Clause types in Gooniyandi

Language Sciences, Volume 14, Number 4, pp. 355-384, 1992 0388-OW1192 $5.00+.00 Printed in Great Britain 0 1993 Pergamon Press Ltd

Clause Types in Gooniyandi

William McGregor

University of Melbourne

ABSTRACT

Systemic theory generally abhors universal claims about language. However, Halliday has

suggested in various places that all languages will have three major clause types: material

process, mental process, and relational process. This seems to be borne out by some systemic

analyses of languages other than English. In this paper I dispute this claim using evidence from

Cooniyandi, a language from Western Australia.

To begin with, as I have shown elsewhere, relational clauses in Gooniyandi are not “process”

clauses. Thus, there is a primary distinction between process (or situation, as I prefer to call

them), and relational clauses. The former refer to situations - occurrences, processes, happen-

ings, and so on, whereas the latter establish logical type relationships such as attribution and

identification, without mediating these relationships through processes of being, as is the case

in English.

In this paper I turn attention to the situation clauses, demonstrating that there is no language

internal evidence supporting a distinction between mental and material processes in Gooniyandi.

Instead, I suggest that there is a primary ternary distinction within situation clauses between

active, behavioural, and receptive situations. The former, active clauses, include what are, from

the point of view of English grammar, material and mental processes.

Close attention is paid to argumentation and methods of justification. These are particularly

important in the present context, given the fact that not all sytemicists accept Halliday’s analysis,

even for English, and that linguists from other traditions have suggested conflicting universals

(e.g. Dik 1989), using somewhat similar arguments and criteria. In raising the general issue

of justification of linguistic analyses, I also address problems of indeterminacy and conflicting

evidence.

INTRODUCTION

One of the first things that attracted me about systemic theory in the early 1980s when as a PhD student at Sydney University I was writing a gramma r of Gooniyandi

(a nonPama-Nyungan Aboriginal language spoken in the Kimberley region of

356 Language Sciences, Volume 14, Number 4 (1992)

Western Australia) was the explicit anti-universal bias. The grammarian should

approach each language afresh, and not import ready made categories from other

languages. Thus, there was no need to become embroiled in discussions as to whether

rules such as S + NP VP were valid in a given language (which questions loomed large

in grammars of Australian languages of the day), and if not, what the theoretical

consequences were. Nevertheless, sitting uneasily next to this ideological commitment

was indeed a small set of presumed universals of language. Notable among these

are the metafunctional hypothesis, according to which three or four (depending on

whether or not experiential and logical are grouped together as ideational) meta-

functions are presumed universally valid. Another was the hypothesis that all languages

should show three main clause types, material processes, mental processes and rela-

tional processes. “The system of clause types is a general framework for the rep-

resentation of processes in the grammar [of English-WMcGl; possibly all languages

distinguish three such categories” (Halliday 1970: 155-6).

It seems to me that systemicists who have turned to other languages have often

assumed this hypothesis to be valid, have assumed the existence of the three distinct

process types in other languages without question, or without adequate evidence:

without attempting to elucidate a range of relevant grammatical phenomena from

within that language. As a result, the other language gets described in terms not of

itself, but of English.

I would not deny, of course, that any human language would have ways of referring

to material, mental and relational processes. But this is not the point at issue. What

is at issue is whether the clauses fall, from an ideational perspective into these three

types (possibly with some residue-see Halliday 1985: 128-3 1). Halliday has always

seen the claim as empirical, and has seen the need to elucidate evidence in support

of it. Thus, in IFG he adduces live criteria by which material and mental processes

may be distinguished (Halliday 1985: 108-l 1) in English.

In this paper I investigate the validity of the three major process types hypothesis

in Gooniyandi. I will argue that the language does not distinguish process types in this

way, and that there is no primary ternary division of process types. Thus Halliday’s

1970 universal hypothesis cannot be sustained. I begin by outlining the basic frame-

work of Gooniyandi clauses, showing along the way that Gooniyandi shows a primary

distinction between situation and non-situation (relational) clauses, briefly reviewing

earlier arguments I have put forward. I then turn to the main task of the paper, an

attempt to classify Gooniyandi situation clauses. I also raise a number of problems for

this classificatory system.

MAIN CLAUSE TYPES IN GOONIYANDI

I have recently proposed (McGregor 1990a:21) that Gooniyandi distinguishes clause

Clause Types in Guoniyandi 357

types according to the metafunction(s) they serve, as shown on Table 1.

TABLE 1

Gooniyandi Clause Types According to the Metafunctions

Clause type Metafunction Functions Formal distinctiveness

Major Ideational

Situational Experiential

Relational Logical

Minor

Exclamative Interpersonal

Existential Linking

(Textual)

Express propositions that

may be asserted or

sometimes proposed

Refer to situations

Establish connections

between entities and/or

qualities

Do not express

propositions, and cannot

be argued about

Minor types of proposal

-never express a

proposition

Presentative: present or

introduce some entity

into the text

Involve a nexus

Have a verb

Verbless, two inherent

roles

No nexus

Typically realised by a

single interjection

Verbless, single

inherent role

As this table indicates, Gooniyandi makes a primary division between major and

minor clauses. The former express ideational meaning; they make reference to states

of affairs in the world, thus conveying propositions about the world which may be

either asserted (statements) or proposed (commands, etc.) (cf. Halliday 1985:70-l,

McGregor 1990b:382-3). Minor clauses do not do this, they do not express proposi-

tions, and they contain no propositional nexus (see McGregor 199Ob:391-2).

Although they may carry meaning of the logical and/or experiential types, if they do,

this meaning is expressed not at clause rank, but at some lower rank, word (both types

of clauses) and/or phrase (textual clauses). Thus, for instance, the minor interpersonal

clause bu “come on, let’s go,” carries something like “we go or do” as its experi-

ential meaning; and yoowuyi “yes” presumably carries affirmation as its logical

meaning. And, as a clause, (1) carries linking (or textual) meaning only, in as much

as it points to or indexes some entity located in some place. (All experiential meaning

expressed is conveyed at phrase and word levels.)’


(1) gamdiwangoorroo biyindi doowoo -ya babaabirri - - many bats cave -LOC inside “There are lots of bats inside the cave.”

Ideationally, major clauses fall into two types, situational and relational (McGregor 1990b). The former are clauses with verbs, and refer to ongoing situations, including actions, thoughts and cognitive processes, as well as happenings, inchoative and causative processes, speech, etc.. The latter are verbless, and establish relationships among entities, or entities and qualities. The formal difference verbal vs. verbless provides formal justification for this contrast; the former have at least two inherent roles, the process (realised by a VP) and one or more participant roles (realised by an NP or PP), whilst the latter have two inherent roles, one of which is realised by an NP, the other by an NP, PP or adverbial. As we will shortly see, there are strong arguments that the distinction is semantically based (see also McGregor 1990b).

As Table 1 indicates, these clauses are associated with the ideational metafunction, and more specifically, with the experiential and logical components respectively. Let me be perfectly clear about what I mean by this association. Firstly, what I do not mean is that they do not express any meaning of the other two types. However, any textual meaning is conveyed at a rank other than clause, and the interpersonal meaning is conveyed by either overlays on, or scopally over the proposition expressed about the world. For each major clause we can thus extract a “core” proposition which realises only ideational meaning. Simultaneously, only these major clauses may be argued about: the others do not express propositions about the world, and thus are beyond the realm of argument or discussion.

Secondly, the contrast between situational and relational clauses does not mean that each expresses meaning of only one type. Thus, for example, a situation clause may carry logical meaning in addition to its experiential meaning, as is the case in (2) and (3), which involve secondary predication (Nichols 1978).

(2) nganyi -ngga goowajgila -- 1 -ERG 1:call:him “I call him husband.”

