Ray & Haddon — The Languages of Torres Straits — II. 125 



A few others result from the justaposition of two simple consonants 

 through the omission of a rowel, ^acgillivray wrote ts for s in tsiJca 

 for siho. 



5. CoxxRACiioxs. — A vowel is often dropped between two con- 

 sonants, e.g.Mak, for kalak ; hrangipaiov korongaipa, prateipa^ purteipa, 

 in past, piirutan. The final o or i is often very indistinctly pronounced 

 and is very frequently omitted. ]5J!acgillivray has the following note 

 on contractions in !Muralug : — 



"Eegarding the allusion to a terminal vowel, it may he mentioned 

 here that as most Kowrarega words end in a vowel, its absence, when 

 a vowel commences the following word, is commonly owing to elision. 

 Ex. — ' iidzu uniai, - my dog,' becomes ' udz^umai.'' When the last 

 consonant in a word is the same as the first in the following word, one 

 of the letters is omitted. Ex. — ' ajya pining^ = soft ground,' becomes 

 ap'irujig.' There are numerous other contractions, as ' ai ' for 

 ' aidu, = food ' ; ' aige ' for ' aigewel, = come here ' ; ' mue utsem, = the 

 fire has gone out,' for ' mue utst'mem,' ^c." [ii. 279.] 



§ II. — Pronouns. 

 1. PEESoifAi. — These are declined as nouns by means of suffixes. 

 Oender is distinguished in the first and third person. 

 The simplest forms are as follows : — 

 (a) Nonwiative. 



Singular, 1. oigai, I (masculine); ngazo^ ng6%o, I (feminine). 



2. ngi^ thou. 



3. noi, nu (s); nue (m), he, it (masculine); na, she. 

 Dual, 1. inclusive of person addressed, aba (m) ; exclu- 

 sive of persons addressed, ngalhe, ngalahe, 

 alhei (m), he and I. 



2. ngipel, you two. 



3. pale, palae, they two. 



Plural, 1. (inclusive), ngalpa, alpa (ir), you and I; 

 (exclusive), 7igoi, ngoi, we, they all and I. 



2. ngita, ngitana (ji), you all. 



3. tana, ari (ii), they all. 



An. analysis of the pronominal forms is not without interest. The 

 na of the third person singular (fem.) is no doubt the same with the 

 demonstrative particle na, and is found also in the third plural ta-7ia 



