Loanwords in Gurindji, a Pama-Nyungan language of Australia

Another major loan component from Non-Pama-Nyungan languages is coverbs, the main semantic element of complex verbs. As in other regions of the world, here the existence of independent uninflecting verbal components like coverbs is both stimulated by and drives a high-borrowing regime in a linguistic area, and in this case causes a convergence of the complex verb syntax to the Non-Pama-Nyungan type, which is more analytical (loose nexus). However there is little other grammatical borrowing or convergence, and the Pama-Nyungan languages like Gurindji remain very different grammatically from their Non-Pama-Nyungan neighbors. Apart from the Non-Pama-Nyungan languages, Gurindji has significantly borrowed from the closely related Western Ngumpin languages, in a process resembling ‘dialect mixing’ but more structured, as most of the flow has gone from west to east rather than randomly in all directions. This analysis may be controversial as one might argue alternatively that what has happened here, at least partially, is gradual lexical diffusion of a sound change through the lexicon. If the latter proposition is true it may reduce the Western Ngumpin loan contribution somewhat but the overall level of borrowing, not counting the small number of English and Pidgin/Kriol loans, is not going to be less than 35%, and may be as much as 40%.