(3) girili girrabingarri waraari

tree tall it: stands “The tree is tall.”

neoombama

husband

But here, as per the discussion of the previous paragraph, the logical meaning is not

Clause Types in Gooniyandi 359

conveyed at clause rank, but rather between parts of the clause, the phrase rank constituents.

Lest the reader presume a correlation between relational clauses in English and Gooniyandi, we will now look a little more carefully at the contrast between situation and relational clauses. This does not coincide with the contrast in English between material and mental processes on the one hand and relational processes on the other. In fact, translation equivalents of English relational clauses are both relational and situation. Thus, compare (4) with (3) and (5):

(4) ngimdaji maa thoowoomdoo

this meat rotten “The meat is rotten.”

(5) ngarragi ngaaboo gambi bagiri - - - - my father sick he:lies “My father is sick.”

In this respect, of course, Gooniyandi is like many other languages from Australia and elsewhere: perhaps the majority of the world’s languages express relationships of attribution in both of these ways. Faced with this, most linguists have concluded that such languages have no obligatory copular, and that it is usually used only when it is necessary for some reason to indicate temporal information, e.g. that the attribute was formerly held, but no longer applies. It is presumed, that is, that verbs of stance of the likes of bugi- in (5) are optional in this clause type, and that they function merely as loci for tense marking, and so are optional copulars. I have argued against this in detail in McGregor 1990b. Here I will briefly outline the major arguments against this view, and in support of my claim that the verb of stance is not optional, but rather its presence is indicative of a distinct clause type.

(a) First, verbal clauses describe situations of being or existence in which the attribute holds of the carrier, whereas verbless ones characterise the carrier in terms of the fact that it exhibits the attribute-they represent speaker’s intrusion in terms of links they establish between the carrier and the attribute. This may be illustrated by consideration of (6) and (7):

(6) nayoo gilbali dijbari bagiyi - - - - knife 1:found:it broken it:lay “I found it the knife broken.”

(7) manyi goolyingi langa yijgawoo

food 1:tasted:it salt no : good “I tasted the food; it was salty and no good.”


What the speaker is saying in (6) is that when he found the knife it was in a particular

condition or state of being; this was a perceived situation, not an attribute imputed by

the speaker. By contrast, in (7) the speaker did not taste the food while it was in the

condition or state of being salty, but rather as a result of the tasting, could impute the

quality of the food. This may perhaps be put another way: (6) represents the discovery

of an entity in a particular state, whereas (7) represents the discovery that an entity

exhibited a particular quality. Ultimately, of course, the difference is a matter of how

the speaker wishes to represent the world, rather than, necessarily, any real difference

in the world itself.

(b) Second, the three stance verbs bagi- “lie”, wurung- “sit” and wara- “stand”,

may all occur in situation clauses like (5) and (6). However, the choice between them

is meaningful: bugi- “lie” indicates that the entity is in a horizontal position, with

greater horizontal than vertical extent; warung- “sit” indicates that the body adopts

a position in which the horizontal and vertical extents are comparable; and wura-

indicates that the entity adopts a position in which the vertical dimension dominates

over the horizontal. Further, bagi- is the unmarked member of the triplet, and is used

in reference to non-physical situations. The verb is not, that is, simply a place-holder.

(c) Third, there are some differences in the :xpression classes for the attribute

depending on whether the clause is verbal or verbless. The more concrete, alienably,

and accidental attributes (e.g. location, extent) tend to occur in the verbal clauses,

whilst the inherent, inalienable attributes (e.g. colour, size, shape) are more often

found in verbless clauses. Thus, mooyoo “sleep” is almost never found in verbless

attributive clauses, whereas binyidi “hard” usually is.

(d) Finally, we remark that for identi~cation only reafisation by verbless clause is

possible. There are no verbal clause agnates of (8):

(8) ngarragi thangarndi gooniyandi

my language Gooniyandi

’ ‘My language is Gooniyandi . ’ ’

There is no space to go into further details here: the semanticity of the contrast

should be clear by this, however, see further McGregor 1990b. The main conclusions

to draw from this section are that: (i) clauses may have logical functions and structure;

frequently assumed to be restricted to the rank of phrase (cf. Halliday 1985:158ff);

(ii) clauses need not fulfil each of the three primary meta-functions at once, and so

need not be structured according to each; and (iii) in Gooniyandi, relational clauses

do not refer to situations.


TYPES OF SITUATION CLAUSE

Before proposing a classification of the various types of situation clause in Gooniyandi according to the experiential metafunction, it is as well to briefly outline the formal types identifiable in the language. This will give us a perspective on the system of transitivity in the language, which I presume to be a single over-arching system covering all situation clause types. Relational clauses are not accounted for, however.

Four main transitivi~ types are identifiable in the language according to the inherent participant roles : 2

Intransitive Transitive Middle Reflexive/Reciprocal

Medium/Actor (NP) Agent/Actor (ERG PP) + Medium/Goal (NP) Agen~Actor (ERG PP) + R~ipien~Aff~t~ (DAT PP) Agent/Actor (ERG PP)

As this shows, Gooniyandi is an “ergative language”: the Agent is realised by an ergatively marked PP, whilst the Actor in an intransitive clause is real&d by an unmarked NP, like the Goal of a transitive clause. However, the ergative ~s~sition is not obligatory (McGregor 199Ob:319). The phrases realise the roles of Agent, Medium and Recipient. The roles of Actor, Goal and Affected are by contrast real&d in the verb by cross-referencing pronominals: a NOM prefix for the Actor; an ACC prefix for the Goal; and an OBL enclitic for the Affected.3 The following examples illustrate these four transitivity types:

(9) nganyi wardngi INTRANSITIVE - ~ I I: went “I went.”

(10) nganyi -ngga milanga~i REFLEXIVE/~CIPR~AL - - I -ERG 1:saw:myself “I saw myself.”

(11) nganyi -ngga wayandi jardli TRANSITIVE - - - - I -ERG fire I:lit:it “I lit a fire.”

(12) nganyi -ngga jiginya -yoo moowlanhi MIDDLE ---- I -ERG child -DAT 1:looked:for:him “I looked for the child.”


r non-directed + Medium

r inwards

L rum- effective +Recipient;

+Affected

Figure 1.

Figure 1 shows a system network for the transitivity types (cf. McGregor 19!Xlb:326),

summarising the above observations. Before we turn to the main task of this paper,

the identification of distinct situation types, a few further comments may be in order.

Firstly, this system of transitivity is entered at the rank of clause, not phrase or word:

it is clauses that are classified in this way, not verbs or verb phrases (cf. Dixon

1980:278). Secondly, reflexive/reciprocal clauses are also distinct by virtue of the fact

that they choose one of a pair of verbal classifiers, + ARNI or + MARNI, which do not

occur in any other clauses. Gooniyandi has a dozen classifiers which divide processes

(not situations) into types according primarily to acktionsart and valence; this system

is entered at the rank of VP. Thirdly, there are some differences between the network

of Fig. 1 and other networks I have drawn for Gooniyandi transitivity. The shape of

the network is exactly as I have drawn it elsewhere, the differences being that in this

one Goal appears only in one place, corresponding to the place where an accusative

cross-referencing pronominal prefix would occur, whereas in other networks (e.g.

McGregor 199Ob:326) I have included Goal in all of the “directed” situation types.

It now seems that this is wrong: the goal like nature of the Agent in reflexive/

reciprocal and non-effective situations is merely a consequence of the contextuali-

sation of that role in the clause type, wherein it includes an Agent; which by definition

directs action outwards. Fourth, I remark that to each middle clause there corresponds

an agnate intransitive clause, in which the Actor/Medium corresponds to the Agent

of the Middle. Fifth, and finally, it should be now apparent that the system of transi-

tivity does not merely divide clauses into formally distinguishable types, but these

types are also semantic. A semantic grid relating to valence, “direction”, and effec-

tiveness is imposed on situations.

