Lardil language
Encyclopedia
Lardil is a moribund language spoken on Mornington Island
(Kunhanha), in the Wellesley Islands
of Queensland
in northern Australia. Lardil is unusual among Australian languages in that it features a ceremonial register
, called Damin
(also Demiin). Damin is regarded by Lardil speakers as a separate language, and possesses the only phonological system outside Africa to use click consonants.
, along with Kayardild
and Yukulta
, which are close enough to be mutually intelligible. Though Lardil is not mutually intelligible with either of these, it is likely that many Lardil speakers were historically bilingual in Yangkaal (a close relative of Kayardild), since the Lardil people have long been in contact with the neighboring Yangkaal tribe and trading, marriage and conflict between them seem to have been common. There was also limited contact with mainland tribes including the Yanyuwa
, of Borroloola; and the Garawa
and Wanyi, which groups ranged as far east as Burketown
. Members of the Kaiadilt tribe (i.e., speakers of Kayardild) also settled on nearby Bentinck Island in 1947.
’s study of the language in the late 1960s. Hale worked with a few dozen speakers of Lardil, some of these fluent older speakers, and others younger members of the community who had only a working or passive understanding. When Norvin Richards, a student of Hale’s, returned to Mornington Island to continue work on Lardil in the 1990s, he found Lardil children had no understanding of the language and that only a handful of aging speakers remained; Richards has stated that “Lardil was deliberately destroyed” by assimilation and relocation programs in the years of the "Stolen Generation
". A dictionary and grammatical sketch of the language were compiled and published by the Mornington Shire Council in 1997, and the Mornington Island State School has implemented a government-funded cultural education program incorporating the Lardil language. However, as of 2003, only one fluent speaker of so-called Old Lardil was living, though a few speakers of a grammatically distinct New variety remained. Ethnologue
’s most recent figures report that the speaker population is two, and the organization has classified Lardil as nearly extinct.
Luruku initiates took a year-long oath of silence and were taught a sign language known as marlda kangka (literally, ‘hand language’), which, though limited in its semantic scope, was fairly complex. Anthropologist David McKnight’s research in the 1990s suggests that marlda kangka classifies animals somewhat differently from Lardil, having, for example, a class containing all shellfish (which Lardil lacks) and lacking an inclusive sign for ‘dugong+turtle’ (Lardil dilmirrur). In addition to its use by luruku initiates, marlda kangka had practical applications in hunting and warfare.
While marlda kangka was essentially a male language, the non-initiated were not forbidden to speak it. Damin, on the other hand, was (at least nominally) a secret language spoken only by warama initiates and those preparing for second initiation, though many community members seem to have understood it. Damin, like marlda kangka, was phonologically, lexically and semantically distinct from Lardil, though its syntax and morphology seem to be analogous. Research into the language has proved controversial, since the Lardil community regards it as cultural property and no explicit permission was given to make Damin words public.
Lardil’s consonant inventory is fairly typical with respect to Australian phonology; it does not distinguish between voiced
and unvoiced stops
(such as b/p and g/k), and features a full set of stops and nasals
at six places of articulation
The distinction between ‘apical’ and ‘laminal’ consonants lies in whether the tip (apex) of the tongue or its flattened blade makes contact with the place of articulation. Hale’s 1997 practical orthography has ‘k’ for /k ~ g/ in order to disambiguate nasal+velar clusters (as in wanka ‘arm’) from instances of the velar
nasal phoneme ŋ (as in wangal ‘boomerang
’) and to avoid suggesting /g/-gemination
in /ŋ/+/k ~ g/ clusters
(as in ngangkirr ‘together’). The sounds represented by the digraphs
‘nh’ and ‘ly’ are not common in Lardil, but speakers perceive them as distinct, respectively, from /n/ and /l/, and they do occur in some words (e.g. minhal ‘burnt ground’, balyarriny [title of a social subsection]).
Lardil has eight phonemically distinct vowels, differentiated by short
and long variants
at each of four places of articulation
. Phonemic vowel length is an important feature of many Australian languages; minimal pair
s in Lardil with a vowel length distinction include waaka/waka ‘crow’/’armpit’ and thaldi/thaldii ‘come here!’/’to stand up’. Long vowels are roughly twice as long as their short counterparts.
and lexical
factors.
Augmentation acts on many monomoraic
forms, producing, for example, /ʈera/ ‘thigh’ from underlying *ter.
High vowels
tend to undergo Lowering at the end of bimoraic
forms, as in *penki > penke ‘lagoon’. In several historical locative/ergatives, Lowering does not occur. It does occur in at least one long, u-final stem, and it coexists with the Raising of certain stem-final /a/s.
In some trimoraic (or longer) forms, final, underlying short vowels undergo Apocope
(deletion), as in *jalulu > jalul ‘fire’. Front-vowel Apocope fails to occur in locatives
, verbal negatives, many historical locative/ergatives
, and a number of i-final stems such as wan̪t̪alŋi ‘fish sp.’ Back-vowel Apocope also has lexically-governed exceptions.
Cluster Reduction simplifies underlying word-final consonant clusters, as in *makark > makar ‘anthill’. This process is ‘fed’ in a sense by Apocope, since some forms that would otherwise end in a short vowel arise as cluster-final after Apocope (e.g. *jukarpa > *jukarp > jukar ‘husband’).
Non-apical Truncation results in forms like ŋalu from underlying *ŋaluk, in which the underlying form would end in a non-apical consonant (i.e. one not produced with the tip of the tongue). This process is also fed by Apocope, and seems to be lexically governed to an extent, since Lardil words can end in a laminal; c.f. kakawuɲ ‘bird sp.’, kulkic ‘shark sp.’
In addition to the dropping of non-apicals, a process of Apicalization is at work, giving forms such as ŋawit from underlying laminal-final *ŋawic. It has been proposed that the process responsible for some of these forms is better described as Laminalization (i.e., nawit is underlying and nawic occurs in inflected forms), but Apicalization explains the variation between alveolar /t/ and dental /t̺/ (contrastive but both Apical) in surface forms with an underlying non-apical, and does not predict/generate as many invalid forms as does the Laminalization model.
elements in Lardil include:
The Future marker (-thur) indicates anticipation/expectation of an event, or, when combined with the particle mara, either the proposed outcome of a hypothetical (If you had done X, I would have Y’ed) or an unachieved intention; it also marks embedded verbs in jussive
clauses.
