Away:
* loss of sweetheart to a rival ('Ayiyakanjildiny' JU16)
* pursuit of desired woman, going over to lover ('Yarrkbanaka' JU15; 'Angkiju' JU20)
* intercession of friend going to talk to desired woman ('Yangmanara' JU03)
* boat leaning over in wind ('Dayibabu' JU21)
* wanting to go to country being struck by lightning ('Akartalwan' JU22)
* thinking about absent addressee ('Ngaldalmaldangkaj' JU23)
* punching lover away during fight ('Ayiyakanjildiny' JU24)
* noticing bird song while walking along ('Kuluduk' JU25)
* man walking along, then gets grabbed on chin and kissed by woman ('Yakaldadbarjan' JU27)
* combing hair to make oneself look good while walking off to trysting place ('Nganayalkbarrki' JU29)
* location (away) of cuddling lovers being observed ('Rildakbalambang' JU30)
* lover lying on side and calls singer's name ('Dangkarrarnaka' JU31)
* lover who is away has kept something (as a memento of absent person?) ('Wularrud' JU32)
* singer was off at beach and misses meeting with addressee ('Yanjalmangung' JU04)
* concern for absent person whose mind drifts away ('Wurruwarr' JU08)
* looking back over shoulder while walking along ('Yangkuwilbarrjiny' JU13)
* lover going on ahead to Cherry Beach (trysting place) ('Kartbirljuju' JU10).
Both:
* contrast of friend (keep guard for me; yuwukbanukan) and outsider (voyeur peeping at me while washing; ijuwumarludbang) ('Jawina' JU14).
(30) ngaran duwa yungkurrumburrwung nga-ldalmaldangkaj 1sg-go-PST just AWAY:1sgA>2lO-have_in_mind-PST 1sg-feel_sick
[You two went away, you didn't even say goodbye to me] 'I went on thinking about (absent) you, I am sick with worry.'
Not only do the directionals turn up frequently, but the Jurtbirrk collection also threw up examples of forms that previous investigations had suggested did not exist. An example comes from 'Ngaldalmaldangkaj' (JU23), composed by David Minyimak, Example(30).
The prefix yungkurrum- (21) here fills out one of the supposed gaps in the paradigm. Here it makes complete sense: I am thinking about ABSENT you. This suggests that the reason that Pym, Larrimore and ourselves had not found the missing combinations was that we had been concentrating on the basic meaning, 'movement away', trying out the combinations with verbs like 'take'. But if we look at other uses of the prefix--such as the location of one participant away from the here-and-now--the combination makes sense, as in this song. We are now using this insight to double back to try to get the other missing elements in the paradigm.
Lexicon: intimate vocabulary
The preceding section showed how song language can help us explore aspects of grammar we might otherwise have missed. We now turn to the lexicon or vocabulary, and again we see how song language throws up new vocabulary items that are easily overlooked if we just focus on spoken language.
Documenting a language is like carrying out a biological survey of fish or bird species. Common items are easy to detect, but as with any sampling procedure, rare items can easily be missed. A language documentation program is usually based on just a fraction of the number of hours' exposure that a normal speaker has to the language. We may sample everyday greetings and statements, or public narratives, but what about the words persons say to each other in private, or to themselves in their thoughts? Here we show how Jurtbirrk songs give a particularly clear window into the 'intimate' vocabulary of interiority and feeling that characterises lovers' language.
In the Iwaidja spoken stories that we have recorded, there are of course many dealing with love relationships. Interestingly, though, the focus in these spoken stories is on outward events, and on the social consequences of these relationships, or how particular feelings motivate action, rather than on a fine depiction of the feelings themselves. Thoughts--in the rare situations where they are mentioned at all--are presented as speech. Desires are only mentioned to the extent that they impact on actions, physical forms (for example, changing from man into snake) or resultant social relations. In the Jurtbirrk songs, on the other hand, the focus is on a delicate and evocative characterisation of poignant feelings, and on vignettes of individual love relationships.
Let us begin by looking at a spoken story: the story of Yirrwartbart, which has been recorded from many languages and groups in Western Arnhem Land. This story concerns the 'eternal quadrangle' of a young girl, her mother who has promised her in marriage, the unappealing older man she is promised to, and the girl's handsome young lover. This plot implies a broad and passionate emotional range--love, lust, disappointment, jealousy, coercion, disappointment, revenge. But the only examples of emotional expressions that we have recorded, across several tellings of this story, involve rather broad-brush, generic verbs for emotion or thought (31), or verbs of speech like abiny 'he said/did' framing reported thought (32). All are quite basic and had already been recorded many times before in other contexts. (Versions of this story that we have seen in other languages, such as Kunwinjku and Amurdak, are comparable.) We exemplify here with a typical passage from a version of this story told by Joy Williams (Williams Malwagag and Birch 2005); emotional expressions in Iwaidja and English are in bold.