We now investigate whether another semantic classification is possible more along

the lines proposed by Halliday for English clauses. It will hardly come as a surprise

that the live criteria Halliday 1985: 108-l 1 adduces for the distinction between material

and mental process clauses have, with one exception, no analogues in Gooniyandi.


Thus (1) what is perceived is a thing, and this may be expanded by another process

or fact (glossing, one sees someone or something and (or while) they are doing

something); (2) time is referred to in the same way irrespective of clause type; (3)

there are no pairs of the type like/please; and (4) there is no substitute verb like do

which are appropriate only to material processes; the verb yiniga- “do or say (some-

thing)” can, it appears, question any situation type except perhaps one of being. The

exceptional criterion is that mental processes normally have a human, or at least an

animate participant, the senser. However, this is a particularly weak criterion, in as

much as it presumes a semantic classification of participants according to animacy,

a classification which has not yet been undertaken, nor indeed shown to be gram-

matically significant; and secondly, the class of processes so defined does not coincide

with the class of processes we would most likely like to include in mental processes.

It would include for instance, ngoorloog- “drink”, moonziny- “fuck”, nhur- “urinate”

and thirruj- “void, eject”, as well as processes of behaviour and speech. The set of

such clauses does not appear to constitute a natural class in Gooniyandi grammar.

Further, the latter two groups, as we will shortly see, are distinguishable from material

and mental processes.

What I wish to propose is the following as the classificatory scheme for the “major”

situation types in Gooniyandi:

being

receptive

active

behavioural

We will discuss the types in order in the following subsections, providing examples

and indicating their distinctive attributes.

Being Situations

We have already encountered these in the form of verbal clauses attributing

qualities, locations, and so on, of entities; see examples (3), (5) and (6) above. What

characterises situations of this type is that (as we have already seen) they almost

always employ a verb of stance, bugi- “lie”, wurung- “sit”, or wuru- “stand”,4

together with one inherent participant role, the Actor/Medium, in accordance with our

system network (Fig. 1). Moreover, these clauses include an inherent dependent on

the Actor/Medium, the quality, location, or whatever, which is attributed of it. To

illustrate some of these other possibilities, we have:

(13) gamba joomoo laandi bagiri / ---- water soak up it:lies

“There is a soak up there.”

364

(14)

Language Sciences, Volume 14, Number 4 (1992)

jirigi yingi -ngarri bagiri i --- ~ bird name -COMIT it: lies “The birds have names.”

There are two other situation types which I tend to regard as subtypes of being situations: existential situations and inhabitation situations. In both of these, as in the type discussed in the paragraph above, there is a verb of stance which is used in accordance with the principles adumbrated above under (b). These are illustrated by the following examples, respectively:

(15) ngamoo yoowooloo -moowa warangbirri

before man -only they: sat “Before there was only Aborigines. ”

(16) gamba -ya baabirri bagiri _- -- water -LOC below it:lies “(Fish) live in the water.”

What links (15) and (16) to (3), (5) and (6) is the use of a verb of stance in a perhaps somewhat me~phoric or extended way. The verb does not carry its fully lexical meaning, which is apparent in other usages, where it refers specifically to processes of stance. Some of the lexical meaning has been leached from them, they have begun the process of becoming grammaticalised, as West Coast functionalists would say. In these situation types the stance verb retains, on the whole, just a positional or orien~~onal meaning: perhaps something like “the actor is orientated horizon~ly, vertically, or roundedly (neither more horizontally nor more vertically)“. Moreover, the verb often takes on a generic meaning, especially when it is a quality that is being attributed of the thing. By this I mean that no single event is referred to, but rather reference is made to general states of affairs in the past, present, or future, according to the tense chosen. Thus, as mentioned before, what is referred to involves a characteristic posture, and not a single postural event. (Of course such generic inte~retations are possible for clauses referring to situations of sitting, lying and standing, but usually they are engendered by the context, or marked by some linguistic choice such as ngarrumi “always”.)

Related to this observation, the literal and full interpretation of the clause may not make much sense: fish do not really lie down, but rather are normalfy elongated horizontally as their typical mode of being, and thus (16). Indeed, the literal interpretation need not even express a true proposition. For instance, nganyi binarri bugingiti ‘I know’ can apparently be truthfully uttered at a time when the speaker is in fact


standing. And certainly (17) does not suggest that either the speaker or his hand is

physically lying down:

(17) biligaanyi marla bagingi - ~ middle hand 1:lay

“My hand only reached part way (up to the high cupboard). ”

In keeping with the reduced lexical status of the verb; which, it must be stressed,

is by no means an indication that the verb is a copula: it still refers to a situation (if

you like, the process has not reached this degree of grammaticalisation as yet), it

happens that the verb is normally not intonationally salient in the tone unit. That is,

the tonic rarely, if ever, falls on the verb, the verb rarely constitutes the information

Focus. On the other hand, where the verb of stance occurs in its full lexical use, it

may be the domain of the tonic syllable: it may be the information focus. Moreover,

in being situations the constituent order appears to be fixed, unlike all other situation

clause types, with the Actor (if it appears; it is frequently ellipsed) preceding the

Process. Putting this together with the preceding observation, it emerges that the

Focus in these clauses is marked, and what the verb itself conveys is presupposed.

This strengthens the case for viewing the verbs of stance in these clauses as lexically

reduced. Two further (less significant) ordering generalisations are obtained. In the

attributive subtype the Actor/Medium almost always precedes the qualifying depen-

dent attributed of it. In the existential subtype, an enhancing phrase of location usually,

though not always, occurs initially, as is the case in inhabitation situations.

There are verbless agnates for both attributive situations and existential situations:

characterising relational (logical) clauses and existential (textual or linking) clauses

respectively. However, inhabitation situations do not have verbless agnates.

It seems to me that the evidence I have discussed here lends support to the belief

that attributive, existential and inhabitation clauses should be grouped together as

being situations; the primary justification lying in the attenuated senses of the verbs

of stance. They can then be distinguished as genuine, linguistically significant sub-

types by other criteria, including agnation and the additional inherent roles required

in the clause. This might be an appropriate point to raise the issue of whether, granted

this, we should distinguish a separate set of experiential roles for each situation type,

in the way Halliday (1985) does for English. I believe that this is an unnecessary

complication: it seems to me that such putative roles as Existent and Inhabitant in the

existential and inhabitation situations are not warranted (contra McGregor 1990b:

305) for the reason that they convey no more information than the combination or

intersection of the two features Actor and existential or inhabitation clause. I do not

reintroduce this issue below but presume that similar remarks hold in the context of

the other types of situation clause: i.e. it is enough to distinguish the generalised role


types Actor, Medium and so on, and combine them with the clause type in order to

obtain a more precise description of the meaning of the category in a particular

example.

Receptive Situations

Intuitively, these are situations of undergoing: the Medium undergoes some process,

which is usually a change of state, condition or position. We might distinguish within

this type situations of becoming and happenings. Let us take these in order.

The first type, situations of becoming, might be initially characterised by the fact

that the Process role in the VP is realised by a nominal or adverbial rather than a verb,

this non-verbal designating a quality, location, or association of the Medium. These

clauses are usually intransitive or transitive, as illustrated by (18) and (19) respectively:

(18)

(19)

nganyi nyamani -1oondi --- I big -1:got

“I got/became big.”

nganyi -ngga jiginya binarrig -mi -ila ---~- I -ERG child know -REP Extend: it

“I’m teaching the child.”

These two examples refer to inchoative processes of acquiring a quality. Examples

(20) and (21) illustrate entering into locational or associational states:

(20) mirri laandi -wa -woondi --- sun up -PRGG -it:will:get

“The sun will be getting high.”