The (marked) Non-future is used primarily in dependent clause
s to indicate a temporal limit to an action.
The Contemporaneous ending marks a verb in a subordinate clause when that verb’s referent action is contemporaneous with the action described in the main clause.
The Evitative ending, which appears as -nymerra in objective (oblique
) case, marks a verb whose event or process is undesirable or to be avoided, as in niya merrinymerr ‘He might hear’ (and we don’t want him to); it is somewhat analogous to English ‘lest’, though more productive.
When one imperative follows another closely, the second verb is marked with a Sequential Imperative ending.
Negation is semantically straightforward, but is expressed with a complex set of affixes; which is used depends on other properties of the verb.
Other processes, which may be characterized as derivational
rather than inflection
al, express duration/repetition, passivity/reflexivity
, reciprocality, and causativity
on the verb. Likewise, nouns may be derived from verbs by adding the suffix (-n ~ -Vn), as in werne-kebe-n ‘food-gatherer’ or werne-la-an ‘food-spearer’; the negative counterpart of this is (-jarr), as in dangka-be-jarr (man+bite+neg) ‘non-biter-of-people’.
and genitive
cases, as well as future and non-future; these are expressed via endings that attach to the base forms of nominals.
The Nominative case, which is used with sentence subjects and objects of simple imperatives (such as yarraman ‘horse’ in Kurri yarraman ‘(You) Look at the horse.’) is not explicitly marked; uninflected nouns carry nominative case by default.
The Objective case (-n ~ -in) has five general functions, marking (1) the object of a verb in plain (i.e. unmarked non-future) form, (2) the agent of a passive verb in plain form, (3) the subject of a contemporaneous dependent clause (i.e., a ‘while’/’when’ clause), (4) the locative complement of a verb in the plain negative or negative imperative
, and (5) the object of the sequential imperative (see section on verb morphology above). Lardil displays some irregularities in object-marking morphology.
The Locative marker (-nge ~ -e ~ -Vː) appears on the locative complement of a verb in plain form. The objective case serves this purpose with negative verbs. Locative case is formed by lengthening the final vowel in instances of vowel-final base forms such as barnga ‘stone’ (LOC barngaa). While the Locative case can denote a variety of locative relations (such as those expressed in English by at, on, in, along, etc.), such relations may be specified using inherently locative nominals (e.g. minda ‘near’, nyirriri ‘under’) that do not themselves inflect for this case. Nominals corresponding to animate beings tend not to be marked with Locative case; Genitive is preferred for such constructions as yarramangan ‘on the horse’ (lit. ‘of the horse’). On pronouns, for which case-marking is irregular, Locative case is realized via ‘double-expression’ of Genitive case: ngada ‘I’ > ngithun ‘I(gen) = my’ > ngithunngan ‘I(gen)+gen = on me’.
The Genitive morpheme (-kan ~ -ngan) marks (1) a possessor nominal
, (2) the agent of a passive verb in the future, non-future or evitative; (3) the pronominal agent of any passive verb, (4) the subject of a relative clause
, if it is a non-subject in the sentence; and (5) the subject of a cleft construction in which the topic is a non-subject (e.g., Diin wangal, ngithun thabuji-kan kubaritharrku ‘This boomerang, my brother made.’).
The object of a verb in future tense (either negative or affirmative) is marked for Futurity by a suffix (-kur ~ -ur ~ -r), as in the sentence below:
The future marker also has four other functions. It marks: (a) the locative complement (‘into the house’, ‘on the stone’) of a future verb, (2) the object of a verb in contemporaneous form, (3) the object of a verb in the evitative form (often translated as ‘be liable to V’, ‘might V’), and (4) the dative
complement of certain verbs (e.g. ngukur ‘for-water’ in Lewurda ngukur ‘Ask him for water’). The instrumental case inflection is homophonous
with the future marker, but both may appear on the same nominal in certain instances.
The object of a verb in the (negative or affirmative) marked non-future also inflects for Non-futurity. The non-future marking (-ngarr ~ -nga ~ -arr ~ -a) is also used to mark time adverbials in non-future clauses as well as the locative complement of a non-future verb.
In addition to these inflectional endings, Lardil features several morphologically verbal affixes that are semantically similar to case markers and, like case endings, mark noun phrases rather than individual nouns. Allative
and ablative
meanings (i.e. movement to or from) are expressed with these endings; as are the desiderative and a second type of evitave; comitative
, proprietive and privative
.
Lardil nominals may also take one of two derivational (verbalizing) suffixes: the Inchoative (-e ~ -a ~ -ya), which has the sense ‘become X’, and the Causative (-ri ~ -iri), which has the sense ‘make X Y’; other verbalizing suffixes exist in Lardil but are far less productive than these two.
is productive in verbal morphology, giving a non-future durative with the pattern V-tharr V (where V is a verb), having the sense 'keep on V-ing', and a future durative with V-thururr V-thur.
In some instances nominal roots may be reduplicated, in their entirety, to indicate plurality, but Lardil nominals are not generally marked for number and this form is fairly rare.
is somewhat flexible; however, the basic sentence order has been described as SVO, with direct object
either following or preceding indirect object
and other dependents following these. Clitics appear clause-second and/or on either side of the verb.
Kun, glossed as ‘EV’, is an eventive marker, marking a verb referring to something that actually occurred or is occurring.
Subjects (i.e., patients
) of passive verbs also take nominative case, and their objects (i.e., agents), take accusative, as in:
Here, R is a maker of reflexivity.
compared to the Old variety. Previously minor sentence forms in which the object of a verb takes nominative case have become generalized, even in instances where the verb is in future tense (objects of future verbs historically inflected for futurity). One of a number of negation patterns has become generalized, and the augmented forms of monosyllabic verb roots reinterpreted as base forms.
Mornington Island
Mornington Island is the northern most of 22 islands that form the Wellesley Islands group. The island is located in the Gulf of Carpentaria at and is part of the Gulf Country region in the Australian state of Queensland. The Manowar and Rocky Islands Important Bird Area lies about 40 km to...