(31) Jumung kukung wularrud kungmawiny, kukung ba warrkbi kamurtbang, karlu kamiyardmangung.
Long ago a woman promised her daughter to her son-in-law, but the girl was afraid of going to him, she didn't want/like (22) him (and therefore didn't go to him).
(32) Barda abiny janad wiyu, nganduka nganamin? Kurldingka nganangijan ambij.
And so the old man said to himself, 'what am I going to do? Maybe I'll change into a snake.'
Similar vocabulary items come out during discussions or retellings of these stories, such as the following excerpts from commentary and partial retellings of this story by Tim Mamidba:
(33) Ralarrikban manuk kayang mardarraj, Yirrwartbart kawudban kamiyardmang manuk.
Water Python spoiled things, she fell in love with him and took him as her lover, she left Taipan and (only) wanted Water Python.
In the Jurtbirrk songs, there is a much more finely tuned emotional palette, focussing on more subtle emotions, or revelations of emotional state. In transcribing and translating the Jurtbirrk songs, we encountered expressions previously unknown to us (and not included in Pym and Larrimore's Iwaidja dictionary file, resulting from their three to four years' work on the language in the 1970s). These included the following, all taken from Jurtbirrk composed by David Minyimak.
(34) aldakani 'make someone sad, make someone sorry', as in 'Nganbaldakaniny' (JU09).
Malany maju nganbaldakaniny ngara baraka, ngaldalmalangkajangkaj.
Why is she trying to make me sorry, I'm feeling sick in the stomach.
(35) ldalmaldangkaj 'feel churned up, feel sick in the stomach with worry or emotional turmoil', as in the example (36) but also in 'Ngaldalmaldangkaj' (JU23):
Ngaran duwa yungkurrumburrwung, ngaldalmaldangkaj.
I went on thinking about you two who are away, I am sick with worry.
(36) angmarranguldi 'bring back memories, inspire longings for an absent person or place; particularly used when the memories are triggered by some meteorological phenomenon, for example, a change in the wind, lightning storm, or similar', as in 'Akartalwan' (JU22).
Kanayanjing akartalwan Wungarndurl angmarranguldiny kirrimul baraka, janamirrakbun.
Look at the lightning, the sight of the distant storm fills me with longing, I'm going down there.
(37) ldakbalkba 'reveal one's thoughts, say what one is thinking about, what is on one's mind', as in 'Kurrana' (JU05).
Ardalbardalba yuwuldakbalkba, imalda arakbalmalkbang kurrana.
Quick, tell me what you're thinking, before the moon comes up / the moon is already coming up.
This word is made up of a root ldak (~ dak) that occurs in many expressions of communication, plus a variant of the root malkba 'to appear, emerge, come up or out'. This same root malkba recurs later in the song, embedded inside another verb balmalkba 'to come up, of moon'. So the composer sets up an implicit parallel between the addressee of the thoughts of the addressee appearing or being revealed to the singer (specifically: where they are to meet) and the moon appearing in the sky--with imalda 'already' conveying the urgency that once the moon is fully up it will be hard for them to make their way in secret to the appointed trysting place.
Conclusion
The word ldakbalkba is particularly significant for us, as documenters of language and music faced with the challenge of coaxing out the knowledge that persons hold in their minds into a tangible form that can be shared with future generations. Song, as a medium, gives us a special opportunity to reveal some of this fine cultural knowledge, which is in the minds of language speakers--both as songmen, and as 'ordinary' speakers--but which may only appear in the rare moments so delicately portrayed in this song genre. The multiple focus brought by interdisciplinary work can increase our sensitivity to the richness and logic of what is there. By incorporating topics that might often be regarded as lying somewhere between the disciplines, such as the extent to which the rhetorical structures of song texts are supported by their musical setting; the nature of the musical and metrical constraints that lead to modification of the song text when it is sung as opposed to spoken, and observations on the phonology of the song texts in the context of the larger corpus of spoken Iwaidja, we hope that our article has gone some way towards integrating both perspectives and providing a clearer picture of the corpus.