(21) mamba moodoo -ngarri -1oondi -~- - bum pimple -COMIT -1:got

“I got a pimple on my bum.”

For this latter type, it appears that the clause must be intransitive: the data does not

show transitive clauses corresponding to (20) and (21) in the same way as (19)

corresponds to (18). This may, of course reflect a limitation of the corpus, rather than

a semiological “hole” in the grammar.

Situations of becoming always have being situation agnates in which the nominal

realising the Process in the former corresponds to the dependent on the Actor in the


latter. For (18) it might be nganyi nyumuni wurungiri (I big 1:stand) “I am big”, for

(19), it would be jiginyu binurri bugiri (child knowledgeable he:lies) “the child

knows”, etc.. The difference between the two is the difference between entering and

being in a state or condition. In keeping with this, the verbal classifier chosen for

becoming situations is normally of the type I have referred to as accomplishment

(McGregor 199Ob557). This classifies the process itself as one with an inherent point

of accomplishment; the process is telic. Thus in examples (18), (20) and (21) it is

+BINDI “get, become”, more rarely it is +ANI “fall”. Example (19) involves the

extendible (non-accomplishment) classifier +A “extend”, but this is because of the

simultaneous choice of the infix -mi which indicates iteration: that the process was

repeated a number of times. Each of the repetitions would be accomplishments, but

together they constitute an extendible process.

As with other accomplishment processes, present time is normally referred to by

use of the progressive aspect, together with an extendible classifier, as in boolgu-wu-

uri (old:man-PROG-he:is) “he is getting old”. Occasionally it seems that an

extendible classifier may be chosen without indication of progressive or iteration, in

which case the quality has already been acquired and the entity concerned exhibits it:

(22) nganyi ngirrinyjila -ngiri

I hungry -1:am

“I’m stinking hungry.”

This, of course, agnates with the being situation ngunyi ngirrinyjilu wurungngiri (I

hungry 1:sit) “I am hungry”. The semantic difference appears to be that the becoming

situation of (22) indicates that the quality is held to a greater degree than in the being

situation, as the glosses indicate.

Happenings are situations in which something happens to the Medium, resulting in

a change of state. They also come in intransitive and transitive variants, again with

accomplishment classifiers-+BINDI “get, become” in (23) and +DI “catch” in (24):

(23) nayoo dij -bindi -- - knife snap -it:got

“The knife broke.”

(24) nayoo dij -jingi ngoomdoo -ga -- - knife snap -he:caught:it someone -ERG

“Someone broke the knife.”

Significantly, happening situations also have being situation agnates in which the

verb, marked with the infinitive -buri, modifies the Actor as an attributing dependent.


Thus, corresponding to (23) and (24) we have the second clause of (6) above, (nuyoo) dijbari bagiyi “the knife was broken”. The infinitive -bari appears to be restricted to this type of process, and indicates that its completion, that it has reached its point of accomplishment, and that the resulting state still obtains. Compare also (25) and (26):

(25) girili lalbag -bindi --- tree split -it:got “The tree split.”

(26) girili lalbag -bari waraari ---- tree split -1NF it: stands “The tree is (stands) split.”

Having pointed to the extensive agnation between receptive situations and being situations it might be suggested that they should be grouped together into a single super-type, much as Halliday does in 1985: 112ff. My feeling is that the disadvantage of doing this is that the super-type would have no identifiable characteristics which apply to all of its members: the characteristics we have been speaking about divide, rather than unite. The uniting principle seems to be agnation only, and this would appear to be an inadequate criterion of itself. There is no constant of either meaning or form underlying the two types, either covert or overt. They represent distinct ways of representing the same or similar real-world situations semantically.

~~avioura1 Situations

As the label suggests, these situations are ones of bodily behaviour: situations in which a human being or animate is engaged in a physiological, or sometimes psychological activity. The processes are typically ones which are characteristic of the species, and emanate from some part of their body without crucially involving any other entity in their successful performance. Behavioural situations include those of kicking, winking, speech (of various kinds), other vocalisations such as laughing and crying, seeking, thinking, and so on. This class thus covers most of what Halliday 1985128-30 places in behavioural and verbal processes.

Initially for convenience, we could divide behavioural situations into three main semantic types: (a) movements of parts of the body, e.g. (27) and (28); (b) vocalisations, e.g. (29) and (30); and (c) mental and perceptual activities, e.g. (31) and

(32).

Clause Types in Gootiyandi 369

(27)

(28)

(29)

(30)

(31)

(32)

thinga thoolngthoolngji

foot hekicked “(The bull) kicked his foot.”

moorloo nyimijnyimijji

eye he:winked “He winked his eye.”

. . . lijagjirri (ngidi) ~ - we:spoke (we) “We spoke.”

(niyaji) galgalmi - - (this) he: laughed “He laughed (when I tickled him).”

(niyaji) yoowaari

(this) he:is:frightened “He is frightened.”

moownga ngaarri -yoo - - he:looked stone -DAT “He looked for money.”

All of these examples show intransitive voice. Appearances to the contrary, (27) and (28) are intransitive: the body parts are not Goals (see McGregor 199Ob:333). This is typical: behavioural situations must be expressible in terms of action immanent within the individ~l enacting the behaviour. This in~vidu~ must of course be an animate being, normally a human or personified animal (as in some mythology). As we have seen, however, animacy of the Actor/Medium cannot be taken as criteria1 of this (or any other) situation type in Gooniyandi.

More important is the existence of a middle clause agnate to the intransitive clause: corresponding to each intransitive ~~viou~l clause is a middle behavioural clause whose Agent is the Actor/M~ium of the intransitive clause. This middle clause refers to a situation in which the piece of bodily behaviour is directed towards someone else who is affected in some way by that behaviour. This “someone else” again is normally a human being, or a higher order animate; it is never, as far as I am aware, an inanimate entity. Furthermore, this individual is not a Goal/Medium of the action, the process does not come into being through that person, but rather the process is


directed towards them, so that they are in a sense recipients of it, and as a result they are usually changed or modified in some way. In general terms, co~uni~tion or exchange is involved, rather than transfer of action, as in transitive clauses: the middle clause frequently refers to either bodily or verbal communication directed at another person, corresponding to the movement of the body part in the transitive clause. (This gloss, however, does not adequately capture the range of senses involved, and there are obvious counterexamples.) Thus compare (27) to (32) above with (33) to (38):

(33)

(34)

(35)

(36)

(37)

(38)

yaanya -ngga ngarragi -yoo thoolngmi -ngarra - - - - other -ERG my -DAT hekicked -1sgOBL “The other (man) kicked at me.”

(niyi -ngga) ny~~rni -ngarra (ngarragi -yoo) -- (he -ERG) he:winked -1sgOBL (my -DAT) “He winked at me.”

.*. lgagjirra -r&i (ngidi -ngga niyaji -yoo) - - - - - - we:spoke -3sgOBL (we -ERG this -DAT) “We spoke to him.”

(niyaji -ngga ngarragi -yoo) galgalmi -ngarra ---- - - (this -ERG my -DAT) he:laughed - 1 sgOBL “He laughed at me.”

nganyi -ngga tharra -yoo yoowangiraa - - - - I -ERG dog -DAT 1:am:frightened “I am frightened of the dog.”

moownga -nhi goornboo -voo (niyi

he:looked GOBL woman GT (he “He looked for his wife.”

-nhi

-1sgOBL

-ngga) -ERG)

Some ~haviour~ situations have transitive clause agnates, in addition to their middle agnates. There are not many of these, however. They include the processes thoolng- “kick”, yoowu- “fear”, nyimij- “wink”, and a few others. The latter, nyimv- “wink”, in a transitive clause has as its Goal the body part concerned, the eye. For thoolng- “kick” it seems that the Affected participant of the middle clause corresponds to the Goal of the transitive clause: kick someone or something (not necessarily animate); but for ycwwu- “fear” it seems that the Agent of the middle


clause corresponds to the Goal of the transitive clause: frighten someone (animate), who fears the frightener.