(Kunhanha), in the Wellesley Islands
Wellesley Islands
The Wellesley Islands are a group of islands off the coast of north Queensland, Australia, in the Gulf of Carpentaria. They were named by Matthew Flinders in honour of Richard Wellesley, 1st Marquess Wellesley. The largest island in the group is Mornington Island...
of Queensland
Queensland
Queensland is a state of Australia, occupying the north-eastern section of the mainland continent. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Australia and New South Wales to the west, south-west and south respectively. To the east, Queensland is bordered by the Coral Sea and Pacific Ocean...
in northern Australia. Lardil is unusual among Australian languages in that it features a ceremonial register
Register (sociolinguistics)
In linguistics, a register is a variety of a language used for a particular purpose or in a particular social setting. For example, when speaking in a formal setting an English speaker may be more likely to adhere more closely to prescribed grammar, pronounce words ending in -ing with a velar nasal...
, called Damin
Damin
Damin was a ceremonial language register used by the advanced initiated men of the Lardil and the Yangkaal tribes in Aboriginal Australia. Both inhabit islands in the Gulf of Carpentaria, the Lardil on Mornington Island, the largest island of the Wesley Group, and the Yangkaal and Forsyth Islands...
(also Demiin). Damin is regarded by Lardil speakers as a separate language, and possesses the only phonological system outside Africa to use click consonants.
Associated languages
Lardil is a member of the Tangkic family of Non-Pama–Nyungan Australian languagesAustralian Aboriginal languages
The Australian Aboriginal languages comprise several language families and isolates native to the Australian Aborigines of Australia and a few nearby islands, but by convention excluding the languages of Tasmania and the Torres Strait Islanders...
, along with Kayardild
Kayardild language
-Further reading:* Evans, Nicholas. 1988. Odd topic marking in Kayardild. In Peter Austin, ed., Complex sentence constructions in Australian Languages. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. pp. 219–266....
and Yukulta
Yukulta language
Yukulta , also known as Ganggalida , is an extinct Tangkic language spoken in Queensland and Northern Territory, Australia.- Classification :...
, which are close enough to be mutually intelligible. Though Lardil is not mutually intelligible with either of these, it is likely that many Lardil speakers were historically bilingual in Yangkaal (a close relative of Kayardild), since the Lardil people have long been in contact with the neighboring Yangkaal tribe and trading, marriage and conflict between them seem to have been common. There was also limited contact with mainland tribes including the Yanyuwa
Yanyuwa language
The Yanyuwa language is spoken by the Yanyuwa people around the settlement of Borroloola in the Northern Territory, Australia....
, of Borroloola; and the Garawa
Garawa language
Garawa is a recently extinct Australian Aboriginal language of northern Australia.-Classification:...
and Wanyi, which groups ranged as far east as Burketown
Burketown, Queensland
- Morning glory cloud :From the months of August to November, a rare meteorological phenomenon known as "Morning Glory" - long, tubular clouds, some up to 1000 km in length - is often observed in the skies above Burketown.....
. Members of the Kaiadilt tribe (i.e., speakers of Kayardild) also settled on nearby Bentinck Island in 1947.
Outlook
The number of Lardil speakers has diminished dramatically since Kenneth HaleKenneth L. Hale
Kenneth Locke Hale was a linguist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who studied a huge variety of previously unstudied and often endangered languages—especially indigenous languages of North America, Central America and Australia...
’s study of the language in the late 1960s. Hale worked with a few dozen speakers of Lardil, some of these fluent older speakers, and others younger members of the community who had only a working or passive understanding. When Norvin Richards, a student of Hale’s, returned to Mornington Island to continue work on Lardil in the 1990s, he found Lardil children had no understanding of the language and that only a handful of aging speakers remained; Richards has stated that “Lardil was deliberately destroyed” by assimilation and relocation programs in the years of the "Stolen Generation
Stolen Generation
The Stolen Generations were the children of Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander descent who were removed from their families by the Australian Federal and State government agencies and church missions, under acts of their respective parliaments...
". A dictionary and grammatical sketch of the language were compiled and published by the Mornington Shire Council in 1997, and the Mornington Island State School has implemented a government-funded cultural education program incorporating the Lardil language. However, as of 2003, only one fluent speaker of so-called Old Lardil was living, though a few speakers of a grammatically distinct New variety remained. Ethnologue
Ethnologue
Ethnologue: Languages of the World is a web and print publication of SIL International , a Christian linguistic service organization, which studies lesser-known languages, to provide the speakers with Bibles in their native language and support their efforts in language development.The Ethnologue...
’s most recent figures report that the speaker population is two, and the organization has classified Lardil as nearly extinct.
Kinship terms
Lardil has an intensely complex system of kinship terms reflecting the centrality of kin-relations to Lardil society; all members of the community are addressed by these terms as well as by given names. This system also features a few dyadic kinship terms, i.e. titles for pairs rather than individuals, such as kangkariwarr ‘pair of people, one of whom is the paternal great uncle/aunt or grandparent of the other’.| Title | Relation(s) |
|---|---|
| kangkar | FaFa, FaFaBr, FaFaSi |
| kantha | Fa, FaBr |
| babe | FaMo, FaMoSi, FaMoBr |
| jembe | MoFa, MoFaBr, MoFaSi |
| nyerre | MoMo, MoMoBro, MoMoBrSoCh |
| merrka | FaSi |
| wuyinjin | WiFa, HuFa, FaFaSiSo, FaMoBrSo |
| ngama | Mo, MoSi, SoWi, BrSoWi |
| kunawun | WiMo, WiMoBr |
| yaku | MoBrDaDa, sister (male ego), elder sister (female ego) |
| kambin | Ch, BrCh (both male ego) |
| karda | Ch, SiCh, WiFaSi, MoMoMo(and siblings) (all female ego) |
| kernde | Wi, WiSi, ‘second cross-cousin’ |
| kangkur | SoSo, SoDa (both male ego); BrSoSo, BrSoDa (both female ego) |
| nginngin | SoCh (female ego), SiSoCh (male ego) |
| benyin | DaSo, DaDa |
Initiate languages
Traditionally, the Lardil community held two initiation ceremonies for young men. Luruku, which involved circumcision, was undergone by all men following the appearance of facial hair; warama, the second initiation, was purely voluntary and culminated in a subincision ceremony.Luruku initiates took a year-long oath of silence and were taught a sign language known as marlda kangka (literally, ‘hand language’), which, though limited in its semantic scope, was fairly complex. Anthropologist David McKnight’s research in the 1990s suggests that marlda kangka classifies animals somewhat differently from Lardil, having, for example, a class containing all shellfish (which Lardil lacks) and lacking an inclusive sign for ‘dugong+turtle’ (Lardil dilmirrur). In addition to its use by luruku initiates, marlda kangka had practical applications in hunting and warfare.
