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• 1 2021-09-01T20:31:40+00:00 Chapter 12: The Sounds of Murrinh-Patha, by Carson Woodfin 75 plain 2021-12-15T22:49:39+00:00

  An Introduction

  Murrinh-Patha is quite an interesting language. According to Ethnologue, it is an aboriginal language spoken mainly in Wadeye, located in the Ports Keats area of the Northern Territory. The speaker population is quite small, having a speaker population of about 2,000. One might think that with such a small speaker population that the language would be endangered, however, the population is steadily increasing and developing. One of the reasons for the increase in speakers is because Murrinh-Patha is a lingua franca. A lingua franca is a common language used between groups of people. It is spoken by the Murrinh-Patha people, but also by other aboriginal tribes in the region. 
   

  Language Use

  Murrinh-Patha is used in the Southern Daly region. It plays a huge role in cultural identity for the people (Nordlinger et al. 2009). Because of its importance, it is taught in schools where it is the first language of most children and there have been dictionaries, grammars, and even sections of the Bible have been created in the language (Nordlinger et al. 2009).

  Language Endangerment

  The Endangered Language project declares that Murrinh-Patha is a threatened language due to its low number of speakers. However, multiple other sources suggest that Murrin-Patha is a language that is quite stable due to its vast array of resources and community support. Most of the speakers of the language are young children, which is a positive outlook due to generational transmission.
  
  Language Family
  
  There is a bit of a dispute when it comes to tracking down which language family Murrin-Patha belongs to. It is said it belongs to a proposed language family called the Southern Daly languages. The name ‘Southern Daly’ comes from the Daly river that flows through the region, Murrinh-Patha and Ngan’gitemerri make up this language family. It is a proposed language family because these two languages are distantly related. At a time, nobody was sure about Murrinh-Patha’s relationship with any language because it was thought of to be an isolate languge. While these two languages do not share any lexical similarities, there are similarities in their verbal reflections. Due to this similarity they are thought to be in the same family, however, there is not substantial evidence to prove a stronger relationship.
  
  Glottocode and ISO 639-3
  
  The glottocode for Murrinh-Patha is murr1258 and the ISO 639-3 is mwf
   

  The Consonants

  
  There are a total of 21 consonants in Murrinh-Patha. The consonant inventory of Murrinh-Patha has been described as “long and flat”, there are 6 places of articulation (bilabial, dental, alveolar, retroflex, palatal and velar) and 4 manners of articulation. These manners of articulation are as follows: stops (voiced and voiceless), nasals, approximants, and trill/flap. One of the most prominent consonant features is the number of retroflexes in the consonant inventory, however, I will be touching on that in a later section. The selection of sounds below provide a look into the sounds of Murrinh-Patha, they demonstrate and show the different phonemes found in the language. A minimal pair is two words that only differentiate by a single sound. Minimal pairs are used to show different phonemes.
  
   

  Minimal Pairs

  Plosives
  /tek/
  
  
  /cek/
  
  
  /ce/
  
  
   /ɟe/
  
  
  Nasals
  /kumuluŋ/
  
  
  /kunuɡunu/
  
  
  Laterals
  /ʈamul/
  
  
  /muɭ/*
  
  Rhotics
  /ŋurunu/
  
  
  /ŋuɽunu/*

  The Vowels

  There are a total of 4 vowels in the language. The vowels are divided into two sections based on the height of the tongue and the backness of the vowel. Since there are only a few vowels in Murrin-Patha, they are not a focus of the language.

  
  
  
  
  Vowel Phonemes
  
  'ɑ' - /kɑkɑ/
  
  
  'ɛ' - /kɛkɛ/
  
  'i' - /ngirnu/
  'ɛ' - /ngɛrnu
  
  
  'ɑ' - mɑluk
  
  'u' - murlɑk 
  
  Allophonic Alterations
  
  
  
  Syllables and Syllable Structure

  Words in Murrinh-Patha are rather morphologically simple. They follow a simple syllable structure of either /CV/ or /CVC/ according to John Mansfield. In his book on Murrinh-Patha Morphology and Phonology, he states, "There are only a few four syllable simple words, and none that are larger." (Mansfield 44) This means that Murrinh-Patha cannot have more than four syllables in a single word. From the text, Mansfield describes that most aboriginal languages follow a specific set of rules that Murrinh-Patha seems to not follow:

  1. Words have two or more syllables (Mansfield 44).
  2. Syllable codas are sonorant, not obstruent (Mansfield 44)
  3. Word-initial position uses a substantially restricted subset of the consonant inventory, which is therefore only fully exhibited at word-medial position. (Mansfield 44).
  
