SEMINAR: UWA Linguistics Seminar: Temporal Progression in Warlpiri Narratives

This presentation provides an overview of some of the ways temporal relations are expressed in Warlpiri narratives, focussing on one particular clitic, =lku, glossed as ‘then’ in Warlpiri literature. My methodology supplements a preliminary quantitative analysis by a qualitative analysis which investigates various uses of =lku.

The quantative analysis is based on data from a 319-clause corpus of Warlpiri narratives which was coded for various factors such as narrative structure, discourse relation, and temporal relation, as well as tokens of particular temporal strategies in the clause. The results of the coding suggest =lku is used in clauses holding an abutment relation (i.e. temporally immediately following the previous event), ngulajangka ‘after that’ is used when there is some temporal gap, and manu ‘and’ is used when there is an overlap of temporal reference between the two clauses.

The qualitative analysis specifically investigates =lku, looking at a number of examples. I show that =lku encodes ‘relevant consequence’, in that the consequences of some previously described event or state are relevant to making sense of the constituent hosting =lku. The clitic has no apparent preference for the part of speech of its host, nor does it encode any focus. However, it does regularly implicate temporal progression.

I conclude the presentation by comparing =lku with other temporal clitics variously glossed as ‘now’, ‘then’, or ‘sequential’ in four Australian languages: Jaminjung, Kaytetye, Mudburra, and Panyjima. From this comparison, I show that these clitics can be categorised as encoding one or more of three meanings: CONTRAST, TEMPORAL PROGRESSION, and CONSEQUENCE, which highlights the diversity of the functions of these clitics despite their near-identical translations in previous descriptions.

About the presenter:

Mitch Browne is a PhD candidate working on the Warlmanpa language (closely related to Warlpiri). The project combines newly collected data and data collected over the past fifty years to provide a detailed description of Warlmanpa grammar. In particular, Mitch is interested in describing semantic and pragmatic phenomena in Australian languages.