Yanyula Grammatical Sketch

Classification within Australian Languages

The following brief discussion of the classification of Yanyula draws on Kirton & Charlie's discussion (1996:1-2). Yanyula is classified by Blake (1988:5) as a member of the Warluwaric Group of the Pama-Nyungan family of Australian languages. This is in fact a re-classification: earlier classifications placed Yanyula in the non-Pama-Nyungan family of Australian languages. The difficulty in classifying this language is due to the presence of both Pama-Nyungan and non-Pama-Nyungan features.

Nouns

Noun Classes

In Yanyula fifteen classes of nouns are distinguished by a system of noun class prefixes which vary according to case. The system of prefixes is outlined below (drawing on Kirton 1971:32, 38). Prefixes are given in the nominative form (Kirton 1971:18):

Noun classes 1-7 comprise common nouns. Classes 1 and 2 comprise personal common nouns, which largely refer to humans. For these two classes the class-marking prefix is replaced by the dual prefix rri- or the plural prefix li- in the non-singular. Number is not marked in the other (non-personal) common noun classes (Kirton 1971: 21). Noun modifiers (including adjectives, numerals and the allotive specifier) and pronominal morphemes also distinguish these seven classes and agree in class, number and tagmeme-marking with the noun with which they are in construction (Kirton 1971: 21).

The set of possessive prefixes for body parts causes the noun to agree with its possessor in person, number and class (Kirton 1971:30). Flint's informant uses two of these possessive prefixes with the body-part nouns: nalu- (third person plural possessive prefix) with some and nanda- (third person singular female/third person feminine possessive prefix) with others (Kirton 1971: 32). It is often difficult to tell whether Flint has written the prefix and the stem as separate words or as one word. For consistency's sake, I have entered all the body-part nouns as single words (incorporating the prefixes).

Familiar kinship nouns (Class 9) do not take prefixes, and are used to address relatives or to refer to them in casual conversation. Some Class 9 stems may be used with class 10 prefixes as formal kin terms (Kirton 1971:31).

Classes 10-12 comprise the formal kinship nouns. Classes 10 and 11 each have their own set of possessive prefixes. Class 12 has a set of possessive suffixes.

Class 10 nouns have the following order of prefixes:

personal prefix-possessive prefix-personal prefix-stem... or, for some stems

personal prefix-ja-stem... in the 1sg possessive.

Some Class 10 stems may be used without prefixation as familiar kin terms (Kirton 1971:33).

Class 11 nouns have the following order of prefixes:

personal prefix-possessive prefix-stem...

Men's and Women's Dialects

In Yanyula, men and women use different dialects. In women's speech the male and masculine noun classes are distinguished, whereas in men's speech this distinction is virtually collapsed, both classes usually being expressed by the male form used in the women's dialect (Kirton 1988: 115). This difference is manifested in many elements of the language, including nouns, noun modifiers, various pronouns, bound pronouns and other pronominal affixes (Kirton & Charlie 1996:2-3). Flint's elicitation material was provided by a female informant, Mrs Elsie Harrison, and thus is in the women's dialect. For instance, Flint records yamaningiya man (presumably analysable as ya-maniniya M-man, in which ya- corresponds to Kirton's male prefix nya-). This noun is distinguished from the masculine noun wunda stick (presumably analysable as wunda MASC:stick), in which the absence of an overt class-marking prefix identifies the noun as masculine (see Kirton 1971: 26).

Verbs

For the purposes of analysing Flint's Yanyula material, Kirton & Charlie's (1996:4-5) simplified analysis of verbs has been adopted and (in part) modified. This modified analysis is presented below:

Indicative Verbs:

Indicative verbs consist of initial ka- or ja- (described by Kirton & Charlie as "indicative markers which may additionally signal recurrent aspect" (1996:4)) followed by a bound pronoun or pronouns, followed by the stem, followed by a tense/aspect/mood suffix.

The prefix ja- is associated with present tense, while ka- is associated with non-present tense. The a of these prefixes is lost before a vowel-initial personal prefix (Kirton & Charlie 1996:91). In their analysis of verbs, Kirton & Charlie (1996) and also Bradley et al (1992) do not isolate this prefix as a separate tense-related element. Instead, they incorporate it into the first personal prefix such that the first letter of this prefix is k or j depending on the tense of the verb. The present analysis departs from that practice, instead analysing ja- or ka- (or, more frequently, j- or k-) as a separate unit with its own gloss (PRES or N.PRES).

Yanyula employs subject and object bound pronouns. Intransitive or existential verbs take an intransitive subject prefix after the indicative marker, while transitive verbs take an object prefix after the indicative marker, followed by a transitive subject prefix (Kirton & Charlie 1996-4-5). For a table of these pronominal prefixes, see Kirton & Charlie 1996:91).

Imperative Verbs:

Imperative verbs consist of the verb stem preceded by pronominal prefixes (according to transitivity) and followed by an imperative suffix. The initial vowel (if one is present) is deleted from the initial pronominal prefix (Kirton & Charlie 1996:146).