Abstract
The Alyawarr Language Region is located in the Sandover and Barkly areas of the Northern Territory. Alyawarr is a language with around 2000 first language speakers. Although the Alyawarr language has been studied since the 1930s, only recently has long-term detailed fieldwork been undertaken in Alyawarr. Alyawarr verbs are agglutinative, suffixing and compounding. Alyawarr is in rich inflectional and derivational morphology. One significant category is Motion. Chapter One is an introduction to the Alyawarr language and reviews the literature on the language. Verb roots and types of word formation are explored in Chapter 2. Subsequent chapters explore different categories which follow the verb root. Chapter 3 covers Derivation and Number. Chapter 4 explores the categories of Motion and Aspect. Chapter 5 is dedicated to the inflectional categories of Tense and Mood and to complex clauses. This research represents seventeen years of research in the Alyawarr language based upon extensive text collections and data elicitation. Although this thesis builds on that of Stanham (1972), Turtle (n.d) and Yallop (1977), it contains new perspectives on understanding the Alyawarr verb and further refines previous analyses. This thesis is also distinctive and interesting because of further detailed information about reduplication in Alyawarr. Basic Motion verbs are explained and the category of Motion including an account of vertical motion. Another feature of this thesis is an exploration of the aspectual system of Alyawarr and its relationship to the categories of tense and mood along with a number of hitherto undescribed inflections.
Original language | English |
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Qualification | Masters |
Publication status | Unpublished - 2012 |