Language name: |
MURINHPATHA |
UPSID number: |
8349 |
Alternate name(s): |
|
Classification: |
Australian, Ungrouped |
This language has |
25 segments |
Its Frequency index is |
0.434057650 (average percentage of segments; 0.1: many very rare segments; 0.39: average; 0.7: many common segments) |
The language has these sounds: |
p
tD
t
t.
k
b
dD
d
d.
g
m
nD
n
n.
N
r.[
r
l
l.
j
w
i
E
a
U
|
Comment: |
Murinhpatha is still spoken by a substantial community mainly at Wadeye (Port Keats), Northern Territory, Australia. Street and Mollinjin's articulatory diagrams show that the dental series is interdental before non-front vowels /a,U/ but laminal post-alveolar (with tongue tip behind the lower teeth) before front vowels. This distribution seems to argue for this series being underlying dental, rather than being (lamino-)palatal as they suggest. The palatal variant is thus due to a front vowel position. However, this does not account for palatal variants occurring in syllable-final position. Retroflex consonants do not occur word-initially. /j/ occurs word-finally after vowels other than /i/. Primary stress is normally on the first syllable, with alternating stresses on subsequent syllables. |
Source(s): |
Street, C.S. and G.P. Mollinjin. 1981. "The phonology of Murinbata". Work Papers of SIL-AAB, Series A, No. 5: 183-244. (Summer Institute of Linguistics, Australian Aborigines Branch, Darwin). |