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THE LINGUISTICS STUDENT’S HANDBOOK 302
Language name Mangarayi
Language name Mandarin �m�ndərin,
(Chinese) m�ndə�rin
Autonym (if known and different)
Autonym (if known and different) Pútōnghuà (PRC); Guóyǔ (Taiwan)
Language family Australian Gunwingguan
Language family Sino-Tibetan North Sinitic
Spoken in Australia
Spoken in People’s Republic of China, Singapore, Taiwan
Approximate number of speakers 50
Approximate number of speakers 387m
Writing system
Writing system Chinese characters
Phonetics/phonology
Phonetics/phonology
Stress tendency to word-penultimate
Stress
Contains following rare retroflex
consonant (types)
Contains following rare retroflex; uvular
consonant (types)
Said to have how many vowels? 5
Said to have how many vowels? 9
Marked vowel types
Marked vowel types front rounded; back unrounded
Tone none
Tone contour
Rhythm no information
Rhythm no information
Vowel harmony some height harmony caused by particular affixes
Vowel harmony none
Morphology agglutinative word-based
Morphology isolating word-based
Particular formation types prefix; suffix; synaffix
Syntax
Word order OVS NA neither
PossN and NPoss
Particular syntactic phenomena gender; nominative / accusative and ergative /
absolutive marking; dual
Particular formation types dvandva; (infix); (prefix); full reduplication; suffix
Syntax
Word order topic AN prepositions and
prominent PossN postpositions
Particular syntactic phenomena classifiers
Points of interest most of its verbs have an idiosyncratic inflection pattern
Points of interest
Sources Dixon (1980), Merlan (1982)
Sources Li & Thompson (1981), Maddieson (1984), Ruhlen (1976),
Wälchli (2005), Yip (2002)