Some problems in Kukatj phononology

Kukatj is a language of north Queensland, Australia. Unusual (for Australia) phonetic features include a brief schwa‐like vowel, very common and nearly always predictable, and gemination of consonants after a short stressed vowel. The phonological analysis is influenced by a handful of forms which block a number of simplifications. Its features: (1) three rhotics, two of which are marginal in that they contrast with the third (and with one another) only in a few environments; (2) a featureless underlying vowel, realised as a surface vowel (usually schwa) or sometimes as syllabicity in a consonant when required by phonotactic rules prohibiting certain consonant clusters but also ‐rarely ‐ separating consonants which could have formed a permissible cluster; (3) phonemic vowel length (rather than phonemic consonant gemination; and (4) a minimal underlying word of two syllables (although surface monosyllables are common). Phonetically retroflexed consonants (other than the glide) are analysed as apical tap plus apico‐alveolar consonant. This has been proposed before for other Australian languages, but with little justification, and is relevant to theories of the history of retroflexes in Australia.