Vowels

Martu Wangka contains three contrastive vowels, which may be either short or long.^[3] Long vowels are less common and usually occur either on the first syllable of a word or as the ending of a monosyllabic word.^{[4]: 27, 33} The chart below illustrates this:

• /i/ has allophones [i], [ɪ] in free variation. When following a palatal consonant, or preceding a retroflex continuant /ɻ/, it can be realised as [ɛ].
• /u/ has the allophones [u], [ʊ]. When following or preceding palatal consonants, it may be realised as more fronted to [ʉ].
• /a/ is typically pronounced as [a]. When in unstressed positions as a second syllable of a three syllable word, it can be pronounced as [ə] and word-finally as [ʌ]. When following the glide /w/, or preceding a velar consonant, it can be realised as [ɒ]. When between two laterals, it can be realised as [æ].

Consonants

There are 17 consonants in Martu Wangka, dispersed over five different places and six manners of articulation. Speakers of Martu Wangka generally do not make distinctions between voiced and voiceless stops. The apico-alveolar and apico-retroflex consonants are very similar and can be pronounced differently depending on the speaker, so it is often difficult to normalize the way these sounds are recorded.^{[4]: 26–28}

• /k/ can have a voiced allophone [ɡ] when occurring after nasal continuants, or in different intervocalic positions. It may also be heard as a voiced fricative [ɣ] in intervocalic positions.
• /ɟ/ can have a voiceless fricative allophone [ç] when occurring intervocalically.
• /ʈ/ can also be heard as tap sounds [ɾ~ɽ] in various intervocalic positions.

Syllable structure

In Martu Wangka, most words contain two or more syllables, and most words end in vowels. Although some words may end in an apical nasal or lateral consonant, most words that would end in a consonant are appended with an epenthetic syllable '-pa' to avoid ending the word on a consonant. The most standard syllable template is CV(V)(C). The chart below shows various syllabic templates, along with examples.^[4]: 33

Stress

Martu Wangka has stress similar to that of other languages in its family: primary stress usually falls on the first syllable of a word, and secondary stress usually falls on the second syllable after the primary stressed syllable (essentially alternating between stressed and unstressed, marked starting from the left). The final syllable of a word is usually unstressed.^[4]: 44

Nominals

In Martu Wangka, nominal morphology has affixation, reduplication, compounding, and case marking. The usual formula for constructing a noun is

nominal word = nominal root – (derivation) (derivation) – inflection (inflection)^[4]: 60

Verbs

Martu Wangka contains around 70 basic verbs that can serve as verbal roots and then an indefinite amount of complex verbs formed through various morphological processes. These verbs contain a wide variety of meanings including but not limited to actions, motions, physical positions, sensations, and utterances. The usual formula for constructing a verb is

verbal word = (direction) (preverb) verbal root (derivation) (derivation) inflection (directional affixes)^[4]: 152

Reduplication

There is both nominal and verbal reduplication in Martu Wangka, which is usually used to generate a new word with related meaning, but can also be used to emphasize certain actions or traits. Nominal reduplication has two types: reduplication and frozen reduplication. With reduplication, the nominal is repeated, which creates a new reduplicated nominal. With frozen reduplication, only the reduplicated form of the nominal is in the language and the non-reduplicated form does not exist.^{[4]: 62, 64}

Verbal reduplication can be both partial, full, and frozen reduplication. To form a reduplicated verb, usually the verb root or the preverb of a compound verb is reduplicated. It is typically used when creating a word for an action that repeats itself, such as going around in circles.^[4]: 167

Compounding

Compound nominals are formed in two ways: either two independent roots are put together to form a new word with a separate meaning, or one independent root is put together with another root that does not contain independent meaning. The majority of compound nominals are words for various plants and animals, but they are also formed to describe words originally not in Martu Wangka.^[4]: 65

Compound verbs consist of a preverb, which can be either a nominal or an independent class, and a verbal root. Verbal roots are simple verbs that contain the core meaning of the compound verb. Some examples of compounding on verbals roots are illustrated below.^[4]: 158

Case and agreement

Word order

Martu Wangka has free word order, meaning that there is no grammatical basic word order. Instead, words are ordered semantically and the most important parts of the sentence come the earliest in the sentence. For example, new information introduced into a conversation tends to come before information that has already been discussed. In a narrative about a journey, information about direction and distance comes first because those are the most important things for travelers to know. Some examples are shown below.^{[4]: 298, 303–304}

Questions

Martu Wangka has tag questions, in which certain questions are followed by a tag that indicates the type of question. The tag always comes at the end of the question. For example, the kurlu tag comes at the end of a yes/no question and the 'you know' tag, which is borrowed from English, is common at the end of rhetorical questions as an afterthought.^[4]: 311

Martu Wangka also has interrogative pronouns ngana, wanja, jaatu, and nyangula, which translate to the English words 'what,' 'where', and 'when', respectively. These interrogative nominals always come at the start of a clause.^{[4]: 120, 312}