While marlda kangka was essentially a male language, the non-initiated were not forbidden to speak it. Damin, on the other hand, was (at least nominally) a secret language spoken only by warama initiates and those preparing for second initiation, though many community members seem to have understood it. Damin, like marlda kangka, was phonologically, lexically and semantically distinct from Lardil, though its syntax and morphology seem to be analogous. Research into the language has proved controversial, since the Lardil community regards it as cultural property and no explicit permission was given to make Damin words public.
Necronyms
Death in Lardil tends to be treated euphemistically; it is common, for example, to use the phrase wurdal yarburr ‘meat’ when referring to a deceased person (or corpse). Yuur-kirnee yarburr (literally, ‘The meat/animal has died’) has the sense ‘You-know-who has died’, and is preferable to a more direct treatment. It is taboo to speak the name of a deceased person, even (for a year or so) when referring to living people with the same name; these people are addressed as thamarrka. The deceased is often known by the name of his/her death or burial place plus the ‘necronym’ suffix -ngalin, as in Wurdungalin ‘one who died at Wurdu’. Sometimes other strategies are used to refer to the dead, such as circumlocution via kinship terms.Consonants
| Bilabial Bilabial consonant In phonetics, a bilabial consonant is a consonant articulated with both lips. The bilabial consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:... |
Dental | Alveolar Alveolar consonant Alveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli of the superior teeth... |
Retroflex Retroflex consonant A retroflex consonant is a coronal consonant where the tongue has a flat, concave, or even curled shape, and is articulated between the alveolar ridge and the hard palate. They are sometimes referred to as cerebral consonants, especially in Indology... |
Palatal Palatalization In linguistics, palatalization , also palatization, may refer to two different processes by which a sound, usually a consonant, comes to be produced with the tongue in a position in the mouth near the palate.... |
Velar Velar consonant Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum).... |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stop Stop consonant In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or an oral stop, is a stop consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases. The occlusion may be done with the tongue , lips , and &... |
p (b) | t̪ (th) | t (d) | ʈ (rd) | t̹ (j) | k (k) |
| Nasal Nasal consonant A nasal consonant is a type of consonant produced with a lowered velum in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. Examples of nasal consonants in English are and , in words such as nose and mouth.- Definition :... |
m (m) | n̪ (nh) | n (n) | ɳ (rn) | ɲ (ny) | ŋ (ng) |
| Glide Semivowel In phonetics and phonology, a semivowel is a sound, such as English or , that is phonetically similar to a vowel sound but functions as the syllable boundary rather than as the nucleus of a syllable.-Classification:... |
w (w) | ɹ (r) | j (y) | |||
| Lateral Lateral consonant A lateral is an el-like consonant, in which airstream proceeds along the sides of the tongue, but is blocked by the tongue from going through the middle of the mouth.... |
l (l) | ɽ (rl) | ʎ (ly) | |||
| Trill or flap Trill consonant In phonetics, a trill is a consonantal sound produced by vibrations between the articulator and the place of articulation. Standard Spanish <rr> as in perro is an alveolar trill, while in Parisian French it is almost always uvular.... |
r (rr) |
Lardil’s consonant inventory is fairly typical with respect to Australian phonology; it does not distinguish between voiced
Stop consonant
In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or an oral stop, is a stop consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases. The occlusion may be done with the tongue , lips , and &...
and unvoiced stops
Stop consonant
In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or an oral stop, is a stop consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases. The occlusion may be done with the tongue , lips , and &...
(such as b/p and g/k), and features a full set of stops and nasals
Nasal consonant
A nasal consonant is a type of consonant produced with a lowered velum in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. Examples of nasal consonants in English are and , in words such as nose and mouth.- Definition :...
at six places of articulation
Place of articulation
In articulatory phonetics, the place of articulation of a consonant is the point of contact where an obstruction occurs in the vocal tract between an articulatory gesture, an active articulator , and a passive location...
The distinction between ‘apical’ and ‘laminal’ consonants lies in whether the tip (apex) of the tongue or its flattened blade makes contact with the place of articulation. Hale’s 1997 practical orthography has ‘k’ for /k ~ g/ in order to disambiguate nasal+velar clusters (as in wanka ‘arm’) from instances of the velar
Velar consonant
Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum)....
nasal phoneme ŋ (as in wangal ‘boomerang
Boomerang
A boomerang is a flying tool with a curved shape used as a weapon or for sport.-Description:A boomerang is usually thought of as a wooden device, although historically boomerang-like devices have also been made from bones. Modern boomerangs used for sport are often made from carbon fibre-reinforced...
’) and to avoid suggesting /g/-gemination
Gemination
In phonetics, gemination happens when a spoken consonant is pronounced for an audibly longer period of time than a short consonant. Gemination is distinct from stress and may appear independently of it....
in /ŋ/+/k ~ g/ clusters
Consonant cluster
In linguistics, a consonant cluster is a group of consonants which have no intervening vowel. In English, for example, the groups and are consonant clusters in the word splits....
(as in ngangkirr ‘together’). The sounds represented by the digraphs
Digraph (orthography)
A digraph or digram is a pair of characters used to write one phoneme or a sequence of phonemes that does not correspond to the normal values of the two characters combined...
‘nh’ and ‘ly’ are not common in Lardil, but speakers perceive them as distinct, respectively, from /n/ and /l/, and they do occur in some words (e.g. minhal ‘burnt ground’, balyarriny [title of a social subsection]).
