2.9 CCC clusters.

Within a morpheme, the only triple consonant clusters consist of a liquid followed by a homorganic nasal-stop cluster. The actually attested ones are the following:

lmb/=lhalmba:ra-/ 'to catch fire'
/=w2almbalndha-/ 'to discuss'
rmb/murmbu-murmbulu-j/ 'hot'
rmb/yimarmba/ 'shellfish sp.'
lndh(see 'to discuss', above, and 'to hunt', below)
rnd/rarndar/ 'waterless (land)'
lngg/=w1alnggalndha-/ 'to hunt (on land)'
rngg/wirnggil/ 'pond scum' (and a few others)

Some of the exx. involve frozen compounds or reduplications. For /lmb/ the first ex. is etymologically related to /-lhalng-/ 'flame' and the second item is a frozen reduplication, perhaps originally *=balng-balng-dhV- or the like (with thematic suffix). The ex. for /lngg/ is a similar frozen reduplication, and the ex. for /rnd/ is probably also an old reduplication of the type *rarN-rar or *darN-dar (etymologically related to /ra:r/ 'burnt-out grassland'). However, there does not seem to be any way to explain away the /rngg/ cases, nor the single /rmb/ ex. (though the latter may be a loan from Anindilyakwa, as is usually the case with NA class nouns beginning with /yi/).

Other /CCC/ clusters can be generated at boundaries without much difficulty. At the end of §2.7, above, we listed /CC/ clusters which can occur at the end of a noun stem, including /ing/, /lng/, and /rng/. If we add to these a case suffix like /-w2aj/, /-ruj/, /-w1ala/, or /-yinyung/, the suffix-initial continuant will become a stop by Hardening P-18, and the preceding stem-final /ng/ will assimilate in point of articulation to this stop by P-27. This will produce the clusters /lm-b/, /ln-d/, /lng-g/, /lny-j/, /l/m-b/, /ln-d/, /lng-g/, /lny-j/, /rm-b/, /rn-d/, /rng-g/, and /rny-j/. For example, from /w1umurng/ 'shelter' we get Pergressive /a-wumurm-baj/, Locative /a-wumurn-duj/, Ablative /a-wumurng-gala/, and Relative /a-wumurny-jinyung/.

Other possible stem-final clusters shown in §2.7 include /rj/, /rj/, and /rny/ (we disregard clusters involving liquid plus /g/, since the /g/ will disappear by P-29 before a suffix-initial consonant, and so cannot produce a triple cluster). Since /j/ and /ny/ do not disappear before other consonants (except when geminated, and to some extent before coronals, see P-26 and -30), we can get some additional triple clusters at boundaries with case suffixes: /rj-b/, /rj-d/, /rj-g/, /rj-b/, /rj-d/, /rj-g/, /rny-b/, /rny-g/ and /rny-j/. If we add Instrumental suffix /-miri/ we can get underlying //rj-m//, //rj-m//, and //rny-m//; Nasalisation P-22 would normally apply to the first two, so that //rj-m// and //rny-m// would converge on the surface as /rny-m/, while //rj-m// would show up as /rny-m/.