Umbugarla: A Sketch Grammar

109 Pages·1989·26.228 MB·English

by  Jennifer Davies

UhBUGARtk- A SKETCF GRAMMAR
J d e rD &es
4th year hnmrsT hesis
1989

Abbmialbns a ds ymbols
Chapter One: ~ u c t i o n
I
1.1 The Language a dit s Spesicers
12 &mes and Method of Study
! 1.3 Typological S W
.
.
Two: Mth and Phonology
21 O v dI nventory and Orthography
22 Vowels: AJaphoaes and Rules
23 Conso~'AUophoneasn d Rules
23-1 Stops -
232 Nasals
23.3 Lataals
2.3.4 Rhoaim
2.35 ~ V d s
2.3.6 Phonemic S t a t u s O f ~ ~ oSaum:m mjj
24 Sbws
2.5 Pfio~~~trsctics
25.1 Syllable Sirumrc
2.5.4 - Consonant Qusters
26 Morphophonemics
2.dl Asidation
5.6.2 Vowel Reducdon
2.6.3 SandhiProcessw
3.1 Nouns
3.2 Adjectiw
3.3 Verbs
3.4 Ptonouns
35 lhmmsmives
3.6 lmewgatives
3.7 Adverbs
q e
3.8
3.9 Basic Syntactic Patterns
Chapter Four Noun Morphology
4.1 Noun Uses
4.2 Cast
42.1 W eh e
4.26 aurposc
4.23 Gemdvc
4.2.4 ZeroCase-hmtner~cal
Chapter Five; Adjective Morphology
Noun Qass Prefixes
Qumtifying Expressions
ChapS ix: Prommq Demonsuatiws, htenogatives and Adverbids
Pronouns 48
Cardinal Pronouns 48
Possessive Pronouns 50
Possessive Pronouns Used Wirh General nouns 50
Possessive Pronouns Used Wi Kin Tams 51
Possessive Pmonrls Used With Body Parts 53'
lknonsmtive5 53
Intamgdws 55
"
InMtidnQ aesrions 55
56
56
Chapm scvcn: VerM Morphology
Verbs
hrransitive V d s
m t i v eV erbs
Di-Transitive Verbs
Appendix
-3-TIONS AND SYMBOLS
A subject of d t i v es entem
adj . *chve -
adv. adverb
7 aupmd
F, an. feminine mun class
fn+ fillme
GEN genitive
imp, imparive
interj. i m m n
-g- --i nmgative
I0 whtobgep
KPP Ibn poss.e;'a avc pnoun
LIX w v t -
M zwcuIint noun dass
min. minimal
PI neuw noun class
n. noun
NP non-past
0 object
pl., P PI^
poss. possessi~t
pro- prmonn
PSt
purposive
subject of intransitive senteace
singular
ve@k nmclm
vetb
phonemic bckets
first, second. third, and rmelhva (first and sewnd) persons
mocphm bo=w
mwphwne boundary (used in mapheme-by-morphemeg bsses)
wadboundary
1.1 The Language and its Speakers
Umbugaria is a non-fama-~~un~laanngu age spoken in Western Amhm
Ladi n the Notfiern Temitory of Aushalia TradiriooaUy, & Umbugarla peopIe4s
counay is on rhe South Alligator River. South west ofJabiru. According a> Chalo- et
al. (1985), the immediay sormunding Ianguguages are Bukuneytja to fbc Nortb, Mayali
to the East, Djawonj to the South and Kurmbutj to the West Hanrey (1989) suggesis lhat
Ngombm and Urnbugark (and possibly BuIaunidja) make up one language group It
certaiuly seem that Ngornbw aad Urnbug& have at least sane shadI cxid irems.
N. Tindde, in his book; '~borigflraTlr ibes of AusHia' lists 'Ambugula' people under
'Ngormbur' and places rhe whale p u pb etween the Wen and Sonth AUigaror Rivers,
fmn the mast inIand to Bambw Crcek, zm rn of approximately 2.100 square
It seems that d ya few speakers of Urnbugaria d.Of the four informants
drawn on here, three, Charlie Whittaker, his consin Robin Gaden and Butcher fight .
s p dU mbugada as heir first language. Charlie Whrtlkcr's mother and Robin Gaden's
father wae Urnbugark. Tdkifig Billy is not so fluent ns the others. The Umbugaria he
hows is kamt from his wife.
