Alexandra Marley

Bininj Kunwok is a Gunwinyguan language spoken in west Arnhem Land, one of the most linguistically diverse regions in the world. Evans' (2003) pan-dialectal description of Bininj Kunwok indicated that in this small speech community (around 2000 speakers), there was significant inter- and intra-speaker variation, much of which we had little understanding of the social or linguistic conditioning factors.

As a polysynthetic language, Bininj Kunwok also offers an opportunity to explore variation and language change from a typological angle. All polysynthetic languages are endangered to some degree (Fortescue 2016) and these languages provide unique perspectives on our understanding of language evolution. Furthermore, there are few studies on the sociolinguistic factors behind their development, a point which can be made about indigenous languages in general (see Stanford and Preston 2009).

Bininj Kunwok is therefore in a prime linguistic and sociolinguistic scenario for exploring questions about language diversification. Documenting and analysing variation and change in a minority language however, requires adapting traditional variationist frameworks and employing mixed methodologies. This presentation will cover in part the methodological and theoretical frameworks used for analysing variation in a small polysynthetic language, with an explanation of panchronic (i.e. synchronic and diachronic) corpus development.

I will also present a case study of variation in Bininj Kunwok, namely that found in the pronominal prefix paradigm. This will include a discussion of the consequences of variation in the paradigm, and an evaluation of the results and approach as a whole.

Bininj Kunwok is an non Pama-Nyungan language spoken in west Arnhem Land, Australia. It is one of the 'healthier' Australian languages, as it is gaining speakers (unfortunately, to the detriment of neighbouring langauges), and has children still learning it as an L1. There are several dialects of Bininj Kunwok that have been documented to various extents (Evans, 2003), however an in-depth study of variation in the dialect chain has not been made. This talk will discuss some of the trends that have come to light from the last three years of analysis.

The discussion will focus on the possible incipient changes in Bininj Kunwok, based on analysis of data collected in the field and from heritage recordings. A comparison of data from speakers born between 1907 and 2010 allows for real time study of variation, and suggests that certain aspects of the language are undergoing change. Generations of speakers will be compared on three aspects: word-initial engma deletion, pronominal regularisation, and clusivity opposition.

This research is still on-going, however, the patterns emerging suggest that younger speakers' phonology and pronominal paradigms are differing markedly from their grandparents' and great-grandparents'.

Bininj Kunwok is a non-Pama Nyungan language spoken in west Arnhem Land, Australia, and has around 2000 speakers.

As a polysynthetic language, Bininj Kunwok has a complex pronominal prefixing paradigm, with a minimal-unit augmented-augmented system (McKay 1978) and subject and object forming portmanteaux affixing to the verb. This allows for a startling number of possible combinations (with sycretisms), and with widespread variation it is uncommon for any two speakers to share identical paradigms.

A comparison of data spanning 60 years indicates that on top of the documented dialectal variation there is intraspeaker variation. A matrix of the paradigm shows that the areas that appear to be particularly sensitive are adjacent cells on a clusivity boundary or a number boundary. Pronominal paradigms collected during fieldwork in 2016 and 2017 also include innovations not previously recorded, suggesting that this area of the language is a hot spot for language change. This presentation will discuss the recently documented innovations of the paradigm and reflect on their significance in our understanding of language change and evolution, and typological classification.

Bininj Kunwok is a non-Pama Nyungan language spoken in west Arnhem Land, Australia, and has around 2000 speakers.

As a polysynthetic language, Bininj Kunwok has a complex pronominal prefixing paradigm, with a minimal-unit augmented-augmented system (McKay 1978) and subject and object forming portmanteaux affixing to the verb. This allows for a startling number of possible combinations (with sycretisms), and with widespread dialectal and intraspeaker variation it is uncommon for any two speakers to share identical paradigms.

A matrix of the paradigm shows that the areas that appear to be particularly sensitive are adjacent cells on a clusivity boundary or a number boundary. Pronominal paradigms collected during fieldwork in 2016 and 2017 also include innovations not previously recorded, suggesting that this area of the language is a hot spot for language change. This presentation will discuss the recently documented innovations of the paradigm and reflect on their significance for future trajectories of the language.

Languages change over time, and the seeds of future linguistic features lie in different ways of saying the same thing at any given time. Sociolinguists call this “variation”. But does variation happen and work in the same ways in all languages? There is much evidence that language and grammar are heavily shaped by how speakers use it in speech with other people. By studying how variation works in communities that are unlike our own, we can gain insights into how, and why, languages change over time.

