MalakMalak, is an ergative-absolutive language with constituent order mainly determined by information structure and prosody, but syntactically free. Marking of core-cases is optional. The language is mostly dependent-marking (1), but also has no marking (2) and head-marking features (2).

(1) dependent-marking: possession

Doro-ngayi

muyiny

name-3SG.F

dog

“Doro’s dog”

(2) no marking: noun–adjective

meldaty

ada

tjung

yintjerrik

trip

1SG.excl.go.PST

stick

small.M

“I tripped on the little stick”

(3) head-marking: noun-adposition

ngatj

yunu

tjinang

pak-ma

nende

wag

puyunduk-nana

EMPH

3SG.M.sit.PST

stay.give

sit-CONT

thing/person

water

underneath-LOC

“he sits down underneath the water”