Vowels
| Front Front vowel A front vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a front vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far in front as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Front vowels are sometimes also... |
Back Back vowel A back vowel is a type of vowel sound used in spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a back vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far back as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Back vowels are sometimes also called dark... |
|
|---|---|---|
| High Close vowel A close vowel is a type of vowel sound used in many spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a close vowel is that the tongue is positioned as close as possible to the roof of the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant.This term is prescribed by the... |
i iː (ii) | u uː (ii) |
| Mid Mid vowel A mid vowel is a vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned mid-way between an open vowel and a close vowel... |
e eː (ee) | |
| Low Open vowel An open vowel is defined as a vowel sound in which the tongue is positioned as far as possible from the roof of the mouth. Open vowels are sometimes also called low vowels in reference to the low position of the tongue... |
a aː (aa) |
Lardil has eight phonemically distinct vowels, differentiated by short
Vowel length
In linguistics, vowel length is the perceived duration of a vowel sound. Often the chroneme, or the "longness", acts like a consonant, and may etymologically be one, such as in Australian English. While not distinctive in most dialects of English, vowel length is an important phonemic factor in...
and long variants
Vowel length
In linguistics, vowel length is the perceived duration of a vowel sound. Often the chroneme, or the "longness", acts like a consonant, and may etymologically be one, such as in Australian English. While not distinctive in most dialects of English, vowel length is an important phonemic factor in...
at each of four places of articulation
Place of articulation
In articulatory phonetics, the place of articulation of a consonant is the point of contact where an obstruction occurs in the vocal tract between an articulatory gesture, an active articulator , and a passive location...
. Phonemic vowel length is an important feature of many Australian languages; minimal pair
Minimal pair
In phonology, minimal pairs are pairs of words or phrases in a particular language, which differ in only one phonological element, such as a phone, phoneme, toneme or chroneme and have distinct meanings...
s in Lardil with a vowel length distinction include waaka/waka ‘crow’/’armpit’ and thaldi/thaldii ‘come here!’/’to stand up’. Long vowels are roughly twice as long as their short counterparts.
Stress
Primary word stress in Lardil falls on the initial syllable, and primary phrase stress on the final word in the phrase. These stress rules have some exceptions, notably compounds containing tangka ‘man’ as a head noun modified by a demonstrative or another nominal; these expressions, and other compound phrases, have phrase-initial stress.Common alternations (consonants)
- /rr ~ d/, _#
- The distinction between /rr/ and /d/ is lost word-finally, as in yarburr ‘bird/snake’, which may be realized as [yarburr] or [yarbud], depending on the instance.
- /d ~ n, j ~ ny/, _N
- /d/ and /j/ may assimilate to a following nasal, as in bidngen > binngen ‘woman’, or yuujmen > yuunymen ‘oldtime’.
- /r ~ l/, #_
- Word-initial /r/ is often expressed as /l/; as with /rr ~ d/, either (e.g.) [leman] or [reman] may be heard for ‘mouth’.
Word-final phonology
In addition to the common phonological alterations noted above, Lardil features some complex word-final phonology which is affected by both morphologicalMorphology (linguistics)
In linguistics, morphology is the identification, analysis and description, in a language, of the structure of morphemes and other linguistic units, such as words, affixes, parts of speech, intonation/stress, or implied context...
and lexical
Lexicon
In linguistics, the lexicon of a language is its vocabulary, including its words and expressions. A lexicon is also a synonym of the word thesaurus. More formally, it is a language's inventory of lexemes. Coined in English 1603, the word "lexicon" derives from the Greek "λεξικόν" , neut...
factors.
Augmentation acts on many monomoraic
Mora (linguistics)
Mora is a unit in phonology that determines syllable weight, which in some languages determines stress or timing. As with many technical linguistic terms, the definition of a mora varies. Perhaps the most succinct working definition was provided by the American linguist James D...
forms, producing, for example, /ʈera/ ‘thigh’ from underlying *ter.
High vowels
Close vowel
A close vowel is a type of vowel sound used in many spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a close vowel is that the tongue is positioned as close as possible to the roof of the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant.This term is prescribed by the...
tend to undergo Lowering at the end of bimoraic
Mora (linguistics)
Mora is a unit in phonology that determines syllable weight, which in some languages determines stress or timing. As with many technical linguistic terms, the definition of a mora varies. Perhaps the most succinct working definition was provided by the American linguist James D...
forms, as in *penki > penke ‘lagoon’. In several historical locative/ergatives, Lowering does not occur. It does occur in at least one long, u-final stem, and it coexists with the Raising of certain stem-final /a/s.
In some trimoraic (or longer) forms, final, underlying short vowels undergo Apocope
Apocope
In phonology, apocope is the loss of one or more sounds from the end of a word, and especially the loss of an unstressed vowel.-Historical sound change:...
(deletion), as in *jalulu > jalul ‘fire’. Front-vowel Apocope fails to occur in locatives
Locative case
Locative is a grammatical case which indicates a location. It corresponds vaguely to the English prepositions "in", "on", "at", and "by"...
, verbal negatives, many historical locative/ergatives
Ergative case
The ergative case is the grammatical case that identifies the subject of a transitive verb in ergative-absolutive languages.-Characteristics:...
, and a number of i-final stems such as wan̪t̪alŋi ‘fish sp.’ Back-vowel Apocope also has lexically-governed exceptions.
Cluster Reduction simplifies underlying word-final consonant clusters, as in *makark > makar ‘anthill’. This process is ‘fed’ in a sense by Apocope, since some forms that would otherwise end in a short vowel arise as cluster-final after Apocope (e.g. *jukarpa > *jukarp > jukar ‘husband’).
Non-apical Truncation results in forms like ŋalu from underlying *ŋaluk, in which the underlying form would end in a non-apical consonant (i.e. one not produced with the tip of the tongue). This process is also fed by Apocope, and seems to be lexically governed to an extent, since Lardil words can end in a laminal; c.f. kakawuɲ ‘bird sp.’, kulkic ‘shark sp.’
In addition to the dropping of non-apicals, a process of Apicalization is at work, giving forms such as ŋawit from underlying laminal-final *ŋawic. It has been proposed that the process responsible for some of these forms is better described as Laminalization (i.e., nawit is underlying and nawic occurs in inflected forms), but Apicalization explains the variation between alveolar /t/ and dental /t̺/ (contrastive but both Apical) in surface forms with an underlying non-apical, and does not predict/generate as many invalid forms as does the Laminalization model.
