Djambarrpuyngu

This study is a reference grammar of Djambarrpuy?u. Djambarrpuy?u is an agglutinative non-configurational language spoken in north-east Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory of Australia. There are perhaps 1000 speakers of Djambarrpuy?u. Unlike other Australian languages it is being spoken by a greater number of people than would have occurred traditionally. This study focuses on the language of older Djambarrpuy?u clanspeople as occurs in texts. It covers areas of phonology, morphology and syntax as revealed in this corpus and through elicitation. There are numerous examples from the texts throughout the study.

Phonologically the language is of interest because of the presence of a stop contrast and a glottal stop. Djambarrpuy?u has been affected by regional morphophonological processes such as lenition and vowel deletion. Demonstratives are used not only to indicate spatial deixis and temporal relations, but also function prominently in referential tracking in texts. There is a specific set of pronominals used to code intraclausal coreference. Case suffixes may have adnominal, relational or complementizer functions. Tense needs to be described in terms of metrical and cyclical factors. The study also describes the synchronic relationship of Djambarrpuy?u to other languages in the area, with particular attention to the closely related clan varieties Djapu, Gupapuy?u and Gumatj.