There are two types of determiners in Diyari (see 4,1.3), predicate determiners and nominal determiners. The former have an adverbial function
(described at 5.1.3.3) while the latter are used ad-nominally and indicate definiteness and gender and number of the head noun with which they occur in a noun phrase (see 5.1.1.2 and 5.1.7.3). If there is no head noun nominal determiners have anaphoric reference and translate as third person pronouns in English. Both sorts of determiner occur with one of the deictic suffixes (see discussion below).
4.4.1 Nominal Determiners
Nominal determinersci/c. specified for the number, either singular, dual or plural and, in the singular, for the gender of the referent of the noun with which they occur or to which they anaphorically refer. Gender is determined by natural sex distinctions into one of two classes:
Feminine - all animates whose reference is distinctly female, for example, women, girls, bitches, doe kangaroos, etc. Non-Feminine - all others, that is, all male animates, all non
female animates, all non-sexed animates and all inanimates.
'Feminine' is clearly the marked term of the system1 as 'Non-Feminine' is
1 The concept of markedness was first developed by members of the Prague School with respect to phonology, especially Trubetzkoy (1969: Chapter 3). It was introduced into syntax and semantic theory by Jakobson
used unless the referent must be explicitly specified as female. In the dual and plural the gender distinction is not overtly expressed in the form of the determiners.
Nominal determiners agree in case (4.2.4, 5.1.5) with the noun with which they occur or, if used anaphorically, according to their function in the clause in which they occur (5.1.5). There is a full paradigm of forms for each case function. There are separate forms for each of the S, A and 0 functions (see 4.2.4.1) with typical endings:
-li ERG in non-singular -na ACC in all numbers.
As we saw with pronouns (4.3.2), the LOC and ALL cases (5.1.5.5, 5.1.5.7) are realized as a single form. Similarly, GEN, BEN and P13RP have one
realization (5.1.5,8, 5.1.5,9, 5.1,5.10). The common endings together with SCE are:
-QU for LOC/ALL -ni for GEN/bEN/PURP -Qundru for SCE.
INSTrumental case is expressed by the same form as ERGative (A or Transitive Subject). The full set of nominal determiners is:
T A B L E 2 2 : N O M I N A L D E T E R M I N E R S u 0 ZJ 3 0 CO Cl Cl CL z l Z 3 ZJ z cr z 3 3 < 0 0 Z Z _x 0 0 CJ z z — c o (Ü ZJ 3 0 z Cl Cl CL z l V z — .— w c* c* •— __ CQ CL 0 0 C* c* \ DC J* DC 0 0 z z cr z — c w ex ro ZJ 3 0 CJ Cl c l CL z l w > hH E- HH H 0 0 CO CJ Cl Cl Z UJ 0 0 0 0 <2 l—D Cl Cl — c DC CQ 0 •— 3 0 E- O Cl Cl CL z l w > 1—1 H 1—1 CO H Z CJ <d uj DC Z •— =3 0 0 E-< CQ c 5 — c 2: z <u 0 3 0 h-H CO Cl Cl CL z l E-1 CO uj z > l-H 1—1 \ H E-1 Z CJ 3 .— __ co ex — — Z Z z 3 0 0 <2 CQ c — — c ex z ro 3 3 0 E- co c l Cl CL z l 0 G •H c o •H C G DC •H 0 UJ c tx Q •H i Z G G UJ 0 O CJ ex Z DC < DC z z UJ z <c CQ CJ z DC z < z z l—H z z z CO Q ex
Notice that the Diyari bases:
nan- Feminine nu- Non-Feminine
seem also to occur in Yandruwandha, Ngamini and Yarluyandi. Bandjalang (N.S.W.) has (Crowley (1977)) the third person pronouns:
3sgmasc pule fern pa:ngan
where -gan is a productive feminine suffix.
The forms given in Table 22 may take one of the deictic suffixes described below (4.4.2). Examples of their use are also given there
(examples (53) to (55)).
4.4.2 Predicate Determiners and Dgictic Suffixes
There are two predicate determiners in Diyari:
yani- 'like this' yaru- 'like that'
which have adverbial function (5.1.3.3). These two roots are always followed by one of the following suffixes:
-ya, NEAR - indicates some action or event in the immediate context, either linguistic or non-linguistic.
-ka, TOKEN - indicates one of a number of different alternatives is being singled out by the speaker.
-para, THERE - this seems to be the least marked of the suffixes. I am not sure of its exact semantic effect or its contrast with
the other two.
