Chapter 6: Tense, aspect and mood

Suffixes
3: -lhvka- ‘go’
C[-coronal] a]+
NP1 -ya -lhvki-ya
NP2 -ja -lhvka-ja
NP3 -ma ~ -ngvma -lhvkv-ma ~ -lhvka-ngvma
P1 -Ø -lhvka-Ø
P2 -rnv ~ -nv -lhvka-rnv ~ -lhvke-nv
REFL -jungwV- (-lhaba-jungwV-)
RECP -yi- -lhvkee-yi-
CAUS -ji- -lhvka-ji-
Table 6.7: Conjugation 3: -ja, -rnv ~ -nv (verb stems ending in /a/)
This conjugation contains the thematics +ba- and +ka- (see Table 5.9), and the verb -lhvka- ‘go’,
as listed in (10).
(10) Class 3 (3 roots)
Thematic +ka- Thematic +ba- (3 examples) -lhvka- ‘go’ 6
(e.g. -lhawurr+ka- ‘taste, try, test’ ( -lhek+ba- ‘accuse, blame’
-arnda+ka- ‘hunt’ -lhaba ‘taste, try, test’
-wal+ka- ‘sneak up on’ -kwiyerrba ‘make a mistake’)
-lharr+ka ‘send’
-ngurr+kwa- ‘hunt’)
The majority of verbs in this conjugation are composed of thematic +ka-, which may derive
historically from the stem *-ka- ‘carry’ (cf. pGN *ka- ‘take, carry’). However, this verb no longer
exists separately and no synchronic segmentation is viable (Heath 1984: 470 suggests the same for
Wubuy).
6.3.4 Conjugation 4: -na, -Ø [JH class 8C (-na, -a); JW (-ina, -a; -una, -a); VL: - 7 ]
This class is characterised by the P2 ending -Ø. The stem-final vowel in this class is /a/, which is
preserved in all environments except in the NP2 and one allomorph of the NP3, where it is
weakened to [əә]. Table 6.8 presents the paradigm, and some verb roots belonging to this class are
listed in (11). This is the only conjugation where there is no formal distinction between P1 and P2;
these are thus glossed ‘PST’ in the examples (e.g. [21b] below).
6
This verb does not contain thematic +ka-, but derives from alhvka ‘NEUT.foot’, which in turn may be related to
Ritharrngu rluku ‘foot’ (pPN: *luku [Alpher 2004]).
7
Leeding (1989) does not identify this verb class, which is probably because tense suffixes are optional in her
analysis. The absence of a tense suffix has the same effect as the -Ø suffix proposed here. According to Leeding, any
verb without an inflectional suffix can represent either past or non-past tense. This is however a huge
overgeneralisation, because the tense/aspect suffixes are mostly obligatorily realised by overt material. In conjugation
3 above, for instance, the only category that is realised as -Ø is the P1; all other categories take non-null suffixes.
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