252 MATHEWS—LANGUAGES OF NEW SOUTH WALES. [May 15, 
NOUNS. 
Nouns have number, gender and case. 
LVumber.—There are three numbers—singular, dual and plural. 
Kana, acrow. Kanaburala, a pair of crows. Kananyeta, several 
or many crows. 
Gender.—Gender in the human family is denoted by different 
words. Tana, a man. Kettyura, a woman. Romunna, a boy. 
Kémika or nganda, a girl. Kwanga, a child of either sex. 
Among animals gender is distinguished by using words signifying 
‘¢male’’ and ‘‘female.’’ Pwéla, an opossum. Pweéla rula, a male 
opossum. Pwéla imbarra, female opossum. 
-Case.—The principal cases are the nominative, causative, instru- 
mental, possessive, accusative, dative and ablative. 
Nominative: This case simply names the subject, as imboanda, a 
kangaroo; naia, a yamstick, without any change in the noun. 
Causative: When a transitive verb is used the noun takes a 
suffix, as Tananda imboanda nyuna, a man a kangaroo is beating. 
Kettyuranda pwéla nyuna, a woman an opossum is beating. 
Instrumental: This takes the same suffix as the causative. Ketty- 
uranda tana nyuna naianda, a woman a man is beating with a yam- 
stick. Tananda imboanda nyimbina arkananda, a man a kangaroo 
hit with a boomerang. 
Possessive: Tanango arkana, a man’s boomerang. Kettyurango 
naia, a woman’s yamstick. 
Accusative: This is the same as the nominative. 
Dative: Rullagu, to a camp. 
Ablative: Rullunge, from a camp. 
It should be mentioned that in all the expressions illustrating the 
several cases, both in the Anéwan and Banbai languages, the demon- 
strative pronouns are omitted, for the two-fold purpose of saving 
space and of avoiding confusion by introducing any more words 
than are really necessary to show the declension. For example, 
where I have given ‘‘man kangaroo hit with boomerang’’ 
would be fully expressed by the native thus: ‘‘ Man this-on-my- 
right kangaroo yonder-in-front boomerang struck-with,’’ or as the 
subject might require. 
These remarks apply to every example of aboriginal sentences 
throughout both the languages dealt with in this article. 