  However, syllables in Murrinh-Patha are quite different. They follow their own set of rules. There are quite a few words that are mono-syllabic words (Mansfield 45):
  1. ke   'shell sp.'
  2. wak  'crow'
  3 burk  'excellent' 
  
  Since Murrinh-Patha defies these rules that are set for most aboriginal languages there are a different set of constraints for syllable/word position that it follows (Mansfield 46). These are:
  C1  Syllable onset, either word initial or post-consonantal;
  C2 Syllable onset, intervocalic word-medial; 
  C3 Syllable coda
  
  So based on this rules the following syllables can be formed freely into words (Mansfield 46):
  /C1VC2V/
  /C1VC2VC3/
  /C1VC3C1V/
  /C1VC3C1VC3/
  /C1VC2VC2V/ .... etc
  
  This means that Murrinh-Patha can have words that are as long as thirteen syllables, yet it has to follows these constraints presented. If we dive deeper into these syllabic structures, we see that for the C1 position, retroflexes are never found here. There are only a certain subset of consonants that can occupy this position. In C3, the syllable coda positition, however, this is where the retroflex is normally found and it is contrastive (Mansfield 47).
  
  Focus on Retroflexes in Murrin-Patha

  Retroflexes in Murrinh-Patha are contrastive (Mansfield 63). This follows the pattern for most Australian languages. While there is substantial evidence that shows that they are contrastive in the language, it is still hotly debated if there is a contrast. Retroflex contrast is "normally found in the word-medial and word final positions." (Mansfield 63).

  Examples
  
  In the examples below there are two different words. These spectrograms show the varying levels of contrast between the words. Mansfield argues that there is an additional "rhotic coloring for the retroflex" that isn't seen in the regular word /kala/ (Manfield 64). This can be seen in the the 3rd and 4th formants of the word (64). In the first word, the formants are at around 2500Hz and 3500 Hz, while the second word they drop to around 2000Hz to 2800Hz (64). This is because in the first word, the initial consonant is transitioning to the /al/ in the first word and then the /aɭ/ in the second (64). This evidence supports the fact that retroflexes are contrastive in Murrinh-Patha and it leads us to believe that with the addition to the retroflex to the word it can change the meaning (64). However, Mansfield argues that this can vary by speaker and not all of them show the distinction (65).
  
  /kala/
  /kaɭa/ 
  
  /bat-bat/
  
  
  /kanam-paʈ/
  
  These two examples again show that retroflexes are contrastive in Murrin-Patha. However, as I said above this varies for speakers. Some examples show that not all speakers show the contrast between retroflexes and laterals.
  
  /tunu-bat/
  
  /tani-paʈ/
  
  In these examples, the only difference is the first part of the spectrograph. However, in the second half of the spectrogram with the retroflex being used there is no contrast between the /t/ and the /ʈ/. They are at the same frequency. This is the reason why there is debate on if retroflexes are actually contrastive in Murrin-Patha, there are individual differences among speakers.Mansfield argues that there is not a definitive contrast, rather it is a 'intermediate' contrast in the language. Sometimes there is contrast, and sometimes not (Mansfield 63).
  
   

  References/Bibliography

  Street, Chester, and Gregory Mollinjin. The Phonology of Murinbata. Dec. 1981, p. 59.
  
  Mansfield, John. Murrinpatha Morphology and Phonology.
  
  Nordlinger, Rachel, Barbara Kelly, and Gillian Wigglesworth. “Indigenous Perspectives on the Vitality of Murrinh-Patha.” Selected Papers from the 2009 Conference of the Australian Linguistic Society (edited by Yvonne Treis & Rik De Busser) (2010): n. pag. Print.

  Wikipedia contributors. "Murrinh-patha language." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 9 Jun. 2021. Web. 3 Nov. 2021.

  Wikipedia contributors. "Southern Daly languages." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 22 Oct. 2021. Web. 3 Nov. 2021.