Yukulta also known as Ganggalida (Kangkalita), is an extinct Tangkic language spoken in Queensland

Queensland

Queensland is a state of Australia, occupying the north-eastern section of the mainland continent. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Australia and New South Wales to the west, south-west and south respectively. To the east, Queensland is bordered by the Coral Sea and Pacific Ocean...

 and Northern Territory

Northern Territory

The Northern Territory is a federal territory of Australia, occupying much of the centre of the mainland continent, as well as the central northern regions...

, Australia.

Classification

Yukulta is a member of the Tangkic language group, along with Kayardild, Lardil and Yanggal. Of those languages, Yukulta, Kayardild and Yanggal are mutually intelligible.

Consonants

	Bilabial Bilabial consonant In phonetics, a bilabial consonant is a consonant articulated with both lips. The bilabial consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:...	Denti- alveolar	Lamino-dental Alveolar consonant Alveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli of the superior teeth...	Retroflex Retroflex consonant A retroflex consonant is a coronal consonant where the tongue has a flat, concave, or even curled shape, and is articulated between the alveolar ridge and the hard palate. They are sometimes referred to as cerebral consonants, especially in Indology...	Lamino-palatal Palatal consonant Palatal consonants are consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the hard palate...	Velar Velar consonant Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum)....
Plosive	p	t̪	t	ʈ	c	k
Nasal Nasal consonant A nasal consonant is a type of consonant produced with a lowered velum in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. Examples of nasal consonants in English are and , in words such as nose and mouth.- Definition :...	m	n̪	n	ɳ	ɲ	ŋ
Rhotic Rhotic consonant In phonetics, rhotic consonants, also called tremulants or "R-like" sounds, are liquid consonants that are traditionally represented orthographically by symbols derived from the Greek letter rho, including "R, r" from the Roman alphabet and "Р, p" from the Cyrillic alphabet...			r	ɽ
Lateral Lateral consonant A lateral is an el-like consonant, in which airstream proceeds along the sides of the tongue, but is blocked by the tongue from going through the middle of the mouth....			l	ɭ
Approximant Approximant consonant Approximants are speech sounds that involve the articulators approaching each other but not narrowly enough or with enough articulatory precision to create turbulent airflow. Therefore, approximants fall between fricatives, which do produce a turbulent airstream, and vowels, which produce no...					j	ɰ

Vowels

Yukulta has three vowels, each with a long and short variant: a, i, and u.

Morphology

There are many different rules governing what happens to each Yukulta phoneme in any given environment, so most morphemes have at least two allomorphs.

Inflection

All Yukulta nouns and adjectives consist of a root and an inflectional ending. Nouns and the adjectives that go along with them have to agree in their endings. Yukulta nominals can take five case-endings: absolutive, ergative/locative, dative, ablative and allative. As in Kayardild, each morphological ending can be realized as various allomorphs, depending on the phonological environment. There can be many versions of any given morpheme. The absolutive marker, for instance, can be realized as any of eight allomorphs.

• The canonical absolutive marker is -ta. The subject of an intransitive verb or the direct object of a transitive verb takes this ending.
• The canonical ergative/locative marker is -iya. The subject of a transitive verb or the place where something takes place takes this ending.
• The canonical dative marker is -iɲca. Indirect objects and the objects of semi-transitive verbs take this ending.
• The canonical ablative marker is -inapa. An item away from which motion is happening takes this ending.
• The canonical allative marker is -iɭu. An item toward or to which motion is happening takes this ending.

Derivational Endings

In addition to the inflectional endings that Yukulta nominals can take, there are a few important derivational affixes that occur between the root and the inflectional ending. Like the inflectional endings, each has a few different allomorphs.

• -wan and -wakaran, the genitive markers, denote possession.
• -wuɭu, the comitative marker, denotes association.
• -wari, the privative marker, denotes the absence of association or possession.

Free Pronouns

A Yukulta free pronoun consists of a root, case suffix, and possibly an inclusivity marker and/or a marker to distinguish between dual and plural (singular and exclusive are unmarked characteristics). Interestingly, free pronouns have a different case-system than nominals, with intransitive and transitive subjects and transitive objects taking the nominative ending, semi-transitive objects taking the objective ending, as well as benefactive, locative, allative and ablative endings.

Bound Pronouns

Yukulta also has another sort of pronoun—bound pronouns—which occur as part of the clitic complex. Unlike free pronouns, bound pronouns do not consist of a stem and inflectional endings—each case form is separate. The form depends on a number of considerations, including the number of the subject of a verb, and the number, person, and exclusivity of the subject.

Clitic Complex

The clitic complex attaches to the first constituent of every Yukulta sentence that does not "emphasize a permanent, timeless state of affairs." It consists of bound pronouns corresponding to each party involved in the action, a transitivity marker, and a tense-aspect marker.

Verbs

All Yukulta verbs are either transitive or intransitive, with each group having a different conjugation pattern. The intransitive groups can be split into purely intransitive verbs and semi-transitive verbs, which take a dative object and an absolutive subject. There are three moods: indicative, imperative and desiderative. There is a further distinction within the imperative mood between imperative and hortatory, and within the desiderative mood between intent and desire.

Word Order

Yukulta word order is very free, in large part due to its relatively high level of inflection.

Subordinate Clauses

Some types of subordinate clauses in Yukulta, such as conditional clauses ("if...") and reason causes ("because...") are simply marked by a clitic attaching to the first constituent. For clauses of time and relative clauses, Yukulta uses the clitic -ŋala along with the rest of the clitic complex.