Phraseology and Culture in English

Manner adverbials 
In the same way that -time enables some time adverbials to be morphologi-
cally distinguished, -way may perform a similar function for manner adver-
bials, as in the following examples: 
e just got up quick way 
‘he just got up quickly’ 
she jumped north way dere 
‘she jumped towards the north’ 
Had a ride then. Went long way 
‘Then we had a ride. We went a long way’ 
I went long way for holiday 
‘I went a long way away for a holiday’ 
[Where do they live?] Long way 
‘a long way away’ 
all the way follow the pipe up 
‘followed the pipe up all the way’ 
Nguluway 
‘fearfully / cautiously’ 
In the case of quick way the simplified adverbial form quick (from quickly) has 
been restructured according to an alternative morphological principle which 
draws on Kriol rather than Standard English. North way follows the same 
principle, although in Standard English ‘north’ in such a context would not 
carry any marking. The expression long way (as in Kriol) may function to

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Ian G. Malcolm and Farzad Sharifian
express what in Standard English requires one or the other of two phrases, a
long way and a long way away. The expression all the way, although it carries 
essentially the same meaning as in Standard English, functions more like a 
self-contained adverb, in that it can be used before the verb. The expression 
nguluway, is an example of a hybrid which adds the Aboriginal English ad-
verbial suffix to a Ngaanyatjatjara base. 
2. Prefixing 
There is one case, recorded only in children’s speech in a community in the 
vicinity of Broome (a town in the far north of the state), where a verb may be 
prefixed with lie- to add the meaning of ‘pretence.’ Thus: 
Mummy lie-say dis kine… ‘Mummy said, pretendingly, like this…’ 
e bin lie-drop it 
‘He pretended to drop it’ 
we lie-go crosseyed 
‘We pretended to go crosseyed’ 
we lie-don’t look 
‘We pretended not to look’ 
(all examples from Eagleson, Kaldor and Malcolm 1982: 98). 
3. Phrasal 
Verbs 
One of the most pervasive features of the verb phase in Aboriginal English is 
its productivity in the use of a number of particles to form distinctive phrasal 
verbs. By far the most frequently-used particle for this purpose is up, but there 
are at least five others.