Syntax
Tutorial Exercises — Week 2
MBABARAM
INTERNAL / MORPHOLOGICAL CRITERIA FOR CATEGORISATION
The following sentences are from Mbabaram, an Australian Aboriginal language of
North Queensland, spoken inland from Cairns (data from Dixon).
One sentence contains a mistake: one of the words occurs in an incorrect form.
Part A
• Study these sentences, find the regularities in their structure, and on this basis
try to identify the incorrect sentence.
• Correct it by modifying or replacing the incorrect word.
• State the reasons which have led you to your conclusion.
Part B
• Now consider what the most probable grammatical structure is for the sentences.
• Can you identify, even tentatively, any parts of speech?
• Can you say anything about the role of what look like grammatical morphemes?
Hints:
• Assume the language has fixed word order (i.e. word order isn’t random).
• Assume each sentence has one verb and at least one noun.
• (Of course, we can’t always assume these things, but this is a good way to start
with an exercise like this.)
1. dogul mog njab
2. mogul dog njarə
3. dog lob
4. mog lonə alŋgi
5. mog lonuŋ
6. dogul mog njarə alŋgi
7. mog lob anmɨn
8. dog lim lob
9. dog lonə
10. mogul limul dog njaruŋ
11. mogul dogul njab
12. dogul mog njab anmɨn
13. mog lim lob anmɨn