1
I am unsure about the origin oft he language name. One of the informants.
Butckzr Knight, gives [umbugarh] as tbe word for 'hips / rhigh / behind'. Gavan B-
has wriucn below this that Jhighr aIso made w mc ornmen t abmr tfie connecrian
between this and the language-hme, mething abwr 'sitting on the munay'.
(GBA,1OS)
1.2 Sources and Method ofstudy
Two sections maloc: up the bulk of this smdy. One is mncaaed with the
phonology of Umbngarh and the other with its mmphdogy. Due to the name of my
marerial Whs ections are incomplete in places andrrmny tables and paradigms are
frakPmtaTy.
I
All of my data camt f?om Eour sources. These four sources consisted of several I
page3 of wanscription of Urnbugarla speech done by M;uk Harvey, a slightly larger 1
muatd one by Nick Evans and Iarger amount collected by Frances Morphy. The bulk
of my data has come from Gavan E m .I also had access to rhe tapes from which Breen I
has made his mmmiptions, dhugh I have not rnade as much TeCerena: m these as I 1
would havc liked.
i
Througlmut this study and in the appendix these mscriptions are referred ;
to in the foUowing ways: +
i
1-32 marlie wh'ittak, Alawa 22.4.'80
33-47 R6in Gaden, Alawa 6-8.'80
48-79 WinG adut, Oenpelli 11.10.'80
80-143 Butcher Knight, Pgmga Waterhole
12.10.'80
Charlie .%traker, Mina nd Ruby G&
Oen* 17.9.' 8 1
Butcher Knight, pacbnga Waterhole
24.9.'81
D. Topical Vocabulmy (pp. 1-40) (Taken h mA J3 and C)
E A l p h a mL ist @pJ-b3) flaken from A, B and C)
J*Y
EVANS, Nick Butch Knight andTalking Billy
H. (pp. 4-5.7-19) May '87
M0rn.Frances
J. 'Field Notes' (pp. 1-36) Charlie Whitraker, August '83
L. File Cards m.1-10)
X Lexicon (pp. 14)
Whm r d mev ery emmple taken from the data abave will be matked
with the ini- of the investigator, a Letter, (e.g A), and a page number, cg.
Most example rn- will k similar m &e one given abve, including the
EolIowkg four parts:
1. An exact copy of the sentence as uanscribed by one of the above invessigatom
in quart bmckeki (note that any Wohd in squm brackets is NOT ne~ssday p honetic
represd.I n srmae cases the invesrigatm range h ma narrow phonetic
transcription to r. mwe pRonemic one. From here on, unless otherwise indiated squate
bracLe~sh~o uld MOT be rcgardcd as m indication of a. phonetic tmndption, but as an
indication that the enclosed w dis taka tkctly from d~ieri vesdguufs tranbptioa)
2. A phonemic interpretation for which F am responsible.
3. A morphemeby-morpheme gloss
4. An English h-anslacion.
!
all such casts it is tu determine the identity of the infommt by
ref+ to the infarmarim I;rrovlded above. Whne it seems m ~lleto be pa&uhly
-q*ft to ma~kw ho lb hfOmmt is tkis is done so with their initials placed after
of the investigator-
The method of study was Limited to idmmrion gademl from the above sources.
are basically nnanalysd, dthmgh Brew groups words into pmouns,
&nmmwatives, interrogifives,i ~~ecticaadsv,e rbs, adjectives, nouns aad verbs, and
E,s afhts. Both pronominal prcfix tables in chapier seven are adapted frwn ones he has
drawn np.
i
A nmaber of di&wltid&nted themse~vesF. atly, 1h ad to rely on dam
collected by four differeat people who didn't always use the same mwtions in
mcmiptiaa. It also appears that sam-e i~~ were more pbomidly particular
thrn others tnd ewx that individuals varied within in heir own notes. For daairy I have
standadzed the four transcriptions.
Investigatds conventiaas = My conventions
q, t, d,r t, $ (dotted),: {doaedI = rt. rd lremflex stop)
p.nY = ny Wad d)
d.dy= dy srop)
R,f (dotred) = r
r = u
'Xhfsc are NOT the phonemic symbds I will employ. Thase syrnboIs on the right
will be d inside square brackets in place d those on the left All other s-ls used
are the same as thse used by the invesrigarm.
In some instances Frances Marphy uses r whm other invatigm use a doaed r.
