Mudburra associated motion in an areal perspective

Associated motion (AM) in Mudburra, an Australian language from the Pama-Nyungan family, is expressed by means of verbal suffixes distinguishing two paths of motion: away from versus towards the deictic centre. As such Mudburra AM is simple in terms of “degree of elaboration”, especially in comparison to the highly complex systems of Arandic AM found to its south. This chapter describes the forms, functions and distribution of AM markers in Mudburra. The Mudburra AM system makes similar contrasts to that of the neighbouring non- Pama- Nyungan language Wambaya (Ngurlun, Mirndi), despite the fact that they possess entirely distinct grammatical structures. Morphology cognate to Mudburra AM suffixes functions as deictic directionals in related languages, and morphemes cognate with Wambaya AM morphemes function as verbs in related languages. Mudburra and Wambaya have thus independently converged in their repurposing of these morphemes as markers of AM: a situation that makes the Northern Central Australia region of particular interest to the study of the diachronic development of AM systems.