Djaru language
Djaru is a Pama–Nyungan language spoken in the south-eastern Kimberley region of Western Australia. As with most Pama-Nyungan languages, Djaru includes single, dual and plural pronoun numbers. Djaru also includes sign-language elements in its lexicon. Nouns in Djaru do not include gender classes, and apart from inflections, words are formed through roots, compounding or reduplication. Word order in Djaru is relatively free and has the ability to split up noun phrases. The Djaru language has a relatively small number of verbs, as compared to most languages, and thus utilizes a system of 'preverbs' and complex verbs to compensate. Djaru also has an avoidance language. Avoidance languages, sometimes known as 'mother-in-law languages', are special registers within a language that are spoken between certain family members – such registers are common throughout native Australian languages.
The population of Djaru speakers has greatly diminished since the late 19th century when white settlers entered the Djaru region and massacred its inhabitants. The Djaru people have since adopted certain aspects of western living and have moved away from the daily practice of certain traditional ways of living. As a result, the Djaru language faces the combined pressures of a decrease in speaker population, an increased reliance of English among its speakers, as well as a white Australian government that has traditionally stood against the use or education of any original Australian languages.
Phonology
Word-initial phonemes in Djaru may be any consonant or semi-vowel with the exception of alveolar taps /ɾ/ or the palatal laterals /ʎ/. A word can end with any phoneme except for a semi-vowel.Stress occurs on the initial syllable of a word, and on the initial syllable of a second morpheme. A stressed syllable tends to also be the highest in pitch, but stress in Djaru, as with pitch, is phonologically irrelevant. That is, stress and pitch have no essential bearing on a word's meaning.
Djaru does not contain any of the fricatives or affricates ; these sound types are rarely found in any Australian Aboriginal languages.
Consonants
Djaru consonants form clusters of no more than two phonemes./ɽ/ can be heard as a flap or a glide .
Vowels
Djaru, like most Australian languages, has only three vowel sounds, each vowel varies considerably according to its immediate phonetic environment.Word classes
Djaru includes the following word classes: noun, free pronoun, adverb, preverb, verb, particle, interjection.Nouns
Nouns in Djaru are modified if they are instrumental, locative, recipients, or in ergative position. The term 'ergative' refers to a category within ergative-absolutive declension wherein objects of transitive sentences and subjects of intransitive sentences are not morphologically equivalent to subjects of intransitive sentences. That is, in an ergative-absolutive language, if a noun in intransitive subject position is X, then it will be Y in a transitive subject position. Examples of the ergative-absolutive system for nouns in Djaru can be found in Tsunoda 1981:The possible ways to modify a noun into ergative case are with the following suffixes: -ŋgu, -gu, -lu, -gulu, -du, -u. The use of each morpheme depends, of course, on the immediately preceding phonological environment.
For Pama-Nyungan languages generally it is common that they will take an ergative-absolutive case marking for nouns, and a nominative-accusative case marking for pronouns.
Verbs
There are very few verbs in Djaru. Bound pronouns can attach to Djaru verbs and they display a nominative-accusative declension.Verbs conjugate according to the following aspects: past, continuative past, past narrative, present, continuative present, purposive, continuative purposive, hortative, continuative hortative, imperative, continuative imperative, verbid. In the vast majority of cases verbs are modified with suffixes, and all conjugated verbs involve the root + suffix.
Pronouns
As is suggested in Blake 1987, the ergative pronoun markings in Djaru may be a relatively new feature of the language, since the system bears few of the irregularities that are present in most languages.| Absolutive | Ergative | |
| SG 1 | ngatyu | ngatyu-ngku |
| SG 2 | nyuntu | nyuntu-ku |
| SG 3 | nyantu | nyantu-ku |
| Dual 1 inc. | ngali | ngali-ngku |
| Dual 1 exc. | Ngatyarra | ngatyarra-lu |
Preverbs
Djaru includes a unique word class known as the preverb class. Preverbs have two uses in Djaru: firstly they may be used similarly to adjectives in that they modify verbs but in doing so create new semantic units, secondly they may be used like nouns when attached with nominal suffixes.Some examples of preverbs: jud, dirib, wuɽug.
When combined with verbs, the above preverbs come out with the following meanings:
Syntax
Word order
Simple Djaru sentences typically display a subject–object–verb word order; however, this is not a strict grammatical rule. The verb and object are often swapped around, and in some cases, verbs are not required at all. The following example of a verb-less sentence is from Tasaku Tsunoda, 1981.Sentence length
It has been noted that typical Djaru clauses are significantly shorter than many other languages, and as a result the speaking style usually involves many conjunctions.Noun phrases
However the noun phrase may be broken up and the same sentences may be expressed as:Possessives
The Djaru language utilises the syntactic phenomenon of apposition in the case of inalienable object.Note that no morphological modifications are used to indicate that the head belongs to the man, such a relationship between 'man' and 'head' is expressed purely by syntactic positioning. However, nouns attach a genitive suffix when they are possessors of alienable objects. But importantly, the genitive suffix can usually only be used when the possessed object is in the close vicinity of the possessor.