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Abstract : |
Warlpiri is a Pama-Nyungan language, spoken in Central Australia. It is renowned for its properties of `nonconfigurationality ' including free (pragmatically conditioned) word order, syntactically discontinuous expressions, and null anaphora. It also shows a split ergative case marking system and a conspicuous lack of constituent structure. (There is no evidence of the standard sort for a VP constituent, for example.) This section surveys some of the data that is essential for an understanding of the principles governing Warlpiri word order. It is usually assumed that there are two main word classes in Warlpiri: 1 nouns and verbs. Modifiers of nominals are also nominals and may inflect for case just as their head noun would. So, an NP can be realised as a single noun, or as a string of Ns. Consider the following NP, `black snake': 2 (1) a. Warna maru-ngku. L89:324 snake black-erg b. Warna-ngku maru-ngku snake-erg black-erg c. *Warna-ngku maru snake-erg black In (1a) the ergative case marker is attached to the last word in the noun phrase-- generally regarded as the head noun, whereas in (1b) case marking appears on both words. (1c) is bad 1, |
