese sallatajj 'south wind' (Evans 1992: 80). Older loans from Macassan assimilate s in the source to j, e.g., Macassarese salappa, sulappa 'little box for perfumery or tobacco' becomes julaba(g) in the Iwaidjan languages. See Evans (1992, 1997) for a discussion of the phonological assimilation of Macassan loans into the Iwaidjan languages at various stages, including the hypercorrect addition of final äs in the last example. 9. Tokens of / / are rare and at this stage of analysis we cannot rule out the possibility that / could be treated äs a sequence of /!/ plus /y/. 10. Though there are a number of languages allowing syllabic nasal onsets; the nearest case is Ndjebbana (McKay 2000), äs the language name demonstrates. 11. The one exception, where Iwaidja retained the initial vowel, was in two-syllable words comprising a monosyllabic prefix plus a monosyllabic inflected root. So far we have four examples of this, and in every case the prefix takes the form ak- (äs with the Maung miscellaneous prefix), rather than the K- found elsewhere. The four exceptions are abin (ak-min) '(s)he says, does', abun (ak-mun) '(s)he hits (seif)', aju (ak-yu) '(s)he lies, is' and an (akli) *(s)he Stands, is'. 12. A handful of what appear to be nouns in Iwaidja and Ilgar form an intriguing possible exception to this. The prefix aijbu- in the words aijbu-raiyu (Iwaidja) 'sacred site with a tube-like hole' and Ilgar aijbu-jari 'sacred site, place to which access is restricted' is normally a subject/object prefix meaning 'they (subject) act upon ANG-class object' (see Section 4.3). Exactly how these words are to be interpreted, and whether it is possible to treat them äs verbs with meanings like 'it (makes) a hole there' or 'they restrict access to there' is a problem for future research. 13. No directional contrast has been reported in Maung. Our data on Amurdak are not füll enough to see whether it also has a productive directional contrast, though directional forms found with some verbs % are often cognate with direction-specific

46 136 Nicholas Evans < r forms in the Warrgbi languages, e.g., like Dgar, Amurdak has jia- 'towards, lsg', and ja- s the basic 'away' form. Our data on Marrgu is still too scanty to determine whether it has directional forms. 14. In Amurdak the use of ΤΑΜ suffixation is attenuated, the only trace being a change of final nasal to -ji in some imperative verbs, e.g., 9-ya-ta-wurgi-ji IMP-TOWARDSgo-back-lMP (Robert Handelsmann, personal communication). 15. One specific class of exceptions to have been discussed since Dixon's summary are cognate object verbs (Austin 1982); a second is found in the ex-ergative languages of the Tangkic and Ngayarda groups where there has been reanalysis of original oblique cases s accusatives (Evans 1995b: ). 16. In Ilgar only the 'wait for' meaning is found, the 'lie' meaning (which is etymologically original) now being expressed by the verb -yaif. 17. The existence of comparable agreement Systems in other non-pama-nyungan families makes it highly likely that a five-gender System is reconstructable to proto- Iwaidjan s well. However, Iwaidjan-internal evidence regarding the deeper level, proto-iwaidjan, is difficult to evaluate because two of the three main branches (Marrgu and Amurdak) appear to have simplified the System so radically. One piece of evidence that Marrgu once had gender agreement comes from the otherwise unexplained alternation between the intransitive and transitive forms of the 3rd person Singular prefix. In transitives the 3rd Singular agent prefix is ma- (e.g., ma-0- wu 'he hit him', ma-qan-wu 'he hit me', while the 3rd Singular intransitive subject prefix is yi- (cf. ija-jayan Ί come', yi-jayan '(s)he comes'). This looks like a reanalysis in which the vegetable form of the prefix is generalized in transitives, and the masculine form yi- in intransitives. 18. Capell & Hinch (1970) use roman numerals instead of semantic labels: I = masculine, Π = feminine, IV = neuter, V = vegetable, VI = miscellaneous. They treat plural s a member of the same set, labelling it ΙΠ. Their System is followed in such secondary analyses s Donohue (1998) and Curnow (1999). 19. The only residue in Iwaidja of the masculine/feminine contrast is in 3SG/3SG combinations, where it uses the prefix ga- with feminine subjects (<%K-qa-%, i.e., etymologically 3.MIS.O-3.F.A-; cf. (29e')), and with masculine subjects it uses the ^prefix ii-, whose etymology is unclear (from the expected underlying combination %K-ni% one would predict a form df-; if- may be a lenited form of this.) 20. The existence of apparently unmotivated Variation in the form of pronominal prefixes is found in other languages of Western Arnhem Land, e.g., Umbugarla (Davies 1989). It is possible that in those languages, too, these irregularities result from the generalizations of particular object-subcategorized or directional forms with particular verbs, but we cannot evaluate this hypothesis until we have a better understanding of the historical morphology of pronominal prefixes in languages of the area. 21. See Amith & Smith-Stark (1994a, b) for surveys of kinship verbs in a number of North American languages, and Evans (2000a) for a more general survey, including a more detailed discussion of the gar/iwaidja System of kinship verbs than can be givenhere. 