In Qese cases I assume he means a conCirmant Where she us~sa d dr I d w assum
she means a continuant and whm she uses rr I assume she means a hill or flap. III those
txesw hr i s used by all investigators I assume she means a niU or fip.
1
Somt investigators use :t o S i t ele ngth, others uu .
1
Smsg is indiated in one ofk following two ways, with either an accent r&
wer the vowel of the srressed svllabb or an a~waopkm a.rkd before Erst conmnmt
of the m a ds yUabk. I
The sitwrim was also ma& awkward kcamI had no access to narive spzahs
to ask funher qnestions of or to check hypotheses with. It is targeiy W s eo f this d~ar
thne are many gaps in the data which could only k by further investigation of new
data.
Udugada is a nan-Pama-Nyungan,* pxe fig and kd-marking language. lts
&m orphology is faidy comptcx. V&s prefixes f as ubject and objca. N-
and djechal mmphol~gyis ~ ~ ~ h Ftwalt d . d assts cad be dkdgi&he&
is linked ro a nwrrinarive-amtiye sysi~ms, o far only actesztd with
&g&r pmnouns. Full noun phmses and pltrral pronoun fofriae do mt take any core case
d gW d 3 de~is not rigid, but subject-vtrb(sbjtct)z s eared.
An unusual fearure of thc bgnage is thar noun ckss prefixes have a large number
ofnon-prdctable, Iexkally detcmrincd mmates.
Thephomnk sysIll is typical of Ansnalian languages. There arc five
matingp oints of articnladon foc bps and nasals, two semi-vowels, two &tics and
twr, ( w i b lt~hx lee) iaraals. The w c ls ystem c o mof ~three maiorvowels with a
lend con6st &'two marginaldowelsk ith no length contrast, a to& of eight S- is
phonemic a ~ ~ git t&f i a, g'p.mltinme.
2.1 Overall Inventmy and Orthography
The phonemic cwsonanf and vowel i n w qof Umbugarla is shown in tables
2 la and 2 1b . What the @ca! orthography differs this is given in brachets. It b tk
paaid onhograpby that will be used h r nh en on for my phodc uar~~criptions
Umbupda phonology has a series of fiw stops and five nasals, thre Iataals. two
W s ,tw o semi-vowels and eight vowels. It &mld be noctd here that the reuxded and
mnmibed Wech OF Umbugarla includts a great deal of apparently free varkuioa, so
deciding dm stafus of vowels and cmsonants is not an ~astya sk
Table 2.1a
smps b d cl(rd) 4( 4) g
nasals
semi-vowels (w)
Table 2.lb
u .u:
0
The basis of this section is d ythe & ammiptirns with som refame m the
tapts
The criteria empbyedfordemnhhg that a segmmispbmnic is tk psenoe
of minim& or near minimal, pairs .C hwxdy, a i;egmglr is classed as 'mn-phonemic'
or dophonic if tfaere is ~ r i a + bseegmm~ts withorrr any change in maning or if
two ~~gmewahtic~h couldreas+ly be alloptpones of tlae same phoneme arc found in
-mew Mbution. h4aayc asw the only Cridefice cm which assignrumt d
phonemic ar phonetic value is is whether a segment alrernan;s with a u kfa irly
cmshmtIy d o u rm y change in meaning.
-indicatesb
bochwasdsart
attested
22 Vow&: Allophones and Rules
Umbugda has eight ghommic vowels. It m a kr eguIar use of three main wwds
- ldJ4a nd Ad. Found less freqwtly are rhe mmgind vowels id and rb=, targely codhed
m bans. Vowel length is mostly pwdictabk but for a smaIl number of words with /a/, Al
,
mdfulit~rmtScA~isfoundasaweahZunsmdhof~d/la/$orWbutis
retained m phmtmic transuiprions where 1 am unable to demmine the underlying vowel.
+
TBis is a separate phoneme distinct from fd, /d and M-It is not f o d
#+
eltimating with these four M& without a chemge in d g .
e.g. /amnuri rhumb
-8, ~ ~ n m s =
[a] is lhe mmdxdf man d is often f din e ither mmpIernenrary distribution or fke
akemation with one of [z] ,[a][.a ], [D] or [o].
[zJ (low, front, urrmnnded vowel)
This is an flophomeof [a]-I t is found aptiody ahmating with /a/ next to tk
palatal sqmats IyIJdY or /nj/.