Recent research has revealed several languages (e.g. Chintang, Rarámuri, Tagalog, Murrinhpatha) that challenge the general expectation of strict sequential ordering in morphological structure. However, it has remained unclear whether these languages exhibit random placement of affixes or whether there are some underlying probabilistic principles that predict their placement. Here we address this question for verbal agreement markers and hypothesize a probabilistic universal of category clustering, with two effects: (i) markers in paradigmatic opposition tend to be placed in the same morphological position ('paradigmatic alignment'; Crysmann & Bonami 2016); (ii) morphological positions tend to be categorically uniform ('featural coherence'; Stump 2001). We first show in a corpus study that category clustering drives the distribution of agreement prefixes in speakers' production of Chintang, a language where prefix placement is not constrained by any categorical rules of sequential ordering. We then show in a typological study that the same principle also shapes the evolution of morphological structure: although exceptions are attested, paradigms are much more likely to obey rather than to violate the principle. Category clustering is therefore a good candidate for a universal force shaping the structure and use of language, potentially due to benefits in processing and learning.*
This article investigates the phenomenon of inflection by intersecting formatives, that is to say, where an exponence is encoded by a combination of independently distributed phonological increments. Formative independence is defined in terms of conditional entropy. The verb inflection system of Murrinhpatha, an Aboriginal language of northern Australia, is analysed as a particularly complex example of intersecting formatives, and in general we can say that inflectional exponence in this language is highly irregular or unpredictable. Recent information-theoretic approaches to morphology provide us with methods for formalising and measuring the unpredictability of Murrinhpatha verb inflection. We add a distinct formalism that models the probability of correct inflectional prediction given incomplete knowledge of the inflectional paradigms in the language. We argue that this is a particularly relevant model for Murrinhpatha speaker/learners, because the language has a small, closed class of finite verb lexemes, most of which have their own idiosyncratic inflectional paradigm. There are not productively applied inflectional classes. In this model of inflectional predictability, intersecting formatives are in some cases the only chance a learner/speaker has of predicting the correct form.
The heavy metal mobs of Wadeye (notorious in the media as 'heavy metal gangs') are a new form of Aboriginal social organisation, almost entirely constituted by collateral kinship rather than descent relations. Dozens of overlapping mobs are each made up of sets of brothers and cousins, and are publicly symbolised by the name of a heavy metal band discovered via mass media. In contrast to recent Australianist anthropology that emphasises the fluidity of social structures and intercultural processes of identity formation, I argue that the metal mobs constitute a highly codified system of social organisation, and one in which non-Aboriginal cultural influences are quite peripheral.
In recent years, the typological and geographic range of languages subjected to sociophonetic study has been expanding, though until now Australian Aboriginal languages have been absent from this subdiscipline. This first sociophonetic study of an Australian language, Murrinh Patha, shows a type of consonant lenition that is notably distinct from the better known examples in Standard Average European languages, effecting /p/ and /k/ primarily in the onset of stressed, usually word-initial syllables. Young men lenite more frequently than older men do, and paternal heritage from the neighboring Marri language group also predicts more frequent lenition. The latter influence may be the result of intense language contact brought about by recent settlement of diverse language groups at the Catholic Mission of Port Keats.
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