22. The earliest recognition of the verb-like nature of these words in an Iwaidjan language was by Capell (1962: ): "Some kinship terms [in Iwaidja - N.E.] are

47 Iwaidjan, a very un-australian language family 137 f really verbal in nature, although they function äs nouns. Consequently they take the verbal transitive prefixes of the third singular object, with subject variable in person. A similar arrangement is found in Maung..." He does not elaborate what he means here by "function äs nouns", but may have been referring to their propensity to be used äs denotational expressions rather than predicates. Pym & Larrimore (1979: 58-59) discuss the verb-like nature of a number of words for social relationships, including 'boss' and 'sweetheart' äs well äs kinship relationships, and giving an example of a tense-inflected kinship verb (see (45b)). 23. Capell & Hinch (1970: 61-62) mention that for the relationship terms for 'brother' and 'father', "the prefixes... are those of verbal subjects", but do not consider their word-class membership in a systematic way. Their discussion fails to make clear an important difference between these two words. The 'brother' terms, which use intransitive prefixes, must always be plural, probably because the original etymology is something like 'we stood (i.e., were born) together', and they appear to be deverbal nominals because they can pluralize with the nominal plural -ud: cf. jjadiqan *my brother 1, ijadiganud 'my brothers*. The 'father' term, on the other hand, use the transitive prefix set, and is clearly verbal because it pluralizes by changing the subject prefix, without addition of -ud: cf. qanimalgbaß 'my father, lit. he is father to me', qandumalgbap 'my fathers, lit. they are father to me'. The word list in the back of their grammar includes some kinship verbs, listed äs roots and noted äs being transitive verbs. These include: (i) -maga which they gloss 'to wife' but which makes more sense äs 'to be husband of' on the basis of their examples, (ii) -malgba *go out, arrive, beget' which appears from their examples to be transitive with a cognate object in the first senses and truly transitive in the second (in Ilgar the corresponding verb can be used intransitively to mean 'go out', and transitively to mean 'take out'), and,. (iii) -yilagbamiji 'father's father, father's father's brother, father's father's sister' for which they give no part of speech category. It also includes some unanalysed words whose Ilgar/Iwaidja cognates suggest they are (transitive) kinship verbs: animajiiri 'mother's mother's brother' and qurjmajiiri *my daughter's children, ego being female', and animuijgudbijiujj 'mother's father'. Now prefixal ani- does not occur within the normal Maung transitive prefix paradigm, but in Ilgar this form is used for 3.M subjects acting on ANG objects. This would correspond to verbs subcategorizing for neuter objects in Maung (see Section 4.3), but for that combination the actually attested form is gu/i-. The prefix jjujj- in jjuij/najriri is the regulär form for 1/3.N (corresponding to ay in Ilgar and Iwaidja), which Supports the view that these verbs have a subcategorized neuter object distinct from the actual kin referent, perhaps something like bequeathe (mother's side) country [subcategorized object reprcsented by neuter object prefix] to Y'. However, much more Information on Maung is needed before this issue can be resolved. 24. Anthropological linguists have typically used the term "propositus" to refcr to the person with respect to whom the kinship relation is calculated (see, e.g., Merlan 1982). Thus if I say, in English, Mum is con^ing with us, I am the implicit propositus

