352 MATHEWS— LANGUAGE OF THE BIRDHAWAL TRIBE. [October 4 



There is but little regularity in the pronouns of the third person 

 in any of the numbers. This is owing to a word more or less dif- 

 ferent being used to express whether the person meant is near, or 

 at some distance ; whether he is going away from, or coming towards, 

 the speaker ; whether he is in the front, or in the rear, and so on. 



Interrogatives : Who, nganinde? What, nganna? How many, 

 nau-wun ? 



Demonstratives : Dyinda, this or here. Mindha, that or there. 

 There it is, munda. These demonstratives are declinable for the 

 dual and plural numbers. 



There are likewise forms of the pronouns meaning " for me," 

 " from me," " with me," etc., which extend through all the persons 

 and num^bers. 



Verbs. 



Verbs have the usual numbers, persons and moods, as well as 

 an inclusive and exclusive form in the first person of the dual and 

 plural. The following is a short conjugation of the verb " to strike 

 or beat." In most Australian languages the word for striking also 

 means to kill. 



Indicative — Singular. 



Although the inflections on the above words sufficiently indicate 

 the person to a native listener, there would be no objection to pre- 

 fixing the full pronoun, as, Ngaiu bundanetch, Ngindu bundadu, 

 and so on. 



The future tenses of the first person of the dual and plural are 

 as under: 



Reflective. 



The reflective form of the verb describes an action which the 

 subject executes directly upon himself: 