While the authors work in different speech communities (Arnhem Land and Papua New Guinea), the approach used is the same: a “variationist” approach. This involves quantitatively analysing the natural speech of speech community members in order to identify patterns to the variation. Studying “how who speaks what and why” can help us better understand the particular dynamics of change within a speech community, and the linguistic system.

Some findings from PNG include the Nmbo language community’s sensitivity to speech production norms, and the role of daily bilinguals as candidates of linguistic innovation. In the Arnhem Land context, there is evidence of a sound change in progress in Bininj Kunwok, which is very similar in nature to historical changes in neighbouring languages.

Our research contributes to the broader goals of CoeDL by providing wholistic linguistic description: If we accept that the particularities of a society shapes the form of a language, we must also put effort into documenting the sociolinguistic patterns that are part of the language.

The authors have laid the groundwork for interrogating sociolinguistic corpora in two minority languages, and this can be utilised for future research.

Bininj Kunwok is a Gunwinyguan language spoken in west Arnhem Land, Australia, and has around 2000 speakers. While rich regional variation in the language has been documented (Evans 2003), the precise nature and distribution of variables other than to ascribe them to six dialects is wanting.

The dialect chain is much less clearly defined than previous work has discussed and the language is ripe for a more in depth analysis of variation. One such variable is word-initial velar-nasal dropping, which has been attributed to western dialects of the language and loosely phonologically conditioned (e.g. nganabbarru ~ anabbarru 'buffalo').

Analysing word-initial velar-nasal dropping has involved over 8 months of fieldwork and coding a 28,000 word corpus (which is still growing). Preliminary results point towards three findings: 1) that this variable is more tightly phonologically constrained than previously thought, 2) that there may be morphological conditioning, and 3) that the spread and dialectal attribution of this phenomenon differs than hitherto described, suggesting this as a point of language change.

This work is contributing to the burgeoning interest in variation in minority languages and part of a PhD project in the Wellsprings of Linguistic Diversity.

Bininj Kunwok is an Australian Aboriginal language spoken in west Arnhem Land, Australia with around 2000 speakers. There are several dialects of Bininj Kunwok that have been documented to various extents (see Evans, 2003), however an in-depth study of variation in Bininj Kunwok has not been made. This talk will discuss variation in Bininj Kunwok, highlighting linguistic variables that may be indicative of change in progress.

This chapter surveys the main features of the Gunwinyguan languages, a family of a dozen languages spoken in west Arnhem Land and Kakadu National Park in the Northern Territory. Gunwinyguan languages make up the largest genetic family in the non Pama-Nyungan group, but there is some contention as to the classification of some of these languages due to either insufficient language data or conflicting core linguistic features. In this chapter, we discuss the typological features that characterise Gunwinyguan languages, including phonology, verbal morphology, gender and case marking, and pronominal categories. We situate these features within both the non Pama-Nyungan group and the broader Australian context, and discuss the processes of microvariation that give rise to typological differences across the languages of the family.

Bininj Kunwok (or simply Kunwok) is a Gunwinyguan language spoken in west Arnhem Land, Australia. It is one of the larger Australian languages with 2000 speakers, and with children still acquiring it as a first language, one of Australia’s strongest. Kunwok exhibits an enormous amount of linguistic variation, some of which is described in Evans’ (2003) pan-dialectal grammar. Here, we examine one variable in particular: word-initial engma variation.

Initial consonant loss (C-loss) is a well-documented historical process in Australian languages (Blevins 2001), but there has been no systematic analysis of initial C-loss as a synchronic variable (Fletcher and Butcher 2014). In the case of Kunwok, word-initial velar-nasal deletion (e.g. nganabbarru ~ anabbarru 'buffalo') has been described as having regional distribution and is a prominent feature of speakers from the western and southern peripheries of the dialect chain, but variable in speakers from the central region (Evans, 2003).

This study tests the distribution of the word-initial engma for both linguistic conditioning and sociolinguistic factors, resulting in three conclusions. First, that preceding environment is a contributing factor. Second, that morphological class is a categorical conditioning factor. And third, that the variable is spreading and there is evidence of language change in progress.

This thesis presents a pan-dialectal and cross-generational description and analysis of variation in Bininj Kunwok, a Gunwinyguan language of west Arnhem Land with a number of regional varieties. At around 2000 speakers and with children still acquiring it as a first language, is one of the strongest Australian Aboriginal languages.

