Malak-Malak (also spelt Mullukmulluk, Malagmalag), also known as ''Ngolak-Wonga'' (Nguluwongga), is an
Australian Aboriginal language spoken by the
Mulluk-Mulluk people. Malakmalak is nearly
extinct, with children growing up speaking
Kriol or English instead. The language is spoken in the
Daly River area around Woolianna and
Nauiyu. The Kuwema or Tyaraity (Tyeraty) variety is distinct.
Classification
Malakmalak was formerly classified in a
Northern Daly family along with the "Anson Bay" group of
Wagaydy (Patjtjamalh, Wadjiginy, Kandjerramalh) and the unattested
Giyug. Green concluded that Wagaydy and Malakmalak were two separate language families.
[Green, I. "The Genetic Status of Murrinh-patha" in Evans, N., ed. "The Non-Pama-Nyungan Languages of Northern Australia: comparative studies of the continent’s most linguistically complex region". ''Studies in Language Change'', 552. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics, 2003.] Some later classifications have linked them such as Bowern (2011). However, the Wagaydy people are recent arrivals in the area, and their language may only similar due to borrowing. ''
AIATSIS'' and ''
Glottolog'' both treat Wagaydy as an isolate and Giyug as unclassifiable.
In contemporary usage, "Northern Daly" (e.g. Harvey 2003,
[Harvey, M. (2003). "The evolution of verb systems in the Eastern Daly language family." In N. Evans ed. ''The Non-Pama Nyungan languages of Northern Australia.'' Canberra, Pacific Linguistics. pp. 159-184.] Cahir 2006,
[Cahir, P. (2006). "Verb functions and Argument Structure in MalakMalak: a Northern daly Language of the Daly River Region, Northern Territory." Honours Thesis. University of Melbourne.] Nordlinger 2017) most often refers specifically to the group of languages which includes Malakmalak and Tyerraty
(also known as Guwema), a variety with which MalakMalak differs significantly in vocabulary (65% according to Tryon's 200 word list), but is very close to morphologically.
Phonology
Vowels[Hoffmann, Dorothea (in prep), MalakMalak Sketch Grammar]
Consonants
Plosives /p t c k/ may be heard as voiced as
d ɟ ɡwhen intervocalic.
Typological classification
MalakMalak, is an
ergative-absolutive language with constituent order mainly determined by
information structure
In linguistics, information structure, also called information packaging, describes the way in which information is formally packaged within a sentence.Lambrecht, Knud. 1994. ''Information structure and sentence form.'' Cambridge: Cambridge Univer ...
and
prosody, but syntactically free. Marking of core-cases is optional. The language is mostly
dependent-marking A dependent-marking language has grammatical markers of agreement and case government between the words of phrases that tend to appear more on dependents than on heads. The distinction between head-marking and dependent-marking was first explore ...
(1), but also has no marking (2) and
head-marking
A language is head-marking if the grammatical marks showing agreement between different words of a phrase tend to be placed on the heads (or nuclei) of phrases, rather than on the modifiers or dependents. Many languages employ both head-marking ...
features (3).
Morphosyntactic properties
MalakMalak's verb phrase uses
complex predicate
In linguistics, a compound verb or complex predicate is a multi- word compound that functions as a single verb. One component of the compound is a '' light verb'' or ''vector'', which carries any inflections, indicating tense, mood, or aspec ...
s. These consist of an
inflecting verb that has properties of person, number and
tense. MalakMalak only has six such verbs. In example (4), ''yuyu'' and ''vida'' are inflecting verbs. Additionally, there are
coverb
A coverb is a word or prefix that resembles a verb or co-operates with a verb. In languages that have the serial verb construction, coverbs are a type of word that shares features of verbs and prepositions. A coverb takes an object or complemen ...
s which have
aspectual properties, but do not inflect for number, tense or person. They occur with inflecting verbs. They are unlimited in number and new verbs are also borrowed into this class. In (4), ''kubuk-karrarr, dat-tyed,'' and ''ka'' are coverbs. They can also form
serial verbs
The serial verb construction, also known as (verb) serialization or verb stacking, is a syntactic phenomenon in which two or more verbs or verb phrases are strung together in a single clause.Tallerman, M. (1998). ''Understanding Syntax''. London: A ...
(''kubuk-karrarr, dat-tyed'').
Spatial Language
MalakMalak employs all three "classic" types of spatial
Frames of Reference
In physics and astronomy, a frame of reference (or reference frame) is an abstract coordinate system whose origin, orientation, and scale are specified by a set of reference points― geometric points whose position is identified both mathe ...
: intrinsic, relative and absolute. Additionally, the language uses place names and body-part orientation to talk about space.
The intrinsic Frame requires some kind of portioning of the ground object or landmark into named facets from which search domains can be projected.
In English this would be, for example, ''the tree is in front of the man.'' And in MalakMalak it would be (5).
The relative Frame of Reference involves mapping from the observer's own axes (''front, back, left, right'') onto the ground object.
An English example is ''the ball is on the right.'' In MalakMalak it would be (6)
The absolute Frame of Reference requires xed bearings that are instantly available to all members of the community.
An English example is ''the opera is west of here.'' In MalakMalak, three different types of absolute frames can be used. Those based on the course of the sun (''east/west'') (7a), on prevailing winds (''northwesterly/southeasterly'') (7b), and on two sides of the prominent
Daly River (''northeastern/southwestern bank'') (7c).
Vocabulary
The following basic vocabulary items of Northern Daly language varieties are from Tryon (1968).
[Tryon, Darrell T. "The Daly River Languages: A Survey". In Aguas, E.F. and Tryon, D. editors, ''Papers in Australian Linguistics No. 3''. A-14:21-49. Pacific Linguistics, The Australian National University, 1968. ]
:
References
*
*
*Hoffmann, Dorothea
http://drdorotheahoffmann.wordpress.com*Hoffmann, Dorothea (2015).
Moving through space and (not?) time North Australian dreamtime narratives,” ''Narratives from the South Pacific: Sociocultural explorations'', ed. by F. Gounder. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 15-35
*Hoffmann, Dorothea (2014).
Mapping the Language How a dying language loses its place in the world”, ''Endangered Words, Signs of Revival,'' ed. by
Ghil'ad Zuckermann, J. Miller, and J. Morley, Adelaide:
Australex, 1-18
External links
MalakMalakat th
Dalylanguages.org website
{{Australian Aboriginal languages
Daly languages
Extinct languages of the Northern Territory
Language isolates of Australia
Severely endangered languages