Verbs
- The first major lexical class in Lardil is its verbVerbA verb, from the Latin verbum meaning word, is a word that in syntax conveys an action , or a state of being . In the usual description of English, the basic form, with or without the particle to, is the infinitive...
s, which may be subclassified as intransitiveIntransitive verbIn grammar, an intransitive verb is a verb that has no object. This differs from a transitive verb, which takes one or more objects. Both classes of verb are related to the concept of the transitivity of a verb....
, transitiveTransitive verbIn syntax, a transitive verb is a verb that requires both a direct subject and one or more objects. The term is used to contrast intransitive verbs, which do not have objects.-Examples:Some examples of sentences with transitive verbs:...
, and intransitive- and transitive complementedComplement (linguistics)In grammar the term complement is used with different meanings. The primary meaning is a word, phrase or clause that is necessary in a sentence to complete its meaning. We find complements that function as an argument and complements that exist within arguments.Both complements and modifiers add...
. Verbs are both semantically and (as discussed below), morphologically distinct from nominals.
Nominals
- Nominals are a semantically and functionally diverse group of inflectedInflectionIn grammar, inflection or inflexion is the modification of a word to express different grammatical categories such as tense, grammatical mood, grammatical voice, aspect, person, number, gender and case...
items in Lardil. Some of them are ‘canonical nouns’ which refer to items, people or concepts; but many, the stative or attributive nominals, are semantically more like adjectives or other predicates. Kurndakurn ‘dry’, durde ‘weak’, and other lexical items with adjectival meanings inflect exactly like other nominals Determiners [e.g., nganikin ‘that’, baldu(u)rr ‘that (distant) west’], are also morphological nominals, as are inherently temporal and spatial adverbAdverbAn adverb is a part of speech that modifies verbs or any part of speech other than a noun . Adverbs can modify verbs, adjectives , clauses, sentences, and other adverbs....
s [e.g., dilanthaarr ‘long ago’, bada ‘in the west’].
Pronouns
- Lardil has a rich pronominalPronounIn linguistics and grammar, a pronoun is a pro-form that substitutes for a noun , such as, in English, the words it and he...
system featuring an inclusive-exclusiveClusivityIn linguistics, clusivity is a distinction between inclusive and exclusive first-person pronouns and verbal morphology, also called inclusive "we" and exclusive "we"...
plurality distinction, a dual number and generational harmony.
- A ‘harmonic’ relationship exists between individuals of alternate generations (e.g., grandparent /grandchild); a ‘disharmonic’ relation is between individuals of consecutive or odd-numbered generations (e.g., parent/child, great-grandparent/great-grandchild).
| Harmonic | Disharmonic | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | ngada | |
| 2 | nyingki | |
| 3 | niya | |
| 1du exc. (11) | nyarri | nyaan |
| 1du inc. (12) | ngakurri | ngakuni |
| 2du (22) | kirri | nyiinki |
| 3du (33) | birri | nyiinki |
| 1P exc. (111) | nyali | nyalmu |
| 1P inc. (122) | ngakuli | ngakulmu |
| 2P (222) | kili | kilmu |
| 3P (333) | bili | bilmu |
Uninflected elements
UninflectedUninflected word
In the context of linguistic morphology, an uninflected word is a word that has no morphological markers such as affixes, ablaut, consonant gradation, etc., indicating declension or conjugation...
elements in Lardil include:
- Particles, such as nyingkeni ‘completely gone’ or niimi ‘thus, therefore’.
- Exclamations, such as may (a guilty plea, roughly) and bardu ‘Gotcha!’ (said when something is offered and then snatched away).
- Preverbs, such as bilaa- ‘tomorrow’, and other coverbs.
- Enclitics, such as -kili, an optativeOptative moodThe optative mood is a grammatical mood that indicates a wish or hope. It is similar to the cohortative mood, and closely related to the subjunctive mood....
suffix, as in Manme-kili barnjibarn ‘dry+OPT hat’ = “Let (your hat dry)”.
Verbal morphology
Nine basic inflectional endings appear on verbs in Lardil:The Future marker (-thur) indicates anticipation/expectation of an event, or, when combined with the particle mara, either the proposed outcome of a hypothetical (If you had done X, I would have Y’ed) or an unachieved intention; it also marks embedded verbs in jussive
Jussive mood
The jussive is a grammatical mood of verbs for issuing orders, commanding, or exhorting . English verbs are not marked for this mood...
clauses.
The (marked) Non-future is used primarily in dependent clause
Dependent clause
In linguistics, a dependent clause is a clause that augments an independent clause with additional information, but which cannot stand alone as a sentence. Dependent clauses modify the independent clause of a sentence or serve as a component of it...
s to indicate a temporal limit to an action.
The Contemporaneous ending marks a verb in a subordinate clause when that verb’s referent action is contemporaneous with the action described in the main clause.
The Evitative ending, which appears as -nymerra in objective (oblique
Oblique case
An oblique case in linguistics is a noun case of synthetic languages that is used generally when a noun is the object of a verb or a preposition...
) case, marks a verb whose event or process is undesirable or to be avoided, as in niya merrinymerr ‘He might hear’ (and we don’t want him to); it is somewhat analogous to English ‘lest’, though more productive.
When one imperative follows another closely, the second verb is marked with a Sequential Imperative ending.
Negation is semantically straightforward, but is expressed with a complex set of affixes; which is used depends on other properties of the verb.
Other processes, which may be characterized as derivational
Derivational morphology
Derivational morphology changes the meaning of words by applying derivations. Derivation is the combination of a word stem with a morpheme, which forms a new word, which is often of a different class...
rather than inflection
Inflection
In grammar, inflection or inflexion is the modification of a word to express different grammatical categories such as tense, grammatical mood, grammatical voice, aspect, person, number, gender and case...
al, express duration/repetition, passivity/reflexivity
Reflexive verb
In grammar, a reflexive verb is a verb whose semantic agent and patient are the same. For example, the English verb to perjure is reflexive, since one can only perjure oneself...
, reciprocality, and causativity
Causative
In linguistics, a causative is a form that indicates that a subject causes someone or something else to do or be something, or causes a change in state of a non-volitional event....
on the verb. Likewise, nouns may be derived from verbs by adding the suffix (-n ~ -Vn), as in werne-kebe-n ‘food-gatherer’ or werne-la-an ‘food-spearer’; the negative counterpart of this is (-jarr), as in dangka-be-jarr (man+bite+neg) ‘non-biter-of-people’.
