| Warrongo | |
|---|---|
| Northern Maric | |
| Native to | Australia |
| Region | Queensland, west of Ingham and Abergowrie almost to Einasleigh |
| Ethnicity | Warrongo,Gugu-Badhun,Gudjal |
| Extinct | 1981, with the death ofAlf Palmer |
| Revival | 2002 |
Pama–Nyungan
| |
| Dialects |
|
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | Either:wrg – Warungugdc – Gugu-Badhun |
| Glottolog | nort2757 |
| AIATSIS[1] | Y133 Warungu,Y128 Gugu Badhun |
| ELP | |
Warrongo (orWar(r)ungu) is anAustralian Aboriginal language, one of the dozen languages of theMaric branch of thePama–Nyungan family.[2] It was formerly spoken by theWarrongo people in the area aroundTownsville, Queensland, Australia. Its last native speaker wasAlf Palmer, who died in 1981.[3]
Before his death, linguistsTasaku Tsunoda andPeter Sutton worked together with Palmer to preserve the language (Warrungu proper); thanks to their efforts, the language is beginning to be revived. Classes have been held by Tsunoda since 2002.[4]
One of the notable feature of the language is itssyntacticergativity.[5]
As noted by Ethnologue, the language is currently dormant meaning that there are no native/proficient speakers left.[2]
Alternative names for the language includeWarrangu,Warrango,War(r)uŋu,War-oong-oo,[6]Gudjala andGudjal.[2]
TheWarungu language region includes areas from theUpper Herbert River toMount Garnet.[7]
Nowadays people identifying themselves asWarrongo live both within traditional Warrongo territory (Mount Garnet) and outside it (Palm Island,Townsville,Ingham,Cardwell, andCairns).[8] The language has been extinct since the last speaker,Alf Palmer, died in 1981. In the late 1990s or early 2000s a language revival movement started by a community of people, most of them grandchildren of the last speakers, the central figure being Rachel Cummins, the granddaughter of Alf Palmer.[9][10] The community had contacted Tsunoda, the linguist who worked with the last speakers in the 1970s, and between 2002 and 2006 he conducted 5 sessions of lessons, of 4–5 days each. As a result, the language seems to have acquired a limited set of symbolic functions. It has begun to be used in teasing between children, and as a source of personal names.[11]
There appear to have been at least two mutually intelligible dialects.[12] Warrongo belongs to thePama-Nyungan (macro)family. The most closely related languages areGugu Badhun (90% lexical sharing in terms ofHale's 99-item vocabulary) andGujal (94% lexical sharing).[13] The intermediate level classification of this group seems uncertain: the evidence from phonological correspondences, pronouns and verb roots suggests it belongs to theMaric group (alongsideBidjara,Gungabula,Marganj,Gunja,Biri andNyaygungu), while the verbalinflectional morphology is akin to that of theHebert River group (which includesDyirbal,Warrgamay,Nyawaygi andManbarra).[14] It has been suggested that the verbal inflectional suffixes might have been the result of massive borrowing.[15]
| bilabial | lamino-dental1 | apico-alveolar | retroflex | lamino-palatal | dorso-velar | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| stop | b⟨b⟩ | (d̪⟨dh⟩) | d⟨d⟩ | ɟ⟨j⟩ | ɡ⟨g⟩ | |
| nasal | m⟨m⟩ | (n̪⟨nh⟩) | n⟨n⟩ | ɲ⟨ny⟩ | ŋ⟨ng⟩ | |
| rhotic | ɾ⟨rr⟩ | ɻ⟨r⟩ | ||||
| lateral | l⟨l⟩ | |||||
| semivowel | j⟨y⟩ | w⟨w⟩ |
The sound[h] appears only in the interjection[hai] 'Hi!' and the exclamation of surprise[haha] (or[ha:ha:])[16] Dentalized consonants tend to appear in the Gugu-Badhun dialect. An alveolar approximant[ɹ] is stated to appear in the Gugu-Badhun dialect as well.[17] The retroflex approximant/ɻ/ in syllable-final position can infrequently be realised as aretroflex tap[ɽ]. The lamino-palatal stop is in most instances phonetically anaffricate[tʃ] or[dʒ].Voicing is not distinctive for stops .[18] The rules for voicing are fairly complex, but still it is impossible to predict it in all instances .[19] The factors involved are theplace of articulation (the more front the stop, the more likely it is to be voiced), the phonetic environment, position with respect to word boundaries, and possibly also the length of the word, the number of syllables that follow the stop and the location of stress.
There are three vowels:/a/,/i/ and/u/ (orthographically⟨o⟩). Length is distinctive only for/a/, its long counterpart is orthographically represented as⟨aa⟩./u/ has twoallophones:[u], and[o] (neither of which involve significantlip rounding), depending on the preceding consonant. Both are possible after/b/,/m/ and/j/, while after all other consonants only[o] appears. The allophony of/i/ seems to be governed by more complex rules but generally,[i] is the sole allophone after/ɟ/ˌ/ɲ/ˌ/ŋ/ and/w/, while after almost all other consonants both[i] and[e] can be observed.