At the same time, the sheer wealth of languages and musical genres involved confronts us with an enormous challenge. Though we have focussed on a single genre, Jurtbirrk, sung in a single language, Iwaidja, understanding the texture of musical life in western Arnhem Land requires us to study the full tapestry of different song genres and their associated languages: public performances usually draw on a wide selection from this rich gamut, the geographical symbolism of specific performance choices (for example, choosing sea songs as opposed to stone country songs) draws on the mapping of the associated language onto clan lands, and song styles are defined with respect to the whole musical and linguistic ecology of the region. Many of the deeper issues we have raised in this article, such as the interdependence of song and speech in generating cultural diversity and specific local identities in the region, can only be addressed properly once we have an understanding of the entire rich panoply of musical genres in Western Arnhem Land. Our goal in this article has been to show how many angles the appreciation of even one of them has to be approached from.
Appendix 1: Abbreviations
A transitive subject
ANG ang-class intransitive subject or object
(historically an old neuter)
DEM demonstrative
FUT future
IMP imperative
HAB habitual
INCH inchoative
ITER iterative
O object
OBL oblique
OPT optative
plplural
PPpast perfective
PST past
sgsingular
1, 2, 3 first, second, third person > 'acts upon',
for example, 3p1A>30 'third person plural
subject acts upon third person singular
object'.
Appendix 2: Iwaidja Practical Orthography
Consonants in Iwaidja
Bilabial Alveolar Retroflex
Stop b (p) d (t)rt (t)
Nasalm n rn (n)
Approximant w r (j)
Fricative
Tap rr (r)rd (f)
Trill
Laterall rl (l)
Flapped Lateral ld ([l.sup.f])rld ([l.sup.r])
PalatalVelar
Stop j (f) k
Nasal ny (n)ng (n)
Approximanty (j) h (w)
Fricative
Tap
Trill
Lateral
Flapped Lateral
The consonant inventory shares much with other Australian languages, the exceptions being the velar fricative, which is an areal feature, and an expanded set of liquid phonemes where a flapped versus non-flapped contrast is superimposed on alveolar and retroflex laterals.
There are five place contrasts for oral and nasal obstruents, and four for approximants. There are two place contrasts (alveolar and retroflex) for taps, laterals, and flapped laterals.
Iwaidja has a triangular three-vowel system (a, i, u).
Appendix 3: Jurtbirrk song texts listing
Cross-referenced to song and track numbers for the Jurtbirrk CD
(Barwick, Birch and Williams 2005).
ID TitleSong and track number(s) on CD
JU01'Kudnuka ngartung' Song 9, tracks 12 and 13
JU02'Jawani jukan' Song 11, track 16
JU03'Yangmanara' Song 10, tracks 14 and 15
JU04'Yanjalmangung' Song 24, tracks 30 and 31
JU05'Kurrana'Song 25, tracks 32 and 33
JU06'Angkakbaldurun' Song 27, track 35
JU07'Yinang birta' Song 28, track 36
JU08'Wurruwarr' Song 26, track 34
JU09'Nganbaldakaniny'Song 5, tracks 6 and 7
JU10'Kartbirljuju' Song 30, track 38
JU11'Bujikad'Song 31, track 39
JU12'Riwujbakba' Song 32, track 40
JU13'Yangkuwilbarrjiny' Song 29, track 37
JU14'Jawina' Song 6, tracks 8 and 9
JU15'Yarrkbanaka'Song 7, track 10
JU16'Yarildariki'Song 1, track 1
JU17'Ngadburriyinurriying' Song 2, tracks 2 and 3
JU18'Ayunman wingalmu' Song 3, track 4
JU19'Kanangurrwu'Song 4, track 5
JU20'Angkiju'Song 12, tracks 17 and 18
JU21'Dayibabu' Song 13, track 19
JU22'Akartalwan' Song 14, track 20
JU23'Ngaldalmaldangkaj' Song 15, track 21
JU24'Ayiyakanjildiny'Song 16, track 22
JU25'Kuluduk'Song 17, track 23
JU27'Yakaldadbarjan' Song 18, track 24
JU28'Kuburruburr'Song 19, track 25
JU29'Nganayalkbarrki'Song 20, track 26
JU30'Rildakbalambang'Song 21, track 27
JU31'Dangkarrarnaka' Song 22, track 28
JU32'Wularrud' Song 23, track 29
JU34'Yadndakbuliwa' Song 8, track 11
ID Composer
JU01David Minyimak
JU02Reggie Cooper
JU03Reggie Cooper
JU04
JU05David Minyimak
JU06Reggie Cooper
JU07Reggie Cooper
JU08David Minyimak and Reggie Cooper
JU09David Minyimak
JU10Robert Cunningham
JU11Robert Cunningham
JU12David Minyimak
JU13Reggie Cooper
JU14David Minyimak
JU15Ronnie Wandijak
JU16Ronnie Wandijak, David Minyimak
dj Sam Namaruka
JU17Ronnie Wandijak
JU18David Minyimak
JU19Ronnie Wandijak