Another important fact about behavioural clauses is that, in the corpus, only the communicative subtype appear to permit reflexive/reciprocal voice agnates. Further- more, for these, only the reciprocal interpretation is possible. Thus (39) can only mean that the Agents spoke amongst themselves, and not that each spoke to themself:

(39) (ngidi -ngga) jija~i~ami -- (we -ERG) we: spoke: together ‘ ‘We spoke together. ’ ’

Since this reading is possible only for a non-singular Agent, cleariy the reflexive/ reciprocal voice is restricted, in middle clauses, to non-sinner Agents. Thus, there is no verb-form jijagboolagini “he spoke to himself ‘, in which the third person singular form of the reflexive classifier+ARNI occurs. In order to express this meaning, an intransitive clause is employed with an NP indicating the Actor acted alone, as in (40):

(40) nhoowoo jijagji

his he:spoke “He was talking to himself.”

To round off the discussion of behavioural clauses, we might comment on the possible linguistic significance of the types in terms of various criteria we have adduced along the way. Firstly, it might be that the communicative subtype can be distinguished by virtue of the fact that only for these is there a reflexive/reciprocal option, and then it must be interpreted as a reciprocal. Secondly, it is possible that the type referring to movement of parts of the body is definable in terms of the existence of agnate transitive clauses as well, in which the part is treated as Goal, but it is not clear whether this actually applies to all situations of this type. Thirdly, the remaining mental/perceptual activities appear to permit intransitive and middle voices only.

Active Situations

All that remains may be classified as active situations, which thus appear in a sense to constitute a rag-bag of left overs. Nevertheless, there do appear to be some positive characteristics of the class which indicate that it is more than just a residual grouping. Again we might begin by listing some of the main semantic subtypes: (a) stasis; (b) motion; (c) impact and violence; (d) bodily functions; (e) vocalisation; (f) perception


and cognition. As we will see, the major transitivity types for active situations are

transitive and intransitive, with the latter probably predominating over the former.

There are many more situation types in this class than the other three. Let us take a

brief look at the subtypes one by one.

Stasis

These are situations in which some entity adopts a particular state of some type:

sitting, lying, standing, floating, burning, shining, etc.. Unsurprisingly, the clause is

typically intransitive, as in (41) and (42):

(41) nganyi warangngiri

I 1:sit

“I am sitting.”

(42) ligayi niyajiya

he: waited here

“He waited here.”

(Note here that in (41) the verb of stance is used in a fully lexical way.)

Transitive clauses also occur, however. Most of these appear to have a corres-

ponding agnate intransitive clause. Thus (43) and (44) correspond to (41) and (42)

respectively.

(43)

(44)

(nginyji -ngga) gamba warangginyja - - - (you -ERG) water you: sit: it

“Do you have any water?”

(ngidi -ngga yaanya) ligayirra - - - - (we -ERG other we:waited:for:him

“We waited for the other person.”

Examples (43) and (44) represent two types. Example (43) is the holding or main-

taining type, in which an entity, the Goal/Medium is held, or maintained in a static

position. Closely related to this is the inducing type, in which the Goal/Medium is

induced or caused to enter the state, which it then maintains. These are probably the

most common of the types, and include also gourrij- “hold”, gad- “leave”, nyin-

“leave, lose”, and booroo- “hide”. Where there is an intransitive agnate, the Actor/

Medium of the intransitive corresponds to the Goal/Medium of the transitive: some-

thing hidden will be the Medium of both clause types.

Cbse Types in Gooniyandi 373

The second type is exemplified by (44), in which the Agent in the transitive static process corresponds to the Actor/Medium in the intransitive agnate. Some other processes of this type are ngab-, moorroob- “bum”, mila- ““shine, shine on”, and possibly yilzj- “rain”, and tiny- “blow (of wind)“. As will be noted, all of these refer to natural phenomena, and have inanimate Agents, fire, sun, rain and wind respectively. By contrast, the types discussed in the previous paragraph are humanly orientated, and normally have a human Agent. Perhaps these should be separated into a further class of natural phenomena.

In fact, things are not quite this simple, and ngab- can also be used in reference to the intransitive, but not transitive, process of cooking: as e.g. in reference to something left cooking in a fire. This means that this verb can, employed in different senses, partake in both agnation types. Fu~e~ore, it can also be used in reference to the process of being consumed completely by fire: wayandi-ga ngabbinbili “fire consumed them, they were burnt completely by fire”.

As expected, stasis situations normally choose the classifiers+1 “be, go” (when intransitive) and+A “extend” (when transitive), although sometimes the latter occurs in intransitive clauses. An accomplishment classifier may occur when the clause refers to a process of induced state, as in the case of booroo- “hide”, which occurs with+1 “be, go” but +ARRI “put” in the transitive voice: some~ing is put hiding. Similarly, gad- “leave” and nyin- “Ieave, lose” also occur with accomplishment classifiers, +BINI “hit” and+MI “effect”, respectively, although the first has no intransitive agnate. The accomplishment classifier also occurs with the verb nang- ‘die’, which refers to entry to the state which is not (represented as being) caused by an Agent.

Motion

Clauses of motion refer to situations which involve the spatial movement of some entity. Their umnarked voice is, unexception~ly, in~~sitive:

(45) nganyi wardngi - - I 1:went “I went, I walked.”

Other situations of this type include for instance, girrar- “run”, bar- “climb up”, thood- “descend”, gard- “fall”, yood- “sit down”, thoorloog- “stand up”, barn-

“return, go back”, gird- “go away”, goornag- “roll over”, bayal- “swim”, thinggil-

“dive into water”, dirib- “enter”, roorroob- “fall out”, bij- “emerge, arrive”, and jarrg- “jump”. This list includes both extendibles and accomplishments: processes of motion that are potentially extendible forever (including running, walking, swimming, and so on), and those which have a point of accomplishment, where some destination is reached (standing up, sitting down, going back, arriving, etc.). The former of

374 Language Sciinces, Volume 14, Number 4 (1992)

course occur with the classifier+1 “be, go”, the latter with an accomplishment classifier, either +ANI “fall” or +BINDI “become, get”. Naturally there are processes which occur with both classifiers, in different senses: e.g. barn- “return” usually occurs with +BINDI, but can occur with+I-bunt&n& means “he returned” whereas b~~guow~~ means “he is returning”.

Transitive clauses of motion also occur. In these some entity is shifted from one position to another, or induced to move. Many of the above intransitives have corresponding transitives of this type: ward- “bring, take”, girrur- “bring, take along quickly, i.e. drive”, yood- “put down”, barn- “bring back”, goornag- “roll something over”, dirib- “insert, put in”, roorroob- “pull out”, bij- “bring to, arrive with”. In these, the thing that is moved is the Goal/Medium, and this corresponds with the Actor/M~ium of the co~es~nding in~~sitive; (46) provides an example:

(46) nganyi -ngga manyi wardnga ---- I -ERG food 1:brought:it “I brought food.”

In one case the corresponding intransitive is a situation of stasis. This is the verb t~rd- “hang up”, which involves, as a transitive clause, the movement of the Goal/ Medium, but the corresponding intransitive involves no movement.

