distinguished on inflectional criteria as well." Nominal morphology Nominal derivational morphology Nouns can only take a single derivational suffix as Bardi does not allow for multiple derivation. Little of Bardi's derivational morphology is productive or involves a change in word class. The most common derivational morpheme in Bardi is the suffix . This morpheme attaches to the end of a noun to denote a person who is heavily associated with that area or who has reached a level of expertise in it. For example, means ‘speed,' while means a person who is an expert in speed (i.e., a super fast runner). Similarly, the Bardi word for a storyteller, is derived when this suffix is attached to the noun , meaning ‘story.’ Despite its frequency of use, is not productive and can only be applied to certain nouns (though there does not appear any systematicity governing which nouns do and do not permit its application). In addition to , there are about 20 other nominal derivational morphemes in Bardi. Several are displayed in the table below. Nominal case morphology Nouns in Bardi also often inflect for case. Case marking is phrasal, as it always occurs on the initial element of the noun phrase. There is no additional way in which case is represented in the phrase (Bardi is unusual in this respect). Core cases are those able to trigger agreement marking on the verb; thus, core case markers indicate argument relations within a clause. In Bardi there are three core cases: ergative, absolutive, and instrumental. Nouns in Bardi are marked by the ergative case when they are the subject of a transitive verb. Ergative subjects do not need to be animate or personal; for example, meaning 'the sea,' can receive the ergative case marker and thus become . Nouns in Bardi take the absolutive case when they appear as the subject of an intransitive verb or the object (direct or indirect) of a transitive verb. Nouns receiving the absolutive case are unmarked. When the applicative construction promotes them to the object of the verb, instrumental nouns can receive case agreement on the verb, thus satisfying the primary condition of a core case. In these instances, the instrumental case marker (-nga or -na) denotes that the noun is the instrument or the means by which an action was carried out. Instruments are always inanimate; if animate, they would be given the ergative