Nominal morphology
Lardil nominals are inflected for objective, locativeLocative case
Locative is a grammatical case which indicates a location. It corresponds vaguely to the English prepositions "in", "on", "at", and "by"...
and genitive
Genitive case
In grammar, genitive is the grammatical case that marks a noun as modifying another noun...
cases, as well as future and non-future; these are expressed via endings that attach to the base forms of nominals.
Nominative case
The Nominative case, which is used with sentence subjects and objects of simple imperatives (such as yarraman ‘horse’ in Kurri yarraman ‘(You) Look at the horse.’) is not explicitly marked; uninflected nouns carry nominative case by default.
Objective (oblique) case
The Objective case (-n ~ -in) has five general functions, marking (1) the object of a verb in plain (i.e. unmarked non-future) form, (2) the agent of a passive verb in plain form, (3) the subject of a contemporaneous dependent clause (i.e., a ‘while’/’when’ clause), (4) the locative complement of a verb in the plain negative or negative imperative
Imperative mood
The imperative mood expresses commands or requests as a grammatical mood. These commands or requests urge the audience to act a certain way. It also may signal a prohibition, permission, or any other kind of exhortation.- Morphology :...
, and (5) the object of the sequential imperative (see section on verb morphology above). Lardil displays some irregularities in object-marking morphology.
Locative case
The Locative marker (-nge ~ -e ~ -Vː) appears on the locative complement of a verb in plain form. The objective case serves this purpose with negative verbs. Locative case is formed by lengthening the final vowel in instances of vowel-final base forms such as barnga ‘stone’ (LOC barngaa). While the Locative case can denote a variety of locative relations (such as those expressed in English by at, on, in, along, etc.), such relations may be specified using inherently locative nominals (e.g. minda ‘near’, nyirriri ‘under’) that do not themselves inflect for this case. Nominals corresponding to animate beings tend not to be marked with Locative case; Genitive is preferred for such constructions as yarramangan ‘on the horse’ (lit. ‘of the horse’). On pronouns, for which case-marking is irregular, Locative case is realized via ‘double-expression’ of Genitive case: ngada ‘I’ > ngithun ‘I(gen) = my’ > ngithunngan ‘I(gen)+gen = on me’.
Genitive case
The Genitive morpheme (-kan ~ -ngan) marks (1) a possessor nominal
Possession (linguistics)
Possession, in the context of linguistics, is an asymmetric relationship between two constituents, the referent of one of which possesses the referent of the other ....
, (2) the agent of a passive verb in the future, non-future or evitative; (3) the pronominal agent of any passive verb, (4) the subject of a relative clause
Relative clause
A relative clause is a subordinate clause that modifies a noun phrase, most commonly a noun. For example, the phrase "the man who wasn't there" contains the noun man, which is modified by the relative clause who wasn't there...
, if it is a non-subject in the sentence; and (5) the subject of a cleft construction in which the topic is a non-subject (e.g., Diin wangal, ngithun thabuji-kan kubaritharrku ‘This boomerang, my brother made.’).
Future
The object of a verb in future tense (either negative or affirmative) is marked for Futurity by a suffix (-kur ~ -ur ~ -r), as in the sentence below:
| (1) | Ngada | bulethur | yakur. |
| 1pS (NOM) | catch+FUT | fish+FUT | |
| 'I will catch a fish.' | |||
The future marker also has four other functions. It marks: (a) the locative complement (‘into the house’, ‘on the stone’) of a future verb, (2) the object of a verb in contemporaneous form, (3) the object of a verb in the evitative form (often translated as ‘be liable to V’, ‘might V’), and (4) the dative
Dative case
The dative case is a grammatical case generally used to indicate the noun to whom something is given, as in "George gave Jamie a drink"....
complement of certain verbs (e.g. ngukur ‘for-water’ in Lewurda ngukur ‘Ask him for water’). The instrumental case inflection is homophonous
Homophone
A homophone is a word that is pronounced the same as another word but differs in meaning. The words may be spelled the same, such as rose and rose , or differently, such as carat, caret, and carrot, or to, two, and too. Homophones that are spelled the same are also both homographs and homonyms...
with the future marker, but both may appear on the same nominal in certain instances.
Non-future
The object of a verb in the (negative or affirmative) marked non-future also inflects for Non-futurity. The non-future marking (-ngarr ~ -nga ~ -arr ~ -a) is also used to mark time adverbials in non-future clauses as well as the locative complement of a non-future verb.
Verbal case
In addition to these inflectional endings, Lardil features several morphologically verbal affixes that are semantically similar to case markers and, like case endings, mark noun phrases rather than individual nouns. Allative
Allative case
Allative case is a type of the locative cases used in several languages. The term allative is generally used for the lative case in the majority of languages which do not make finer distinctions.-Finnish language:In the Finnish language, the allative is the fifth of the locative cases, with the...
and ablative
Ablative case
In linguistics, ablative case is a name given to cases in various languages whose common characteristic is that they mark motion away from something, though the details in each language may differ...
meanings (i.e. movement to or from) are expressed with these endings; as are the desiderative and a second type of evitave; comitative
Comitative case
The comitative case , also known as the associative case , is a grammatical case that denotes companionship, and is used where English would use "in company with" or "together with"...
, proprietive and privative
Abessive case
In linguistics, abessive , caritive and privative are names for a grammatical case expressing the lack or absence of the marked noun...
.
Verbalizing suffixes
Lardil nominals may also take one of two derivational (verbalizing) suffixes: the Inchoative (-e ~ -a ~ -ya), which has the sense ‘become X’, and the Causative (-ri ~ -iri), which has the sense ‘make X Y’; other verbalizing suffixes exist in Lardil but are far less productive than these two.
Reduplication
ReduplicationReduplication
Reduplication in linguistics is a morphological process in which the root or stem of a word is repeated exactly or with a slight change....
is productive in verbal morphology, giving a non-future durative with the pattern V-tharr V (where V is a verb), having the sense 'keep on V-ing', and a future durative with V-thururr V-thur.