48 138 Nicholas Evans since this is normally taken to mean 'my mum', whereas if I ask my daughter Is mum home yet?, the addressee (my daughter here) is the propositus because of a convention that younger Speakers will normally be taken äs the reference point. Dahl & Koptjevskaja-Tamm (forthcoming) employ the less Latinate alternative "anchor", which I will use here. 25. There is also one case of a use of intransitive prefixes to encode a reciprocal relationship: the root wutyawiji, designating the father-in-law/son-in-law relationship. This is always used with an intransitive plural prefix, äs befits a reciprocal, e.g., qar-wulyawiji 'we, father-in-law and son-in-law' (gar- *we'). The lack of transitive marking here is not unexpected: in the specially constrained Situation between parent-in-law and child-in-law, it is common in Australia to find locutions that avoid overt transitivity and stress reciprocality. 26. Pym & Larrimore (1979) give the 'late husband' gloss; the possibility of the alternate 'ex-husband' reading was given by Iwaidja Speakers Joy Williams and Goldie Blyth in discussions with N.E., June Related to this is the question of whether, in an example like (42), expressions like ijabi apmagan should be treated äs füll clauses, i.e., äs headless relatives functioning äs clausal subjects, äs would be suggested by the translation '(the one such that) I am husband to her is...', or simply äs a lexicalized expression that happens to originale äs a clause. See Sasse (1991,1993) for general discussion of this problem in polysynthetic languages. We need much more extensive textual and syntactic data from these languages before the question can be resolved. 28. In some other Australian languages qug means 'guts, belly', but it does not have this meaning äs a free lexeme in Ilgar. 29. Because these two operate at phrasal rather than clausal level, it is sometimes argued that these are less than canonical instances of case Suffixes. See Dench & Evans (1988) for counter-arguments against this position. 30. The "modal locative" case marks objects and various other non-subject NPs of most non-future, realis clauses, while the "modal proprietive" does the same for future clauses. c^ (31., Prepositions are a rarity in Australia generally. Dixon (1980: 272) summed up the Situation äs follows: "Australian languages seldom have anything that could reasonably be described äs... 'prepositions'... The semanticload carried by prepositions in other languages is very effectively handled by the case System, in most Australian languages." In fact, it is an areal feature of languages of northwestern Arnhem Land to have a small set of prepositions; this may be related to the lack of case marking in these languages. Tiwi, for example, has two apparently synonymous forms kapi and fcayi, which mark general location, e.g., kapi tiqata 'to the beach', kayi üquwini 'in a hollow tree' (Osborne 1974: 59). Kunwinjku also a general locational preposition laue ~ koje, äs in laue darwin 'in/to Darwin'; etymologically this preposition is a reduction of ku-jed the locative-prefixed form of the noun kun-ied 'camp, place'. But prepositions in these other languages are invariable; only the Iwaidjan languages have prepositions that vary their form according to the subject. 32. The fact that they can be used without a main verb, according to this analysis, can

49 Iwaidjan, a very un-australian language family 139 be taken to reflect the lack of an obligatory copula in the language. Cf. Russian: (i) on iz Moskvy he from Moscow-GEN 'he (is) from Moscow'. 33. This is all the more shocking given that all the Iwaidjan languages are, or were, spoken in areas without substantial European settlement, a fact which should have retarded the process of language loss. There have been a series of unlucky setbacks in our studies of these languages. In the 1840s a reasonably-sized comparative word-list of the Cobourg languages was apparently produced by English and Italian residents of the short-lived settlement at Port Essington; consigned to the Captain of the H. M. S. Rattlesnake, who intended to deposit it in the British Museum, it has never been located (see Evans 1992, 1997). We do, however, possess some records of what appears to be Iwaidja, made in the 1840s by the Italian missionary Don Angelo Confalonieri (see Soravia 1975). The last Speakers of Wurrugu were still alive in the 1970s - they had been living at the small Aboriginal settlement centred around l the Cape Don lighthouse - but none of the linguistic surveys carried out until that! period (e.g., Capell 1942, Wurm & Hattori (eds.) 1981) even mention the language, despite the fact that its existence was evident from the classification of Australian languages by Father Schmidt (1919), which perceptively placed it in the same subgroup äs Marrgu. In addition to hi$ work on Iwaidja and Maung, Capell did some limited work on Marrgu during the 1950s and 1960s, but when the linguist Bernhard Schebeck requested permission in the 1960s from his then employer, the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies, to undertake fieldwork with some Marrgu Speakers he had located, he was re-directed to North-Eastern Arnhem Land (Bernhard Schebeck, personal communication). Robert Handelsmann undertook fieldwork on Amurdak with the three remaining füll Speakers between 1991 and 1997, resulting in a partial sketch-grammar, a preliminary dictionary, and a collection of texts, but all Speakers were by then too old to do systematic elicitation and checking of more complex constructions. 