All transitive/intransitive agnates seem to be ergatively oriented: the Goal/Medium of the former corresponding to the Actor Medium of the latter. This is sometimes obscured. Thus, I have not heard clauses of the type munyi wurdji “food came” corresponding to (46), which fact I believe can be attributed to the verb ward- itself, which used intrmsitively appears to suggest the capability of movement of the Actor/ Medium of its own accord. On the other hand, mtlllyi b~ngu~ngar~~ “my food has arrived” could occur as an agnate to (46), since this requirement is not embodied in bij- “emerge”. Similar remarks apply to girrar- “drive”. But interestingly, note (47), in which the Goal/Medium does actually move under its own power:

(47) tharra -ngga girranginbini yoowa - - dog -ERG it:ran:me fear “The dog chased me frightened. ”

However, not all transitive clauses of induced motion have corresponding intransitive agnates. For instance, the following occur in transitive voice only: doow- “get, fetch”, ngung- “give”, wuj- “throw”, ngirr- “thrown stone”, woodij- “throw spear”, galiny- “carry”, boolooboo- “follow”, joorra- “chase” and loow- “push along”.

Finally, it might be mentioned that middle clauses of motion occasionally occur.

Clause Types in Goonlyandi 375

These refer to processes of walking or running up to someone, in order to do some-

thing to them, as is illustrated by (48):

(48) boolga -ngga wardji -wirrangi gooloowadi -yoorroo -yoo - -- - - old : man -ERG he: went -3plOBL initiand -dual -DAT

“The old man went up to the two initiands (intending to kill them).”

Here, of course, the agnation is transitive: it is the Agent of the middle clause which

corresponds to the Actor/Medium of the intransitive clause. The old man does the

moving, the initiands remain asleep in (48).

Impact and Violence As would be expected, the overwhelming majority of these situations are transitive,

referring to violent action directed by the Agent to the Goal, which suffers as a patient.

Here are a few of the situations: gurd- “hit, kill”, nyug- “pierce, spear”, wirrij-

“dig, scratch”, guroong- “fragment”, guj- “cut” mird- “tie up”, nyoon- “rub”,

boorr- “rub”, juny- “squeeze”, ngurug- “make, construct”, woob- “cook”, etc..

Possibly also nginoong- “lick’ ’ , wird- “bite” could be regarded as situations of

violence. Example (49) provides exemplification:

(49) nganyi -ngga barawoo nyagloonbini wanyjirri -yoorroo --- I -ERG female:roo 1:speared:them river:roo -dual

“I speared a female river kangaroo.”

I am not aware of any verbs of impact and violence which occur only in intransi-

tive clauses, although sometimes an intransitive agnate is found. For instance, the

intransitive gurdbigurdbi- (hit-iterative-hit-iterative) means “tap (e.g. on a door)“.

Most verbs of impact or violence also occur, or could potentially occur, given an

appropriate context, in the reflexive/reciprocal, both interpretations being possible.

As far as I am aware, the two previously discussed types, stasis and motion, do not

permit reflexive/reciprocal variants.

Bodily Functions Here the situation refers to some physiological function of the body. These include

situations with verbs such as ngub- “eat”, ngoorloog- “drink”, niyig- “swallow*‘,

yooroog- “vomit”, goonrhoorrg- “cough (phlegm)“, ngin- “blow snot”, nhur-

“piss”, fhirruj- “void, eject, defecate”. These are, of course, all transitive situations,

in which the person (or animal) acts on some other entity as part of the physiological

process. This other entity may be something which at first had independent existence,

and then became incorporated in the body, or the reverse of this, a bodily product or

exuviae removed or ejected from the body. See example (50):

376

(50)

Language Sciences, Volume 14, Number 4 (1992)

yilaa nharyawila (nganyi -ngga)

piss 1:want:to:piss (I -ERG)

“I want to piss.”

There are also some intransitive bodily functions: niyir- “breathe”, dug&g- “beat

(of heart)“, gij- “wake up” and woorfoorl- “ache, pain”. However, a number of

such functions we might expect in this class on the basis of the English mode of

expression are otherwise expressed. Thus, in reference to sweating and bleeding, the

verb bij- “emerge” is normally used, with the bodily exuviae as Actor/Medium. It

is not clear whether we should regard these as clauses of motion or as bodily functions.

Bodily functions are distinct from behavioural situations of bodily movement because

they do not involve the movement of a part of the body, although they may involve

the movement of exuviae, which is always treated as a distinct entity, never as

inseparable from the person or animal. Thus we do not find intransitive agnates for

the transitive bodily functions listed above. Nor do any of these bodily functions

display middle agnates: none of them are engaged in in order to communicate some

message or information to another person. The terms bodily behaviour and bodily

function seem to reasonably well capture the meaning difference between these two

apparently closely related types: the former concern bodily actions that are by and

large controllable, and not necessary for survival, whereas the concern functions

which are on the whole necessary to the person or animal, or which are outside of

their conscious control.

Vocalisation

In the previous subsection (Behavioural Situations) we saw that a number of pro-

cesses of communication are classified as behavioural situations because of their

intransitive/middle agnates. There are, however, a few vocalisations which are

referred to by transitive clauses, and these include yun.gin- “ask for something”,

goowaj- “call by name, tell”, ngoorrub- “shout”, ngaluny- “sing”, roorrij- “argue,

swear” and yag- “promise”. These appear to have no intransitive agnates.

It might be objected at this point that this shows a problem with my classification

in as much as it seems strange to treat some vocalisations as behaviourals and others

as active situations. It might be suggested that it would be preferable to group them

all together as a single group of situations of speech, as does Halliday 1985. There

are a number of reasons I do not like this solution, and prefer my own. To begin with,

as distinct from the behavioural types, these types of vocalisation impose an inter-

personal classification on vocalisations according to speech function, which the

behavioural type do not do. The latter indicate the type of vocalisation as a physical

act if you like, as speech, crying, or whatever. Vocalisations as actions represent vocal

activity not so much in terms of a classification of the physical activity involved, but


rather in terms of its effect on others in the interactive situation: whether it is directed

to them as a request, promise, or whatever. Thus, here the recipient of the message

is a Goal/Medium, someone who is inherently involved in the communicative act,

which is directed towards them. In the behavioural type the recipient is not so inher-

ently involved: the process can be realised, or take effect regardless of whether or not

communication successfully took place.

Putting things in a slightly different way, the distinction amounts to the question of

whether the vocal act is (represented as being) directed towards another individual

(behavioural), or whether one acts on another by use of vocalisations (active). Having

put things in this way, it may be possible to treat two semantically apparently rather

different situations which may frame reported speech as being of this type. These are

the verbs bala- “send” and ngimbirr- “hurry (someone) up”, both of which can occur

in a complex sentence like (51):

(5 1) balajila wayandi gajba -ngangi - - 1:sent:him fire you:will:cut:it -for:us

“I sent him to cut firewood for us.”

Clearly in such sentences the recipient of the command is being acted on by use of

language to get them to do what is required.

Perception and Cognition Again, we have already encountered a few situations of perception and cognition

in behavioural situations. However, the majority clearly belong in the active class.

They include the following cognitive types: gooni- “dream about/of”, ahwoong-

“like, love”, lingi- “think about someone”. The following perceptual situations are

also included: mila- “see”, gilba- “find, notice”, danymili- “hear”, wab- “smell”,

and possibly gool- “u~te”.~

Perception and cognition situations are by and large expressed by transitive clauses.

At least for the perception subtype reflexive/reciprocals occur. Occasionally one finds

intransitive and even middle agnates. For instance, lingi- may occur in an intransitive

clause, meaning “think”. The middle agnates appear to be restricted to perceptual

processes mih- “see” and possibly danymili- “hear”, and are all transitive: the Actor

being the perceiver throughout. Consider the following set of agnates for mila-:

(52) nganyi milangiri (Intransitive)

I 1:see

“I am looking.” (CF. thaanoonggoo milala (upwards 1:saw:it) “I looked up”)


(53) nganyi -ngga milangarni (Reflexive/Reciprocal) - - I -ERG I: saw: myself “I saw myself.”

