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Jingulu exhibits a pattern of morphologically marking discourse prominence quite different to anything found in adjacent or closely related languages. The Ergative, and to a lesser extent the Dative, case suffixes have come to be used as optional indicators of discourse prominence in addition to maintaining their original case‐marking uses. Some other head‐marking non‐Pama‐Nyungan languages may also use case markers in non‐case functions, but the Jingulu system differs from these in two important respects: the Jingulu innovation appears to be extremely recent (30–40 years) and the Jingulu system uses all core case markers, not just one particular marker, for this function. One possible explanation for this innovation in Jingulu involves re‐analysis of the case markers resulting from the dominant and increasing influence of the English language on the final generations of Jingulu speakers.
Rob Pensalfini (Fri,) studied this question.