Simple sentences

Non-pronominal noun phrases. The words in a noun phrase in Yidiɲ agree, in all showing the same case inflection. It is this case ending that enables us to group the words together as members of one NP, and it is the choice of case inflection which indicates the function of the NP in the sentence.

Yet Yidiɲ does have a fairly definite preferred word order. Deviations from the norm occur, but they are not frequent. (Here Yidiɲ contrasts with its southern neighbour Dyirbal, which shows exceptionally wide word order possibilities – Dixon 1972: 59, 107–8, 291.) But since grammatical function is entirely determined by case inflections – the Yidiɲ preference for a fixed word order is best regarded as an aesthetic (or pedantic) fad, rather than a syntactic necessity – sentences showing unusual orders are generally quite grammatical, any oddity being at the level of ‘style’.

A noun phrase can involve the following constituents:

[i] a specific (i.e. non-generic) noun e.g. badil ‘rickety nut’, waŋal ‘boomerang’, dada ‘child’. This normally functions as the ‘head’ of the NP.

[ii] one or more generic nouns (the twenty or so generic terms, and the semantic hierarchy they define, are given in 6.2.1). A generic will normally precede a specific noun (deviations from this ordering are encountered extremely rarely).

Although there has been close white settlement in the Yidiɲ language area for a hundred years, almost no attempt has been made to record the language. The City of Cairns (with a population of around 30,000) has its Historical and Naturalists' Societies, but these bodies have never initiated any project to study the Aboriginal language or culture.

A few scraps of language were recorded, almost exclusively by visitors to the region. These are listed below under the three main dialects – Guŋgay, Waɲur(u) and Yidiɲ (see 1.2). Nothing at all is recorded of the Maday dialect, the last speaker of which died in the late nineteen-sixties (the writer had tried, without success, to contact her in 1964); it is not certain whether Maday was another name for Waɲur(u), or a separate linguistic/tribal unit.

[I] Guŋgay

(a) Rev. E. R. B. Gribble, missionary at Yarrabah from 1892 to 1909, published a number of short vocabularies and anthropological scraps. Chiefly:

1. (1) ‘By Rev. Mr Gribble, Yarrabah Station, Tribal Dialect of Goon-gan-je’, Australasian Anthropological Journal, vol. 1, no. 1, p. 13 (1896). About 45 forms–nouns, pronouns and some phrases.

2. (2) ‘C. Grafton dialect of Goonganji tribe, by Rev. E. R. B. G. of Bellendenker Mission’, Australasian Anthropological Journal, vol. 1, no. 3, pp. 16–17 (1897). About 100 items in a comparative table of vocabularies from a number of languages. (This whole table was reprinted almost in toto in Science of Man, vol. 12, pp. 211, 231, 251 (1912).)

3. […]

Word formation

Compound verbs. Yidiɲ has a type of verb that involves ‘noun incorporation’ (Sapir 1911: 257). This is formed by prefixing a nominal to a regular verbal root; the resulting compound has the same transitivity as the verbal root. The meaning of a compound verb is not, as a rule, directly inferrable from the meanings of its constituent words (although it does not usually require too great a metaphorical extension). Thus from dili ‘eye’ and budi-l ‘put down’ is derived dili + budi-l ‘look after’, as in (656) and

(961) ɲundu dambu:l gadan / galiŋalna / ŋaɲdi ɲuniɲ

you-sa two abs come-imp go-comit-purp we-sa you-o

dili + budi:lna / wugu burgi:na

look after-purp work-abs walkabout-purp

You two come, so that [I can] take you, so that we can look after you, and you can work [for us, in Cairns]

The components of dili + budi-l can, of course, occur as free forms:

(962) ŋaɲaɲ bama:l wawa:l dili: guma:nda

I-o person-erg see-past eye-inst one-inst

The person watched me with one eye

(963) ŋayu dada budi:l yawu: I put the baby down on the grass

Incorporated nouns (all examples of which are disyllabic) do not cohere phonologically with a following verb root. Thus dili and budi:lna are distinct phonological words (2.4) in (961), just as are dili and baygar in

(964) ŋadin dili baygar My eye is sore

It may thus be asked on what grounds we assert that dili + budi-l is a compound verb, whereas in (964) dili is the head noun of the S NP, quite separate from the verb baygar.

Tape-recordings of the three texts given below, in addition to recordings and transcriptions of the twenty other Yidiɲ texts collected, have been deposited with the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies, P.O. Box 553, Canberra City, A.C.T., 2601, Australia.

Each numbered line constitutes a complete ‘sentence’ (as defined in chapters 4 and 5). ‘/’ indicates the end of an intonation group (the utterance could finish at such a point).

Text 2

The myth of Damari and Guyala – see 1.5. Guyala was a sensible man, who tried to organise the details of life logically and easily; but his brother Damari was silly and obstructive, often being intent on making things as complex and difficult as he could. Told by Dick Moses in the coastal dialect (recorded at Yarrabah on 15 December 1970; duration 12¼ minutes).

1. damariŋgu yaymi:ldaɲu bulmba /

Damari-erg ask-coming-past place-abs

Damari came and asked [his brother] about the place.

Damari and Guyala have come from the north looking for a home. When they reach the Mulgrave region Damari suggests that a likely place may be close by.

2. gana bulmba yiŋu wawa /

try place-abs this-abs look-imp

‘Come and have a look at this place!’ [Damari says].

3. gana ŋali gali:na / gana bulmba numbin / ŋaɲdi

try we two-sa go-purp try camp-abs look for-imp we-sagana galin /

try gO-imp

‘We two should try to go. Let's try to look for a camping-site! We must try to go!’ [Damari continued].