Jiwarli is a Pama-Nyungan language (Mantharta subgroup of the Nyungic group) that was formerly spoken in the north-west of Western Australia (the last fluent speaker died in 1986). It shows a highly complex morpho-syntax that is typical of languages of the area, with split-ergative case morphology that is sensitive to grammatical relations, animacy, clause type and inter-clausal coreference (interacting with a system of switch-reference). Syntactically Jiwarli is non-configurational and shows pragmatically-based word order and operates in ways that challenge various theoretical proposals. The course will be based on a draft Reference Grammar of Jiwarli and will include working through selected recordings and texts in the language.

A Jiwarli language blog has been established at https://jiwarli.wordpress.com/ with materials supporting this course.