These suffixes may in turn be (optionally) followed by one of the clitics described at 5.4 below, especially - I d r a ADDitional information and -ma£a IDENTified (5.4.3, 5.4.4).
The suffix -ka, which is one of the morphological characteristics distinguishing determiners as a word class (see 4.1.3), is interesting in that it refers to a particular token of a type of action or event. The following is an example of its use with yaru- (the anaphoric function of this determiner are discussed at 5.1.3.3), from Text 1 (Appendix A). The example concerns a young boy who is foiled in his attempts to get something to eat by the actions of his brother-in-law:
(50) [ p a d a - n i n u q k a n i k a d i - 0 m a r a - 0 w l r i - y i / then-LOC SgnFGEN ZH-ABS hand-ABS enter-PRES d u k a r a - X a n u p k a Q u n d r u m a n a - n d r u / ] take out-IMPLss SgnFSCE mouth-SCE
y a r u - k a nawu k a n k u - 0 m a w a - a l i o a n a - y i like that-SUBSET SgnFS boy-ABS hunger-INST be-PRES
'[Then his brother-in-law's hand went in and took out (the food) from his mouth]. Thus the boy was hungry'. (1;39-40).
Other examples of these determiners are:
(51) k a n k u - a l i wat a y a n i - y a t a y i - n a n t u q a n t i boy-ERG not like this-NEAR eat-IMPL, meat
ds w a k a - 0
small-ABS
(52) nan! yani-para muda-yi SgFS like this-THERE finish-PRES
'She finished like this'.
The nominal determiners also occur with -ka TOKEN (indicating a subset of possible referents) and -para (whose status is unclear) but -ya NEAR
contrasts with the following suffixes which are not attached to the predicate determiners:
-da , VICIN - indicates a referent in the immediate vicinity of the speaker
[-ya , NEAR - indicates a referent near the speaker]
-wa , DIST - indicates a referent distant from the speaker.
Notice that these three suffixes occur as distance markers attached to the location nominal nipki- ’here' before the local case suffixes are attached (see 4.2.7). With nominal determiners they indicate the relative distance from the speaker of the referent of the noun cross-referenced or anaphorically referred to by the determiner.
The clitics described at 5 04 may occur after any of these deictic suffixes. Some examples of the use of suffixed determiners are:
(53) nandfu-ka Qana nandra-na wara-yi n u 1u-ya
SgFA-TOKEN lSgO hit-PART AUX-PRES SgnF INST-NEAR
p i ta-aIi stick-INST
(54) ayi! nawu-da-ma£a-awu!
Hey SgnFS-VICIN-IDENT-EXCLAM
'Hey3 this is him here!'.
(55) nuQkaou-wa Oalu nayi-nayi-yi / luru-0
SgnFLOC-DIST lSgA REDUP-see-PRES fire-ABS
yarki-yafki-Jari-nani REDUP-burn-DUR-REL.
ds
'Over that way I watched the fire burning'. (1;109)
4.4.3 Interrogative Determiners
There are two types of interrogative determiners:
a) interrogative predicate determiner, which has one form: wadaru 'how'
as in the example:
(56) wadaru Qaldra Qanka-yi?
how lDlinclA make-PRES
'How shall we do it?'. (7;34)
b) interrogative nominal determiners which have a periphrastic
construction consisting of the invariable word wada (WH) followed by the appropriate nominal determiner1. These are usually
translated as "which" in English. When the referent of the head
1 wada occurs in a number of interrogatives including wadaru 'how* and
wadayari ’where' - see also the comparative note under 4.2.8 section (2)
noun is human there is a preference expressed by informants for wali+DET in the ERGative case form (c.f. the interrogative pronoun wali 4.3.4) as in:
(57) wa 1 i p u lall y i n a n a n a y i - n a wara-yi? who D1A 2SgO see-PART AUX-PRES
'Which two (people) saw you?'. *
In all other cases, wada+DET is used, as the following examples show:
(58) wada n u q k a p u k a n a - n i y i n i yaja-na w a r a - y i ? WH SgnFLOC person-LOC 2SgS speak-PART AUX-PRES
'Which man did you talk to?'„
(59) wada n u l u p i t a - a 1 i p u l a t i f i - m a 1 i-yi
WH SgnFINST s t i c k-INST D1S fight-RECIP-PRES
'Which stick did they fight with?'
In order to ask 'What?' the interrogative nominal mina is employed in one of its case forms (see 4 .2.8) .
As with all interrogatives of this type (see 5.1.7.4) both w a d a r u and w a d a + D E T (or w aji+ D E T ) must occur in clause initial position.