JU20David Minyimak
JU21David Minyimak
JU22David Minyimak
JU23David Minyimak
JU24David Minyimak
JU25David Minyimak
JU27David Minyimak
JU28David Minyimak
JU29David Minyimak
JU30David Minyimak
JU31David Minyimak
JU32David Minyimak
JU34David Minyimak
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The research on which this article is based was funded by the Volkswagen Foundation's Documentation of Endangered Languages (DOBES) programme through the University of Melbourne, and relevant documentation is deposited in the DOBES archive, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen (Netherlands). Thank you to the Jurtbirrk composers David Minyimak, Reggie Cooper, and Ronnie Wandijak, and also to Archie Brown, Charlie Mangulda, Dick Gameraidj and the late B Yambikbik for further information about song traditions at Minjilang. We wish to acknowledge the assistance of Joy Malwagag Williams (Minjilang, Croker Island) in the transcription and translation of the song texts, and of Sabine Hoeng, production coordinator for the Iwaidja publication project, who has lent practical and moral support throughout the documentation project.
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Linda Barwick
University of Sydney
Bruce Birch
University of Melbourne
Nicholas Evans
University of Melbourne
Linda Barwick is a musicologist who has conducted fieldwork in Italy, Australia and the Philippines. She is Associate Professor (Research Only) in the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, University of Sydney, and Director of PARADISEC, the Pacific and Regional Archive for Digital Sources in Endangered Cultures.
Bruce Birch is a linguist with a specialisation in the prosodic phonology of the Indigenous languages of Arnhem Land and the documentation of endangered languages. He is a doctoral student and Research Fellow at the Department of Linguistics and Applied Linguistics at the University of Melbourne, and the principal field linguist for the Volkswagen Foundation-funded Iwaidja Documentation Project.
Nick Evans is a linguist who has worked on several North Australian languages including Kayardild in Queensland and Bininj Gun-wok, Dalabon, Marrku and Iwaidja in Arnhem Land. He is Professor of Linguistics in the School of Languages and Linguistics, University of Melbourne, and together with Hans-Juergen Sasse at the University of Cologne in Germany, has been leading the Volkswagen Iwaidja documentation project, which supported the work reported on in this paper.
NOTES
(1.) Appendix 1 sets out the Iwaidja practical orthography used.
(2.) The full name of the project is Yiwarruj, yinyman, radbihi Ida mali: Iwaidja and Other Endangered Languages of the Cobourg Peninsula (Australia) in their Cultural Context. This project, funded by the Volkswagen Foundation under its DoBeS program (Dokumentation Bedrohter Sprachen), aims to document the languages of the Cobourg Region in their cultural context, and includes researchers from several other disciplines (musicology: Linda Barwick; anthropology: Murray Garde; material culture: Kim Akerman) in addition to linguists Nick Evans, Hans-Jurgen Sasse and Bruce Birch.
(3.) Appendix 2 contains an identification listing of the thirty-two Jurtbirrk song texts in our corpus, including cross-reference to their occurrence on the CD. The CD booklet has full texts, glosses and translations of the song texts.
(4.) Evans (2000:94) has provided details behind this claim. The term 'language family', confusingly, has a range of meanings: here we are using it in the sense in which it has been used in the major classifications of Australian languages, such as those by O'Grady (O'Grady et al. 1966a; O'Grady et al. 1966b) and Walsh (1981), for the largest grouping that allows the identification of a basic quorum of shared vocabulary and grammatical material.
(5.) Although the Itpi-itpi song-set is primarily associated with the Kunwinjku language, its name is a Mawng word for 'grasshopper', used to refer to a young woman. Although most song texts are in Kunwinjku, some songs in the set contain phrases in Kun-barlang and Mawng, reflecting the long-term cohabitation of peoples from these three language groups in Mawng country (the community of Warruwi on South Goulburn Island, and the nearby mainland).