This thesis brings together a series of case studies on variation in Bininj Kunwok, examining linguistic and social variables and analysing them through a range of complementary theoretical frameworks.  Sociolinguistic variationist approaches have heavily informed the methodology and analysis of the case study variables, with quantitative methods bringing to light both linguistic and social conditioning. From a qualitative perspective, language ideologies, linguistic anthropology, and language identity theories explain the socio-cultural mechanisms and motivations behind the distribution of the variables. The typological
and historical linguistics literature, meanwhile, have been critical to the development of a methodological framework for analysing structural variation.

The case studies cover a range of variables, including word-initial engma deletion, pronominal neutralisation and regularisation, loanword strategies, kin terms, and paradigm variation. Such an approach allowed for multiple linguistic levels to be analysed: phonological, morphosyntactic, syntactic, paradigmatic, lexical, and semantic.

The analyses undertaken here build on the development of the Bininj Kunwok Corpus undertaken through this project. Combining my own recordings with those of previous researchers, I built a sizable corpus of around 27.5 hours of speech. As the corpus has an apparent time depth of a century, not only was a comprehensive analysis of synchronic variation possible, but also diagnosis of changes in progress.

Cross-generational comparison of speaker data shows a phonological change in progress, increasing regularisation of pronominal forms, and vast variation in paradigmatic structures. The huge amount of variation in Bininj Kunwok points towards a society that permits and even promotes linguistic variation at the individual level, creating an environment highly favourable to fostering and maintaining diversity. Taken together, the above studies give a detailed picture of variation within an Australian language.

By incorporating a number of complementary methodological and theoretical frameworks to examine a suite of variables, this thesis lays the groundwork for a new direction in variationist studies, and for an understanding of the socio-cultural forces that have shaped, and continue to shape, the great linguistic diversity found on the Australian continent.

Bininj Kunwok is a Gunwinyguan language (a non-Pama-Nyungan) spoken in west Arnhem Land and Kakadu National Park, NT, Australia. With around 2500 speakers and children learning it as a first language, Kunwok is one of the strongest Indigenous languages in Australia. Despite its small speech community, it exhibits considerable variation, much of which has been the subject of recent research. One of the primary findings from this study into variation in Kunwok is the rich interspeaker diversity, particularly between different generations of Kunwok speakers. Comparing the speech of young adults and children with that of their elders through a multigenerational corpus has revealed a language change in progress (demonstrated both in real time and apparent time). This paper will discuss three of the key differentiating features of young people’s Kunwok: word-initial engma production, pronominal forms and paradigms and loanwords. We will also examine community members’ perspectives on young people’s Kunwok on the basis that they provide insight into the ideological frameworks that support the linguistic variation and change documented in the community. In conclusion, the paper will summarise the findings, outlining the main features of young people’s Kunwok, and then reflect on the trajectory of Kunwok and the contributions of this study to our understanding of language change in the Australian Aboriginal context.

This paper examines word-initial engma deletion in Bininj Kunwok. Loss of initial consonants is a well-documented historical process in many Australian languages (Blevins, Juliette. 2001. Where have all the onsets gone? Initial consonant loss in Australian Aboriginal languages. In Jane Simpson, David Nash, Mary Laughren, Peter Austin & Barry Alpher (eds.), Forty years on: Ken Hale and Australian languages, 481–492. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics), but there has been no systematic analysis of initial consonant loss as a synchronic variable (Fletcher, Janet & Andrew Butcher 2014. Sound patterns of Australian languages. In Harold Koch & Rachel Nordlinger (eds.), The languages and linguistics of Australia, 91–138. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton). In the case of Kunwok, word-initial velar nasal deletion (e.g. nganabbarru ∼ anabbarru ‘buffalo’) has been described as having regional distribution and is a prominent feature of speakers from the western and southern peripheries of the dialect chain...

Bininj Kunwok is a Gunwinyguan language (a non-Pama-Nyungan) spoken in west Arnhem Land and Kakadu National Park, NT, Australia. With around 2500 speakers and children learning it as a first language, Kunwok is one of the strongest Indigenous languages in Australia. Despite its small speech community, it exhibits considerable variation, much of which has been the subject of recent research. One of the primary findings from this study into variation in Kunwok is the rich interspeaker diversity, particularly between different generations of Kunwok speakers. Comparing the speech of young adults and children with that of their elders through a multigenerational corpus has revealed a language change in progress (demonstrated both in real time and apparent time). This paper will discuss three of the key differentiating features of young people’s Kunwok: word-initial engma production, pronominal forms and paradigms and loanwords. We will also examine community members’ perspectives on youn...