(54) nganyi -ngga yoowooloo milala (T~sitive) - - I -ERG man 1:saw:him “I saw the man.”

(55) nganyi -ngga mawoolyi -yoo milalimi -wirrangi (Middle) - - -- 1 -ERG children -DAT I:glanced -3plOBL “I glanced at the children.”

Whereas for the other situation types it seemed reasonable to assign linguistic significance to some at least of the subtypes, for active situations this is by no means clear. Furthermore, there are probably further semantic subtypes of rather limited generality. Where, for instance does one put nanggid- “miss”, muorniny- “fuck”, or nyiinyil- “masturbate”? What do we do with yood “put” and goowaj- “name” in (56) and (59, where the “attribute” and “name” appear to be inherent, and the clause refers to a process of assigning a quality or name, and for this reason might be regarded as close to a being situation. In fact these situations are the only ones other than those of being which have relational clause agnates.

(56) yoodbidi maja

they:put:him boss “They made him boss.”

(57) gardiya -ngga goowajgoorra spinifex yard

white:person -ERG they:call:it “White people call it Spinifex Yard.”

The information presented in this section will certainly indicate that active situations are a rather mixed bag, defined negatively as not being, receptive or behavioural. At the ~ginning of this section I suggested that there may be some positive characteristics for the group as a whole. Unfortunately, however, I cannot identify any criteria1 characteristics, and I can only point to the fact that the voice is usually either transitive or intransitive, and only for active situations are reflexive/reciprocal agnates available which permit both reflexive and reciprocal interpretations. Incidentally, it is only in active situations that the full range of verbal classifiers actually occurs: only for these situations is the full range of acktionsart choices available.


FURTHER DISCUSSION AND PROBLEMS

The classificatory system I have just outlined is not without its problems, and as I

have just mentioned, it is by no means complete. Much is yet to be learnt about the

experiential semantics of situation clauses in Gooniyandi. Nevertheless, it is important

to discuss some of the problems in order to determine how linguistically significant,

and how seriously it should be taken.

The factors we have adduced for the distinctive types are summarised in tabular

form in Table 2 below. Some of them, it will be noted, are criterial, whereas others

are in the nature of tendencies. The question must arise: why these factors? Why

not some other classification? Why, for instance don’t we identify as one class all

situations which might frame a reported quote, rather than group vocalisations into

active and behavioural processes. I have already raised this issue in the discussion of

the previous section, and mentioned some objections to grouping together all vocali-

sations as a single group. But defining them in terms of the potential to frame speech

seems to be an unenlightening choice: for not only can we have situations of

vocalisation framing speech, but also verbs of cognition and perception, including

mila-, as well as the verbs bala- “send”, ngimbirr- “hurry someone up” and gilij-

“block, prevent”.

(58) milawirrayi ngirndaji -ya ngimdaji -wami ngabgoorra

they:saw:it this -LoC this -maybe they:eat:it

‘They saw “Here, maybe this is what they eat.” ’

My feeling is that a grouping defined in this way would be rather awkward and

semantically unenlightening.

Comparing the various arguments adduced above, and summarised in Table 2, it

would seem that some of the types are more justified than others. The best justified

seems to be the being clauses, whereas the weakest justification must go to active

situations as a distinct super-group. In Figure 1 I have attempted a rather different type

of visual display, which associates the experiential-semantic types with transitivity and

agnation, which two features have played an important role in our classification.

(Compare McGregor 1!99Ob:326, Fig. 5-3.)

Three comments may be of interest here. First, ergative agnates tend to be located

to the right hand end of the spectrum, in situations referring to states, movement and

qualities, transitive to the left hand end, to the more violent actions on the one hand,

and to actions which require human or animate Actors on the other. Interestingly, this

fails at one or two points. Clauses which refer to natural phenomena like burning,

raining, blowing (of wind), etc., as we have already mentioned show transitive

patterning, suggesting that they should (as per a throw-away comment above) be set

TA

BL

E 2

S

umm

ary

of C

rite

ria

for

Dis

tiih

ing

Goo

niya

ndi

Sit

uati

on T

ypes

Tra

nsiti

vity

R

efle

xive

/ R

ecip

roca

l In

here

nt

Ani

mac

y In

here

nt

Pro-

verb

Sa

lienc

e V

erb

lexi

s C

on-

Rou

gh

part

icip

ants

of

inh

eren

t lo

gica

l yi

niga

of

ver

b st

ituen

t se

man

tic

part

icip

ants

re

latio

n or

der

glos

s

Bei

ng

intr

ansi

tive

only

Rec

eptiv

e T

rans

itive

or

in

tran

sitiv

e

Act

ive

Mai

nly

intr

ansi

tive,

tr

ansi

tive

and

refl

exiv

e/

reci

proc

al;

mid

dle

rare

.

Beh

avio

ural

M

ainl

y

Not

ava

ilabl

e 1;

Med

ium

Not

ava

ilabl

e 1

or2;

in

cor

pus

Med

ium

an

d/or

A

gent

Occ

urs,

w

ith

1 or

2;

both

M

ediu

m

inte

rpre

tatio

ns

and/

or

poss

ible

in

A

gent

m

ost

inst

ance

s

Onl

y re

cipr

ocal

1

or 2

;

*ani

mat

e Y

es

Not

N

on-

appl

icab

le

salie

nt

Both

No

Prob

ably

f

anim

ate,

A

gent

us

ually

f

anim

ate

Salie

nt

Bot

h So

met

imes

Y

es

&an

imat

e,

Age

nt

usua

lly

i-an

imat

e

Bot

h us

ually

N

o Y

es

intr

ansi

tive

and

inte

rpre

tatio

n M

ediu

m

or

anim

ate

mid

dle;

bo

th

avai

labl

e;

(Age

nt

and

othe

r ty

pes

Age

nt

mus

t be

A

ffec

ted)

oc

cur

rare

ly.

non-

sing

ular

Bec

om

ing

Fi

xed

g--

mat

ical

ised

~met

hing

is

in

som

e st

ate

of

bein

g

Fully

le

xica

l

Fully

le

xica

l

Pully

le

xica

l

Free

So

met

hing

en

ters

a

stat

e of

be

ing,

po

ssib

ly

thro

ugh

an

exte

rnal

ag

ency

Free

So

meo

ne

or

som

ethi

ng

does

so

me

actio

n,

whi

ch

may

or

may

not

ext

end

to a

noth

er

entit

y.

Free

So

meo

ne

enac

ts

a pr

oces

s w

hich

is

clo

sely

tie

d to

a

part

of

the

ir

body

, a

beha

viou

r ty

pica

l of

tha

t pa

rt;

this

pr

oces

s m

ay b

e di

rect

ed

tow

ards

so

meo

ne

else

.

Clause Types in Gooniyandl 381

aside from other stasis situations, and placed together with the more human-type

activities in the left-hand column under actions.

Intransitive

Transitwe

Intransitive

Reciprocal Reflexwe/Reciprocal - K_ zz-

Middle Middle _

Behawoural Actwe Receptive Being

Impact and violence

Body moves Bodily functions Stasis Becoming Attributive

Vocolisotions Vocolisation Motion Happening

Existential

Mental Cognition and perception Inhobitation

Transitive ognotes - Ergative agnotes

Figure 2.

Second, having laid out the various types of situation clauses in this way, it becomes

apparent that we might be able to develop some intersecting dimensions of description.

That is, having distinguished between active and behavioural situations, we might see

the two columns at the extreme left of the figure as intersections between this opposi-

tion and a ternary opposition between bodily, vocal and mental/perceptual. One

wonders whether some such similar cross-cutting set of dimensions might also be

invoked elsewhere on the table, especially in the three right-hand columns. I cannot

explore this issue here, unfortunately.

