Language, landscape, cognition and culture in Wik-Mungkan: a sociotopographic study of spatial grammar

This thesis presents an analysis of spatial language in Wik-Mungkan. The focus is on expressions of static relations between two objects and the role of sociotopography. Sociotopography is a framework acknowledging the multi-directional interplay between landscape, language, culture, and cognition. This study examines this complex interplay in a Wik-Mungkan speaking community, and whether a shift in spatial language correlates with cultural changes. The linguistic analysis explores core elements of the expression of spatial relations: the case system, locational nominals, posture verbs, and demonstratives, and how these interact as a coherent system. The use is investigated in non-projective (contact between objects) and projective (no contact between objects) spatial relations. Noteworthy findings include a cohesive analysis of the complex demonstrative system and how it can be explained regarding ongoing grammaticalisation of case-marking on different demonstrative stems. Additionally, I describe a rarely discussed Differential Place Marking pattern, which depends on the type of spatial relation rather than the referential properties of the ground or figure objects. Additionally, new insights into the use of posture verbs are offered, and a comprehensive analysis of spatial frames using recent typologies highlights flexibility in spatial frame use. From the perspective of sociotopography, the thesis examines the geocentric terms in Wik-Mungkan using state-of-the-art geospatial methods, revealing high degrees of environmental sensitivity in the language. Contextual factors such as the immediate environment, travel patterns, and other factors influence the environmental anchoring of the terms. Community internal variation in spatial language and cognition is investigated using the Man and Tree task and the Animals in a Row task, with the surprising finding that younger speakers use higher proportions of geocentric spatial frames than older speakers. This relation is usually the inverse. Additionally, clan membership and gender play a role in the preferences for spatial frames. Overall, the thesis contributes a novel analysis of spatial reference in Wik-Mungkan. Evidence is offered to show that while the language shows great contextual sensitivity to the environment, change across generations remains modest. These insights extend our understanding of the link between language, landscape, and culture in an Indigenous Australian context.