Journal article
The genetic position of Anindilyakwa
ME van Egmond, B Baker
Australian Journal of Linguistics | Published : 2020
Abstract
In this paper, we demonstrate that Anindilyakwa, spoken on Groote Eylandt, East Arnhem Land, is genetically closely related to Wubuy (Gunwinyguan). Anindilyakwa has long been believed to be a family-level isolate, but by a rigorous application of the Comparative Method we uncover regular sound correspondences from lexical correspondence sets, reconstruct the sound system of the proto-language, and suggest how the proto-phoneme inventory derives from the proto-Gunwinyguan system through phonological innovations. Although it has been hinted before that Anindilyakwa and Wubuy are related and together with Ngandi form a subgroup, this hypothesis is not borne out here: while Wubuy and Ngandi have..
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Grants
Awarded by Australian Research Council
Funding Acknowledgements
Marie-Elaine van Egmond's work was supported by fieldwork grants from the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies under Grant G2008/7358; the Endangered Languages Documentation Programme at SOAS, London under Grant FTG0152; the ARC Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language; and the THEORIA Scientific Programme for the Humanities of the Ministry of Education, Science and Culture, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany. Brett Baker's work was supported by the Australian Research Council's Discovery Program under Grant DP190100646 'One potato, two wotatoes, three otatoes: Lexical access in Australian languages' (with co-investigators Rikke Bundgaard-Nielsen, Mark Harvey and Robert Mailhammer).