(6.) In the Daly region and southern Arnhem Land, circumcision ceremonies and rag-burning ceremonies for the disposal of the belongings of the deceased are the main public performance occasions, but these ceremonies are no longer practiced in Minjilang, where the main performance occasions are now funerals and mamurrng ceremonies (for the return to a young person of a lock of hair taken at birth and given to another performance group) (Garde 2006).
(7.) References here to individual song texts in the Jurtbirrk repertory use a unique title (usually a word of the text) and a reference code (for example, 'JU13') as defined in the controlled vocabulary used in the DoBES archive, Max Planck Institute, Nijmegen. Appendix 2 has a listing including reference to song and track numbers on the Jurtbirrk CD (Barwick, Birch and Williams 2005).
(8.) We refer to the individual song items by the persistent identifiers adopted in the archival records as deposited in the DoBeS archive, Max Planck Institute, Nijmegen.
(9.) Dayibabu is a loan from the English 'diver boat'.
(10.) Our use of the term 'rhythmic mode' here follows the analysis of Daly region didjeridu-accompanied wangga and lirrga songs by Marett and Barwick (Barwick 2003, 2006a; Marett 2005).
(11.) We have transcribed some songs (for example, 'Yangmanara' JU03) in a swung 3/4 rather than 9/8. The compound 9/8 metre is fairly unstable in all renditions, with the subdivisions of the beat sometimes having a duple rather than a triple feel, and some performers favouring 3/4 over 9/8. In these cases the clap-stick tempo (105-115bpm) is the factor that distinguishes these from the 95bpm 3/4 songs, which always have a consistent duple feel to subdivisions of the beat.
(12.) For convenience this discussion refers to the different modal series used in Jurtbirrk songs by the names of the Western modes, but no connection between the modal systems is necessarily implied.
(13.) This is not to imply that clap-stick beats always align with stressed syllables. Long vowels may be sung across clap-stick beats, and furthermore syncopations result in an intentional non-alignment of CV transitions with clap-stick beats. However, strong syllables do frequently align with clap-stick beats, and when this is the case, it is the CV transition that aligns, rather than the nucleus, or coda.
(14.) The initial stressed syllable ja of 'juwal rak'palkpa is not aligned with a clap-stick beat. In this case the singer has chosen to phrase this word so that the pitch transition comes early. In the second verse of the same song item, he aligns this transition more precisely with the clap-stick beat.
(15.) F0 is the fundamental frequency of a sound.
(16.) Both onset and coda consonants may be deleted in Iwaidja, particularly when they occur at the boundaries of larger prosodic constituents such as intonation phrases and utterances. However, only coda consonants are deleted word-internally.
(17.) A similar tendency has been noted for neighbouring Bininj Gun-wok languages (Bishop 2003), where a low tone (Lp) marks Phonological Phrase-final boundaries.
(18.) Iwaidja has a triangular three-vowel system (a, i, u) (Appendix 1).
(19.) This study found no 'across the board' correspondence between metrical strength and vowel quality, but found that when frequency of occurrence was factored in, vowels in metrically weak syllables showed a greater tendency to centralize than their counterparts in metrically strong syllables.
(20.) Many languages do this. For example, in Italian ci and vi started out meaning 'here' and 'there' but can now mean 'us' and 'you (mob)' as well.
(21.) Derived from an 'underlying' form yungkurrun-, with the n assimilating to the following b.
(22.) The verb miyardmang covers the range 'want, like, love, go near to (because you like someone)'.
Table 1: Associations of song genres and song-sets with language,
collated from recordings and discussions at Minjilang during the
course of the Iwaidja project 2003-07. Song-sets marked with an
asterisk (*) are no longer known or performed in Minjilang.
