A grammar of Gurr-goni (North Central Arnhem land)

Abstract

Ch. 1 gives an overview of the Gurr-goni language, its typological characteristics, speakers and genetic relationships. It also covers phonological and morphological preliminaries. Ch. 2 is concerned with the morphology and syntax of nominals. A distinction between nouns and adjectives is established. §2.2 deals with noun class: the parts of speech on which it is registered; the number of noun classes; the membership of each class, and possible categorisation principles; and patterns of agreement. Noun phrases are briefly discussed in §2.3. §2.4 deals with case as a property of the noun phrase, and presents the case forms and functions. Possessive constructions are dealt with in §2.5, and derivational morphology is briefly covered in §2.6. Ch. 3 presents the pronouns, demonstratives, and interrogatives. We discuss the pronominal categories of person, number and gender, and consider the discourse functions of free pronouns. The distinctions encoded by the demonstrative stems are the subject of §3.2, and §3.3 illustrates the use of interrogative/indeterminate forms. Ch. 4 deals with verb morphology. First, an overview of the structure of the verb complex is given. In §4.3, I examine the pronominal prefixes, identifying their component morphemes. For the transitive prefixes, I also justify the recognition of a singular/non-singular number distinction, and elucidate the principles that determine which pronominal participant is overtly marked. §4.4 describes the tense system, which exhibits the rare feature of having the fixed time reference of one tense interrupted by part of the fixed time reference of another. The category of status, often called mood, is discussed in §4.5, while §4.6 covers illocutionary mood (or force). In §4.7, I list the verbal conjugations, established on the basis of the tense/status allomorphs selected. The final sections of Chapter 4 discuss valence changing devices and directional prefixes. Ch. 5 looks at the structure of clauses. In §5.1, I illustrate non-verbal clause types. In §5.2, we turn to simple verbal clauses. I look firstly at the realisation of core arguments (A, S and 0), and briefly consider peripheral arguments. We then consider the evidence for assigning core or non-core status to other arguments. §5.3 deals with serial verb constructions, a pervasive feature of the Gurr-goni language. We distinguish two major types, one which encodes categories of associated motion and aspect, and one which has 'experiencer' and causative functions. In §5.4, I suggest that a parallel construction may exist, in which the first predicate is a nominal. Moving from simple and complex single clauses, we tum in §5.5 to co-ordination of clauses, and in §5.6 to subordination. Chapter 5 concludes with a discussion of negation (§5.7) and questions (§5.8).