Stem forms and paradigm reshaping in Gunwinyguan

Abstract

In this chapter I address the internal subgrouping of the Gunwinyguan (GN) family, originally proposed by O'Grady, Voegelin and Voegelin (1996). The most recent and extensive argument for this family is Alpher, Evans, and Harvey (in press; henceforth AEH). AEH's primary evidence for the existence of this group comes from a shared set of finite verb paradigms. According to the authors, languages belong to this family (see 1.1) below can be shown to descend from a pGN verb inflection system which distinguished Past Punctual (PP), Past Continuous (PC), and NonPast (NP) tense forms, and had several conjugations. I take this family level grouping as a given in my discussion. ... My primary focus on what follows is on Ngalakgan and Rembarrnga. I show that there is evidence of systematic innovation in verb inflection morphology, and they may therefore be subgrouped together. I will call this subgroup 'Jala' (from the word for "mouth" in Rembarrnga and Ngalakgan).