Third, it might be suggested that instead of active situations we should identify two

situation types, depending on whether the agnation is transitive (left hand end of the

scale) or ergative (right hand end of scale). Certainly to make this division would seem

a reasonable step. But whether to see the two types as subtypes of active situations,

or as being of the same level as the behavioural, receptive and being types is not yet

answerable. One might also raise the question as to whether we should make a primary

division between being and the other three (or four) situation types, by virtue of the

fact that the verb yin@- “do what” appears to apply to all process types other than

those of being. I do not make this assumption, lacking a detailed knowledge of the

behaviour of this verb.

Ultimately, one of the difficulties with a classificatory system such as this, which

relies on reactances rather than form pure and simple is that there are instances which

are difficult, if not impossible, to classify. There is a significant theoretical and

methodological issue at stake here: how do we know that two clauses are agnates, or


what the agnates of a particular contextualised clause may be. Secondly, the reactance- behavior displayed by clauses may at times appear quite idiosyncratic, and it becomes a question of how relevant or important this behaviour actually is. We have already raised this in regard to particular uses of the verbs yood- “put” and goowuj- “name”, other specific behaviours which come to mind relate to the words binurri “knowledge, know”, and yoowa “fear”.

CONCLUSION

The result of this investigation, that Halliday’s three situation (process) types are not universals of language, should not come as a great surprise to systemicists, who by and large adhere to some version of the Whorfian hypothesis. In fact, it should be expected that different languages, particularly when they are as different as English and Gooniyandi, would display distinct grammatical patterns that indicate different segmentations of the world of experience. Some details of this segmentation might come as something of a surprise, whilst others might seem rather natural. It might be surprising that Gooniyandi should make distinctions in the logical areas of attribution and identification which are not made in English: the distinction between situations of being and relational clauses. But there is a reason for this. I believe that what has happened in English is an instance of extensive grammatical metaphor: extensive metaphoric uses of the copula be. And the reason why this has occurred, I believe, can be traced back a long way in the development of western thought: the phenomenon of concretisation. In order to deal with, to act on the world, which includes thinking about it, i.e. science and humanities, we concretise processes, indeed full situations, so that we can explore relations among them. Simultaneously, we have conctretised logical relationships by firstly providing many with explicit names, and secondly, by experientialising them. Thus, we have experientialised the logical relations of attribution and identification by the obligatory use of the verb be in clauses which do not in fact refer to processes as such, but assert logical connections.

We might also see the distinction between mental and material processes in English as a reflection of the mind-body duality, the opposition of man vs. nature, internal thoughts, emotions etc. vs. external material processes. It is tempting to seek some corresponding explanation for the lack of this opposition in Gooniyandi. And we could allude to well known ideologies of integration between man and nature frequently attributed to Aborigines. I remain somewhat sceptical of this explanation, however. After all, there remains a class of situations which refers exclusively to the human domain, behavioural situations. Another, rather more interesting, and more reasonable way of looking at it might be that in English mental processes of cognition and perception the sensate being, the Senser, is the Medium (irrespective of the transitivity of the clause), the phenomenon being the Agent or a Range, depending on whether

Clause Types in Guoniyandi 383

it is a pleuse or like type mental process (Halliday 1985:148-9). By contrast, Gooniyandi represents mental processes of cognition and perception as being enacted by the Senser, who is an Agent/Actor if the clause is transitive or middle, Actor/ Medium if it is intransitive. Mental processes are as much instances of doing as are material processes of impact and violence: one may act on another not just materially, but also mentally, and the results of such menatation may be as materially significant as material action. To observe or see someone is to act on them. What I am suggesting here parallels Alan Rumsey’s 1990 suggestion that certain facts about verbs of speech in Australian languages indicate that speech is regarded primarily as a mode of action rather than a tool for thought. I think that the argument might be expanded somewhat: speech and thought are both modes of action, without which we cannot act on the world.

Extrapolating, we might see these facts as relating to an important difference in the way in which the two groups perceive the world. We see natural phenomena, material processes, in largely mechanistic materialistic terms, using the machine as the metaphor for nature; by contrast, the Gooniyandi see the world as modelled on humanity, and intentionality becomes a part of the natural world. Not everything in the natural world then need have a materialistic explanation. A trivial illustration might be a comparison between the ways in which we account for ‘natural’ and material phenomena such as death. We seek material causes in either physiology (internal) or natural (external) material action of the impact and violence type. The Gooniyandi, like other Australian Aboriginal groups, do not see it in this way. Death usually has a human intentional source, and is rarely attributed merely to mechanical material actions. A person who actually enacts the material act of killing someone may not be the one responsible: they may be no more than the intermediary. This recalls one version of the story of how Pigeon, the famous “Outlaw of the Leopolds” was finally killed by an Aboriginal man, Roeboume Mick, who “saw” Pigeon’s soul in his ankle, and by virtue of this was ultimately able to kill Pigeon by material means.

My last point is that it has been frequently commented that systemic theory is particularly weak in the domain of argumentation, and it is high time we began to give very serious thought to methods of argumentation and hypothesis justification. Particularly, it seems to me that it is crucial that criteria for classifications be decided on in a definite way: we need to clearly distinguish those which serve to characterise one class from another from those which do not, and simply associate statistically with one or more of the classes. This paper represents a first attempt in this direction.

NOTES

1. The following abbreviations are used: ACC-accusative; COMIT-comitative; DAT-dative; ERG-ergative; INF-infinitive; LOC-locative; NOM-nomina- tive; NP-nominal phase; OBL-oblique; PP-postpositional phrase; PROG- progressive aspect; REP-repetition; and VP-verb phrase.


2.

3.

4.

5.

There is at least one other clause type, the impersonal clause, which resembles

the intransitive in as much as it consists of a single participant role. This, however,

is a Medium/Goal, rather than a Medium/Actor. This clause type is quite rare,

and its existence does not affect the main points of the paper.

In fact, it appears that there is yet another clause type, in which like a transitive

clause there is an Agent (realized by an ERG PP) and a Goal (realised by an NP),

but in which, like a middle clause, the latter is cross-referenced by an OBL

pronominal enclitic to the VP. We ignore this complication here.

Occasionally another verb is found, if the Actor/Medium adopts some other process

in their characteristic association with the quality. Thus, the verb ward- “go” may

be used in speaking of the attribute of being a stockman, since going about is nor-

mally associated with this quality: it is not one which is normally displayed in a state

of rest. The verb wubu “smell, stink” is also found in being situations (e.g. ngimdaji

maa rhoowoomfoo wubaari (this meat rotten it:stinks) “this meat is rotten”).

It is not clear whether gool- is properly to be regarded as a perceptual situation,

as it is not clear whether it actually refers to the sense of tasting, rather than just

trying something.

REFERENCES

Dik, S.

1989 The Z?reory of Functional Grammar. Part I: The Structure of the Clause,

Dordrecht: Foris.

Dixon, R. M. W.

1980 Z%e Languages of Australia, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Fawcet, R.

1980 Cognitive Linguistics and Social Interaction: Towards an Integrated

Model of a Systemic Functional Grammar and the Other Components of

a Communicating Mind, Heidelberg: Julius Groos.

Hall&y, M. A. K.

1970 “Language Structure and Language Function,” in New Horizons in

Linguistics, Lyons, J. (ed.), pp. 140-65, Harmondsworth: Penguin.

1985 Introduction to Functional Grammar, London: Arnold.

McGregor W.

1990a “The Metafunctional Hypothesis and Syntagmatic Relations,” Occasional

Papers in Systemic Linguistics 4. 5-50.

1990b A Functional Grammar of Gooniyundi, Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Nichols, J.

1978 “Secondary Predicates,” BL.S 4. 114-27.

Rumsey, A.

1990 “Wording, Meaning, and Linguistic Ideology,” American Anthropologist

92. 346-6 1.

Documents

Clause types in Gooniyandi