Warrongo is analysed as having fiveword classes:nouns, (personal)pronouns,adverbs,verbs andinterjections.[20] Most of these containinterrogative anddemonstrative members; example of an interrogative noun isngani 'what',ngoni 'there' is a demonstrative adverb, an interrogative verb isngani-nga-L 'to do what', and a demonstrative one isyama-nga-L 'to do thus'. Almost all words belong exclusively to a word class, while change of word class is achieved throughderivational suffixes.[21]Adjectives do not form a separate class as they share the morphology and syntactic behaviour of nouns.[22] There are also about a dozenenclitics, with a range of functions: emphasis,focus, intensification, or meanings like 'only', 'enough', 'too', 'I don't know', 'counterfactual'.[23]
Nouns generally do not distinguish number or gender, while pronouns have different forms fornumber (singular, dual and plural) andperson (first, second and third). All of them do, however, inflect forcase. The case suffixes haveallomorphs according to the final phoneme of the stem, with some peculiarities exhibited by pronouns and by vowel-final proper and kin nouns .[24] There are also a few irregular nouns.
Nouns have a single form, unmarked by a suffix, for thenominative case (used for the subject of an intransitive verb) and theaccusative case (used for the object of a transitive verb), while theergative case (used for the subject of a transitive verb) is marked by a suffix. In pronouns, on the other hand, the nominative and the ergative coincide in the bare stem form, while the accusative is marked by a suffix. Exceptionally, the third person dual and plural pronouns, as well as vowel-finalproper and kin nouns, receive separate marking for each of these three cases.[25] The ergative, if used with inanimate nouns, may also mark an instrument.[26]
Thelocative case describes path or destination of movement, location, duration in time, instrument (and means), company ('together with'), and cause or reason. Thedative case marks purpose, cause and reason, possession (rarely), goal and direction of movement, recipient, temporal duration or endpoint, acore argument in some syntactic constructions, and acomplement of intransitives verbs or nouns like 'fond (of)', 'good (to)', 'know', 'forget'. Thegenitive is used only with animate nouns[27] and marks, besides the typical possessor and related functions, also a beneficiary, recipient, or complement of some verbs and nouns. Theablative most commonly marks reason or a temporal or spatial starting point. Thecomitative seems to have a wide range of meanings, some of them idiomatic, but the most typical seem to correspond to English 'with'.
Genitive, ablative and comitative suffixes may be followed by other case suffixes.[28]Some adverbs can take case suffixes: locative (optionally for adverbs of place), dative (with the sense 'to', optionally for adverbs of place, obligatory for adverbs of time), or ablative (obligatory for both if the meaning is 'from, since').[29] Adverbs of manner cannot take case suffixes – this distinguishes them from nouns that express similar meanings (as these nouns must agree in case with the nouns they modify).[30]
Verbs belong to one of threeconjugation classes,[31] which are characterised by the presence of a 'conjugational marker' (-l-, -y- or none) which appears in certain verb forms. Verbs take suffixes for change ofvalency or fortense/mood (future tense, between two and three non-future tenses,imperatives,apprehensional). There are also purposive forms, which signal intention when used as the predicate of a non-subordinate clause,[32] or mark verbs insubordinate clauses for purpose, result or successive actions.[33]
Word order is free and does not seem to be governed byinformation structure. Constituents of a single phrase need not be contiguous.[34] There are however some tendencies. Numeral nouns usually follow thehead noun, while adjective-likemodifiers tend to precede it.[35]Arguments tend to precede verbs, while the agent-like argument of a transitive verb more often than not precedes the patient-like argument, although more frequently only one of them is expressed.[36]
The three most common means of joiningclauses are sentence-sequence (juxtaposed clauses that have separate intonation contours),[37]coordination (juxtaposed clauses with one intonation contour and sharing of conjugational categories such as tense)[38] andsubordination. The most common type of subordination is the purposive.
If there are shared arguments, they are more likely to be deleted from the second clause if it is subordinate, and least likely if it is sentence-sequence.[39] The restrictions on thesyntactic function of the shared argument are typical ofsyntactically ergative languages. The shared argument has to have the same function in both clauses, or be an intransitive subject (S) in one and a transitive patient-like argument (O) in the other:[40]
bama-nggo
man-ERG
warrngo
woman.ABS
mayga-n
tell-NF
bama-nggo warrngo mayga-n yani-yal[41]
man-ERG woman.ABS tell-NF go-PURP
"The man told the woman to go." (main clause O coreferential with deleted S of the subordinate clause)
In case the shared argument is a transitive agent-like argument (A) in one of the clauses,antipassivisation will be involved. It is signalled by a verbal suffix and affects the case marking of the arguments of this verb. In comparison with the basic verb, which marks the A with ergative/nominative and the O with nominative/accusative, the antipassivised verb marks the A with nominative and the O with either ergative or dative.[42] The agent-like argument then becomes available to be coreferential with a patient of a transitive verb or a subject of an intransitive one:
gorngga-do
husband-ERG
birgo
wife.ABS
mayga-n
tell-NF
gorngga-do birgo mayga-n wajo-gali-yal[43]
husband-ERG wife.ABS tell-NF cook-ANTIP-PURP
"[The] husband told [his] wife to cook." (main clause O coreferential with A of subordinate clause, therefore antipassive is necessary)
This Wikipedia article incorporatesCC BY 4.0licensed text from:"Warungu".Queensland Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages map.State Library of Queensland. Retrieved5 February 2020.