34. Capell & Hinch (1970), on Maung, was an excellent work for the time, but has not been followed by any fiirther work, so that it is now dated in its concerns. 4. References i Alpher, Barry & David Nash (1999). Lexical replacement and cognate equilibrium in Australia. Australian Journal of Linguistics 19: Amith, Jonathan D. & Thomas C. Smith-Stark (1994a). Transitive nouns and split possessive paradigms in Central Guerrero Nahuati. International Journal of American Linguistics 60: (1994b). Predicate nominal and transitive verbal expressions of interpersonal relations. Linguistics 32: '. Austin, Peter (1982). Transitivity and cognate objects in Australian languages. In Paul J. Hopper & Sandra A. Thompson (eds.), Studies in Transitivity (Syntax and Semantics, 15), New York: Academic Press. Black, Paul (1997). Lexicostatistics and Australian languages: Problems and prospects. In Darreil Tryon & Michael Walsh (eds.), Boundary Rider: Essays in Honour of Geoffrey O'Grady (Pacific Linguistics, C-136), Canberra: Australian National University.

50 140 Nicholas Evans Capell, Arthur (1942). Languages of Arnhem Land, North Australia. Oceania 12: , 13: (1956). A New Approach to Australian Linguistics. (Oceania Linguistic Monograph, 1.) Sydney: University of Sydney. (1962). Some Linguistic Types in Australia. (Oceania Linguistic Monograph, 7.) Sydney: University of Sydney.. (1963). Marrgu field notes and word list. Unpublished. (1984). The Laragia language. In Kathleen Glasgow (ed.), Papers in Australian Linguistics No. 16 (Pacific Linguistics, A-68), Canberra: Australian National University. Capell, Arthur & Heather E. Hinch (1970). Maung Grammar, Texts and Vocabulary. The Hague: Mouton. Carroll, Peter (1976). Kunwinjku (Gunwinggu): A language of Western Arnhem Land. Master's thesis, Australian National University. Chappell, Hilary & William McGregor (eds.) (1996). The Grammar of Inalienability. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Curnow, Timothy Jowan (1999). Maung verbal agreement revisited: A response to Donohue (1998). Australian Journal of Linguistics 19: Dahl, Osten & Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm (forthcoming). Kinship in grammar. In Michael Herslund (ed.), Approaches to Possession. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Davies, Jennifer (1989). Umbugarla: A sketch grammar. Honours thesis, University of Melbourne. Dench, Alan & Nicholas Evans (1988). Multiple case-marking in Australian languages. Australian Journal of Linguistics 8: Dixon, R. M. W. (1972). The Dyirbal Language of North Queensland. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (1980). The Languages of Australia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (1997). The Rise and Fall of Languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Donohue, Mark (1998). A note on verbal agreement in Maung. Australian Journal of Linguistics 18: Earl, G. W. (1846). On the Aboriginal tribes of the northern coast of Australia. Journal of the Royal Geographical Society of London 16: Evans, Nicholas (1992). Macassan loanwords in Top End languages. Australian Journal of Linguistics 12:45-91., (1995a). Current issues in Australian phonology. In John Goldsmith (ed.), Handbook of Phonological Theory, Oxford: Blackwell. (1995b). A Grammar of Kayardild, with Comparative-historical Notes on Tangkic. Berlin: C--T/7 Mouton de Gruyter. (1996a). First - and last - notes on Wurrugu. University of Melbourne Working Papers in Linguistics 16: (1996b). The syntax and semantics of body part incorporation in Mayali. In Chappell & McGregor (eds.) 1996, (1997). Macassan loans and linguistic stratigraphy in Western Arnhem Land. In McConvell & Evans (eds.) 1997, (1998). Iwaidja mutation and its origins. In Anna Siewierska & Jae Jung Song (eds.), Case, Typology and Grammar: In Honor ofbarry J. Blake, Amsterdam: Benjamins. (2000a). Kinship yerbs. In Petra M. Vogel & Bernard Comrie (eds.), Approaches to the Typology ofword Classes, Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. (2000b). The last Speaker is dead - long live the last Speaker! In Paul Newman & Martha Ratliff (eds.), Linguistic Fieldwork. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (forthcoming a). Faint tracks in an ancient wordscape. In William A. Durham & John Moore (eds.), Entering New Landscapes (provisional title). (forthcoming b). A Pan-dialectal Grammar ofbininj Gun-Wok. (Pacific Linguistics.) Canberra: Australian National University.