In some instances nominal roots may be reduplicated, in their entirety, to indicate plurality, but Lardil nominals are not generally marked for number and this form is fairly rare.
Syntax
Given the rich morphology of Lardil, it is not surprising that its word orderWord order
In linguistics, word order typology refers to the study of the order of the syntactic constituents of a language, and how different languages can employ different orders. Correlations between orders found in different syntactic subdomains are also of interest...
is somewhat flexible; however, the basic sentence order has been described as SVO, with direct object
Object (grammar)
An object in grammar is part of a sentence, and often part of the predicate. It denotes somebody or something involved in the subject's "performance" of the verb. Basically, it is what or whom the verb is acting upon...
either following or preceding indirect object
Object (grammar)
An object in grammar is part of a sentence, and often part of the predicate. It denotes somebody or something involved in the subject's "performance" of the verb. Basically, it is what or whom the verb is acting upon...
and other dependents following these. Clitics appear clause-second and/or on either side of the verb.
Syntax and case assignment
Lardil is unique among the Tangkic languages in being non-ergative. In an ergative language, the subject of an intransitive verb takes nominative case while the subject of a transitive verb takes ergative case (the object of this verb takes nominative case). In Lardil, subjects of both verb types are inflected for nominative case, and both indirect and direct objects marked for accusative as in the following sentences:| (1) | Ngada | kudi | kun | yaramanin |
| 1pS (NOM) | see | EV | horse+AC | |
| 'I saw a horse.' | ||||
| (2) | Pidngen | wutha | kun | ngimpeen | tiin | midithinin |
| woman+NOM | give | EV | 2pS(AC) | this+AC | medicine+AC | |
| 'The woman gave you this medicine.' | ||||||
Kun, glossed as ‘EV’, is an eventive marker, marking a verb referring to something that actually occurred or is occurring.
Subjects (i.e., patients
Theta role
In generative grammar , a theta role or θ-role is the formal device for representing syntactic argument structure required syntactically by a particular verb. For example, the verb put requires three arguments...
) of passive verbs also take nominative case, and their objects (i.e., agents), take accusative, as in:
| (3) | Ngithun | wangal | yuud | wuungii | tangan |
| 1pS (AC) | boomerang+AC | PERF | steal+R | man+AC | |
| 'My boomerang was stolen by a man.' | |||||
Here, R is a maker of reflexivity.
Part-whole compounds
Though part-whole relations are sometimes expressed using the genitive case as in (1) below, it is more common to mark both part and whole with the same case, placing the ‘part’ nominal immediately after its possessor nominal, as in (2).| (1) | bidngenngan | lelka | |
| woman+GEN | head(NOM) | ||
| 'the woman's head' | |||
| (2) | Ngada | yuud-latha | karnjinin | lelkin |
| 1pS(NOM) | PERF+spear | wallaby+OBJ | head+OBJ | |
| 'I speared the wallaby in the head.' (lit. 'I speared the wallaby head') | ||||
New Lardil
While very few speakers of Lardil in its traditional form remain, Norvin Richards and Kenneth Hale both worked with some speakers of a “New Lardil” in the 1990s which displays significant morphological attritionLanguage death
In linguistics, language death is a process that affects speech communities where the level of linguistic competence that speakers possess of a given language variety is decreased, eventually resulting in no native and/or fluent speakers of the variety...
compared to the Old variety. Previously minor sentence forms in which the object of a verb takes nominative case have become generalized, even in instances where the verb is in future tense (objects of future verbs historically inflected for futurity). One of a number of negation patterns has become generalized, and the augmented forms of monosyllabic verb roots reinterpreted as base forms.
Sources
- Bowern, Claire and Erich Round. Lectures on Australian Aboriginal languages. Spring 2011. Yale University.
- Klokeid, Terry J. 1976. Topics in Lardil Grammar
- McKnight, D. 1999. People, Countries and the Rainbow Serpent.
- "Mornington Island State School". Retrieved April 2011
- Ngakulmungan Kangka Leman and K.L. Hale. 1997. Lardil dictionary : a vocabulary of the language of the Lardil people, Mornington Island, Gulf of Carpentaria, Queensland: with English-Lardil finder list. Gununa, Qld, Mornington Shire Council. ISBN 0 646 29052 5
- Richards, Norvin. Leerdil Yuujmen bana Yanangarr (Old and New Lardil). MIT, 1997.
- Round, Erich. Lecture on Kayardild and related languages. 4/7/2011, Yale University.
- Round, Erich R. 2011 (forthcoming). Word final phonology in Lardil: Implications of an expanded data set. Australian Journal of Linguistics.
- Wright, Sarah H. 2003. “Professor brings Aboriginal language to life”. in MIT News, 22 October 2003. Retrieved April 2011.
Further reading
- Dixon, R. M. W. 1980. The Languages of Australia.
- Evans, Nicholas (with Paul Memmott and Robin Horsman). 1990. Chapter 16: Travel and communication. In P. Memmott & R. Horsman, A changing culture. The Lardil Aborigines of Mornington Island. Social Sciences Press, Wentworth Falls, NSW.
- Hale, Kenneth L. 1967. Some Productive Rules in Lardil (Mornington Island) Syntax, pp. 63–73 in Papers in Australian Linguistics No. 2, ed. by C.G. von Brandenstein, A. Capell, and K. Hale. Pacific Linguistics Series A, No. 11.
- Hale, Kenneth L. . 1973. Deep-Surface Canonical Disparities in Relation to Analysis and Change.
- Hale, Kenneth L. and D. Nash. 1997. Damin and Lardil Phonotactics.
- Memmott, P., N. Evans and R. Robinsi Understanding Isolation and Change in Island Human Population though a study of Indigenous Cultural Patterns in the Gulf of Carpentaria.
- Truckenbrodt, Hubert. 2005. "Lardil syllable structure and stray erasure".
External links
See also
- Language deathLanguage deathIn linguistics, language death is a process that affects speech communities where the level of linguistic competence that speakers possess of a given language variety is decreased, eventually resulting in no native and/or fluent speakers of the variety...
- Stolen generations
- Grammatical caseGrammatical caseIn grammar, the case of a noun or pronoun is an inflectional form that indicates its grammatical function in a phrase, clause, or sentence. For example, a pronoun may play the role of subject , of direct object , or of possessor...