Language Song genreSong-sets
Iwaidja Love songsJurtbirrk
Sea songs Kalajbari 'frigate bird'
(Iwaidja ldalba) * Murrwa 'fish fry'
* Alabanja 'beach hibiscus'
MarrkuSea songs Manbam 'bowerbird'
* Weleb (meaning currently
unknown)
Ilgar/Garig Sea songs Milyarryarr 'egret'
Amurdak Stone country songs Yanajanak 'stone country
spirits'
(Iwaidja wardyad) Marrwakani 'yam'
* Ldungun 'long yam'
Manangkardi Sea songs Ulurrunbu 'floating island'
Mirrijpu 'seagull'
Ngarnarru (meaning currently
unknown)
Mawng Love songsLumbuk 'pigeon'
Sea songs Itpi-itpi 'grasshopper' (5)
(Mawng kurrula) Inyjalarrku 'mermaid'
Nginji (associated with
'mosquito')
Table 2: Composers of Jurtbirrk songs in our corpus
ComposerNumber of songs
composed
David Minyimak (DM) 20
Reggie Cooper (RC) 6 (+ 3)
Ronnie Wandijak (RW) 4
Robert Cunningham (RoCu) 2
Total32
Table 3: Text, gloss and translation of
Yangkuwilbarrjiny' (JU13), composed by Reggie
Cooper, as performed by Reggie Cooper and David
Minyimak, recorded by Bruce Birch, 9 August 2003
(item 20030809BBv3-08-JU13).8 (Barwick et al. 2005,
song 29, track 37)
yawara yakunyulakan
ya-wara ya-kunyulakan
AWAY.3sg-go AWAY:3sg-look_over_shoulder
'he's looking over his shoulder as he walks'
yawara yakunyula'
ya-wara ya-kunyulakan
AWAY:3sg-go AWAY:3sg-look_over_shoulder
'he's looking over his shoulder as he walks'
yawara yakunyula'
ya-wara ya-kunyulakan
AWAY:3sg-go AWAY:3sg-look over shoulder
he's looking over his shoulder as he walks'
yangkumarranyi yangkuwilbarrjiny
yangku-marranyi yangku-wilbarrjiny
AWAY:3A>ANG.O-wave AWAY:3A>ANG.O-point
'he's waving and pointing'
Table 4: Text of 'Dayibabu' (JU21), composed by David Minyimak,
as performed by Reggie Cooper and David Minyimak, recorded by
Bruce Birch 12 November 2004 (item 20041112BB-10-JU21) (Barwick
et al. 2005, track 19)
kudnayanjing baraka dayibabu baraka
kudna-ayan-jing baraka dayibabu baraka
2p1.IMP-see-OPT DEM pearling-lugger (9) DEM
'do you see that pearling lugger there?'
kudnayanjing baraka dayibabu baraka
kudna-ayan-jing baraka dayibabu baraka
2pl.IMP-see-OPT DEM pearling_lugger DEM
'do you see that pearling lugger there?'
kudnayanjing baraka yabangkarrajangka
kudna-ayan-jing baraka ya-bangkarrajangka
2p1.IMP-see-OPT DEM AWAY.3sg-lean over
'do you see it leaning over in the wind?'
yabangkarrajangka
ya-bangkarrajangka
AWAY.3sg-lean over
'leaning over in the wind?'
Table 5: Number of songs in each rhythmic mode, by
composer. DM= David Minyimak; RC=Reggie Cooper;
RW=Ronnie Wandijak; RoCu= Robert Cunningham
Rhythmic mode DM RC RWRoCu
3/4 songs @ 94 bpm 10 -- -- --
4/4 songs @ 94 bpm 1 -- -- --
9/8 songs @ 105-115 bpm 7 6 4 2
12/8 songs @ 105-115 bpm 2 -- -- --
Total 20 6 4 2
Table 6: Matching of words of various syllable lengths
to the 3/4 metrical unit in David Minyimak's 3/4 songs
SyllablesRhythmExample
2[crochet] [crochet] nyarang ('Kuluduk' JU25)
3[??] [crochet]wularrud
('Wularrud' JU32)
4[??] [semi-quaven]kanayanjing
[crochet] * * ('Akartalwan' JU22)
5[??] [semi-quaven]angmarranguldiny
[crochet] * * ('Akartalwan' JU22)
[??] [semi-quaven]janamirrakbun
[crochet] * * ('Akartalwan' JU22)
6[??] [semi-quaven]rrayunbaldakinngurn
[crochet] * * ('Kuburruburr' JU28)
Table 7: Different rhythmic settings of four-syllable words in 9/8
songs by different composers
Rhythmic setting ofExampleSinger/composer
four-syllable word
[quaven] [crochet] rdalbardalba David Minyimak
[quaven] [crochet] ('Kurrana' JU05)
[crochet].
x x x
[??] [quaven] yabaninga Reggie Cooper
[crochet] [crochet]. ('Wurruwarr' JU08)
x x x
[??] [quaven] yarrkbanakaRonnie Wandijak
[crochet] [crochet]. ('Yarrkbanaka' JU15)
x x x
Table 8: The irregularity of 'away' forms
neutral prefix away prefix
they a- ijb-
you (singular) ang- yang-
you mob, you plural kud-yungkud-
I nga- ja-
she > him, her, it ka- yaka-
'away' morpheme
theyijb-?
you (singular) y-
you mob, you plural yung-
Ija-
she > him, her, it ya-
