Murrinh-Patha

WALS coordinates: 14° 40′ S, 129° 40′ E

spoken in Australia

Alternative Names

Ethnologue:
Ruhlen:
  • Murrinh-Patha
Routledge:
  • Murrinhpatha
Other:
  • Murinhpatha,
  • Murinypata,
  • Murinpatha
ISO 639-3:

Features

Feature Value References
Phonology
Consonant Inventories Average
Vowel Quality Inventories Small (2-4)
Consonant-Vowel Ratio Moderately high
Voicing in Plosives and Fricatives In plosives alone
Voicing and Gaps in Plosive Systems None missing in /p t k b d g/
Uvular Consonants None
Glottalized Consonants No glottalized consonants
Lateral Consonants /l/, no obstruent laterals
Front Rounded Vowels None
Syllable Structure Complex
Tone No tones
Absence of Common Consonants No fricatives
Presence of Uncommon Consonants None
Morphology
Locus of Marking in the Clause Double marking
Locus of Marking in Possessive Noun Phrases No marking
Locus of Marking: Whole-language Typology Inconsistent or other
Reduplication Productive full and partial reduplication
Nominal Syntax
Obligatory Possessive Inflection Absent
Possessive Classification No possessive classification
Word Order
Order of Subject, Object and Verb SOV
Order of Subject and Verb SV
Order of Object and Verb OV
Order of Object, Oblique, and Verb OVX
Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase No dominant order
Order of Genitive and Noun Noun-Genitive
Order of Adjective and Noun Noun-Adjective
Order of Demonstrative and Noun Noun-Demonstrative
Order of Relative Clause and Noun Mixed
Order of Degree Word and Adjective Adjective-Degree word
Position of Polar Question Particles Final
Position of Interrogative Phrases in Content Questions Not initial interrogative phrase
Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase Other
Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Relative Clause and Noun Other
Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Adjective and Noun OV and NAdj
Simple Clauses
Polar Questions Question particle
Lexicon
Hand and Arm Different
Finger and Hand Identical
Number of Non-Derived Basic Colour Categories 3
Number of Basic Colour Categories 3-4
Green and Blue None
Red and Yellow None