Language name and location: Burarra, Australia [Refer to Ethnologue]

言名称和分布地区拉拉语, 澳大利亚北部

 

1. -nɡardapa 

2.  abirri-jirrpa 

3.  abirri-jirrpa -nɡardapa

4.  abirri-jirrpa abirri-jirrpa

5.  abirri-jirrpa abirri-jirrpa -nɡardapa

6.  abirri-jirrpa abirri-jirrpa abirri-jirrpa

7.  abirri-jirrpa abirri-jirrpa abirri-jirrpa -nɡardapa

8. abirri-jirrpa abirri-jirrpa abirri-jirrpa abirri-jirrpa

    And so on, limited by the number of repeats the speaker can include in his
    statement. At some point most will either revert to -jaranga 'many', (which must be
    prefixed in the way outlined above for –ngardapa) or to English.

 

Linguist providing data and dateː Mr. Dave Glasgow, Summer Institute of Linguistics, Australian Aboriginal and Islander Branch, Australia. September 1, 2012.
供资料的语言学家: Mr. Dave Glasgow. 2012 年 9 月 1 日.

 

Other comments:

1.  The word -ngardapa below, if used in the third person, must be prefixed by one of 
     the four noun class prefixes, an-, jin-, mun- or gun-, in agreement with the class of

     the noun to which the number applies. If used in the first or second person it must 

     be prefixed with one of the intransitive verb person-number prefixes, in agreement

     with whatever the number applies to, see Glasgow, Kathleen, Burarra – Gun-Nartpa

     Dictionary with English Finder List, p.910, table 7.

2.  For orthography used below see Glasgow, Kathleen, Burarra – Gun-Nartpa

     Dictionary with English Finder List, p. 10

3.  In my opinion there are no numerals in Burarra. It has a word, ngardapa ‘alone /

     separate’ which when prefixed according to the class of the noun involved is used

     for ‘one’. The Burarra grammar has dual as well as singular and plural number so

     the concept of ‘two’ is conveyed by the use of the dual prefix, abirri- on the verb to

     be/stand, plus suffix -pa ‘repetition / constancy’, i.e. abirri-jirrapa. These two, -

     ngardapa and abirri-jirrapa can then be used in various combinations for the
     concepts of three, four, five, six, seven and so on. An alternative for ‘five’ is the
     phrase arr-ngardapa arr-murna, freely translated ‘the fingers on one of our hands’.
     Similarly two hands can be used for ten and the feet can come into it to go beyond
     ten These expressions can also be used in combination with the ‘one’ and ‘two’
     above to get numerical accuracy, if required.


 

Back >> [ Home ] >>  [ Australian Aboriginal ] >> [ Trans-New Guinea ] >> [ Sepik ] >>
 [ Ramu-Lower-Sepik ] >> [ Torricelli ] >> [ West Papuan ] >> [ Other Papuan languages ] >>
 
[ Other Euro-Asian languages ]