A GRAMMAR OF WAMBAYA - Cryptm.org

As mentioned above, the most common way to indicate the plurality of a nominal is to
use the numeral garnguj- 'many'. This modifier is slightly more emphatic than the
English quantifier 'some'. Like murrgun- 'three', garnguj- has two different versions:
one which includes a form of the plural suffix -bala-, and one which has just gender
marking (using regular gender suffixes, see 4.2.2).
following table.
Table 4.8 Forms of garnguj-
'plural version' 'gender version'
Class I garngujbali garnguji
Class II garngujbalarna garngunya
Class III __ garngunyma
Class IV garngujbala garnguja
These forms are given in the
The most usual case is for the 'plural version' to occur with nouns inflected for plural
number, and for the 'gender version' to occur with nouns uninflected for number.
(4-46) Marndag-bali irr-a yarru garngujbali.
white.person-PLURAL:I(NOM) 3plS-Pst go(nF) many:I(NOM)
A lot of white men went.
(4-47) Garnguji nyi-n yabu alaji
many:I(ACC) 2sgA(Pres)-Pr have(nF) boy:I(ACC)
You have a lot of kids.
(4-48) Aliyulu ng-a garnguja darranggu.
find(nF) 1sgA-Pst many:IV(ACC) stick:IV(ACC)
I found a lot of sticks.
However, there are also examples in which a 'gender version' form occurs with a noun
that is inflected for plural number.
(4-49) Garngunya nayirrurndurna irr-a
yarru.
many:II(NOM) women:II(NOM) 3plS-Pst go(nF)
Many women went.
I do not have any examples in which a noun uninflected for number is found with
garnguj- in a plural marked form.
If garnguj- does not co-occur with a noun, and is therefore functioning as the head of
the NP, it often conditions singular, rather than plural, agreement in the auxiliary and
with any modifiers: