ANU Linguistics Seminar presented by James Bednall

Non-Pama-Nyungan languages of northern Australia are well-known for their morphological complexity, particularly with respect to complex verb structures that use both prefixes and suffixes on finite verb stems to express person, tense, aspect and modal categories (Verstraete 2005). The expression of modality, in particular, is an interesting and complex aspect of these inflectional marking systems, where modal and non-modal readings are often realised through the combination of two or more morphemes (across prefixal and suffixal slots).

This is the case in Anindilyakwa (a Gunwinyguwan language of north-eastern Arnhem land), where one of three mood series of pronominal prefixes combines with a tense/aspect or second modal suffix, and whose interaction results in different modal and non-modal meanings.

In this seminar, after providing a brief overview of my re-analysis of the inflectional TAM system, I examine this interaction of inflectional affixes and their resulting modal readings, focussing particularly on the IRREALIS prefix, an inflectional marker that covers a wide range of modal meanings in Anindilyakwa, including epistemic, deontic and dynamic modality (with variable modal strength), and covering both open (potential future events) and closed (e.g. counterfactual) possibilities, in addition to being obligatory in negative past events.

By drawing on relevant modal literature (e.g. Cover 2005; Elliott 2000; Kratzer 1981, 1991, 2012; Matthewson 2010; Mithun 1995) and making cross-linguistic comparisons to Gunwinguwan and other relevant languages, I provide observations regarding the composition of this composite mood system and consider how to account for the diverse modal meanings that can be expressed.

This seminar topic forms part of my broader PhD project, which examines temporal, aspectal and modal categories in Anindilyakwa.