51 Iwaidjan, a very un-australian language family 141 J Handelsmann, Robert (1991). Towards a description of Amurdak: A language of Northern Australia. Honours thesis, University of Melbourne. (1997). Draft Amurdak dictionary. Unpublished report to Australian National Parks and Wildlife Service. Harvey, Mark (1991). Glottal stop, underspecification and syllable structures among the Top End languages. Australian Journal of Linguistics 11: (1992). The Gaagudju people and their language. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Sydney. (1997). The temporal Interpretation of linguistic diversity in the Top End. In McConvell & Evans (eds.) 1997, (forthcoming). A Salvage Grammar of Limulngan. (Pacific Linguistics.) Canberra: Australian National University. Heath, Jeffrey (1991). Pragmatic disguise in pronominal-affix paradigms. In Frans Plank (ed.), Paradigms: The Economy oflnflection, Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Hewett, Heather, Anne Dinneen, David Tainsby, & Robin Field (1994). Maung dictionary. Elecj tronic data file deposited in the Aboriginal Studies Electronic Data Archive (ASEDA), Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies. t Hinch, Heather (1966). Recordings in Marrgu. Unpublished manuscript. McConvell, Patrick & Nicholas Evans (eds.) (1997). Archaeology and Linguistics: Global Per spectives on Ancient Australia. Melbourne: Oxford University Press. McGregor, William B. (1996). The grammar of nominal prefixing in Nyulnyul. In Chappell & McGregor (eds.) 1996, McKay, Graham R. (1996). Body parts, possession marking and nominal classes in Ndjebbana. In Chappell & McGregor (eds.) 1996, (2000). Ndjebbana. In R. M. W. Dixon & Barry J. Blake (eds.), The Handbook of Australian Languages, Volume 5. Melbourne: Oxford University Press. MacKnight, Campbell (1976). The Voyage to Marege': Macassan Trepangers in Northern Australia. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press. Maddieson, lan (1984). Patterns of Sounds. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Merlan, Francesca (1982). ^gocentric" and "altercentric" usage of kin terms in Marjarayi. In Jeffrey Heath, Francesca Merlan, & Alan Rumsey (eds.), The Languages ofkinship in Aboriginal Australia (Oceania Linguistic Monograph, 24), Sydney: University of Sydney. Nordlinger, Rachel (1998). A Grammar of Wambaya, Northern Territory (Australia). (Pacific Linguistics, C-140.) Canberra: Australian National University. Oates, Lynette F. (1964). A Tentative Description ofthe Gunwinggu Language (of Western Arnhem Land). (Oceania Linguistic Monograph, 10.) Sydney: University of Sydney. O'Grady, Geoffrey N., C. F. Voegelin, & F. M. Voegelin (with an appendix by Kenneth L. Haie) (1966). Languages ofthe world: Indo-Pacific fascicle six. Anthropological Linguistics 8-2. O'Grady, Geoffrey N., Stephen A. Wurm, & Kenneth L. Haie (1966). Aboriginal languages of Australia, Unpublished map, University of Victoria, British Columbia. Osborne, Charles R. (1974). The Tiwi Language. Canberra: Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies. Pym, Noreen (1977). Garig word list for two month survey. Unpublished manuscript, Summer Institute of Linguistics, Australian Aborigines Branch. (1979). Iwaidja word-list. Electronic data file deposited in the Aborigihal Studies Electronic Data Archive (ASEDA), Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies. Pym, Noreen (with Bonnie Lanimore) (1979). Papers on Iwaidja Phonology and Grammar. (Workpapers of the SIL-AAB, A-2.) Darwin: Summer Institute of Linguistics, Australian Aborigines Branch. Reid, Nicholas (1990). Ngan'gityemerri: A language ofthe Daly River Region, Northern Territory of Australia. Ph.D. dissertation, Australian National University.