Bay & Haddon — The Languages of Torres Straits — II. 127 



probably modifications of the same root ng, and have a demonstrative 

 origin. Nga is also the interrogative, who ? and is found in the 

 directive nga-pa, hither, to here. 



(3) Indrumental case. 



Singular, 1. ngat'd^ ngatu (m), (masc.) ; ngozo (fem.) 



2. ngido, ngidu (m). 



3. noido, nudu (m), (masc.) ; nado, nadu (m), (fem.) 



^0 instrumental forms have been found in the dual and plural 

 numbers. The suffix du, to may be compared with the Miriam de. 

 There seems little doubt but that this case corresponds to what has 

 been called in Australian Grammars the nominative of the agent. 

 As used in the Saibai Gospels, they express the person as the agent of 

 an active verb. 



Example : ngato tanamulpa waean, I sent them away ; sihe mata 

 ngozo gamuia tradi% nongo dumawahuia, wa, ngd%o igililenga, if only 

 I touch his garment, then I live ; loane siei ngato huiko patan, John 

 there I beheaded, or beheaded by me ; ngido ngona Jcasa wanan, you 

 have left me alone ; ngido ngona mina mahaegado maipa, you make me 

 a good man, i.e. call me good ; noido mamain ita seven areto, he took 

 seven loaves ; noido nubepa iman, he saw him ; noido noino waean tana- 

 mulpa, he sent him to them; mi watri pawa noido mani? what evil 

 has he done ? nado Petelun iman, she saw Peter ; nado ngaeapa mani, 

 she has done (it) to me. 



The examples of the use of the nominative and instrumental pro- 

 nouns collected by Macgillivray were too few to generalize upon. He 

 noted, however, that ngatu, ngidu, nudu, nadu appeared "to be used 

 only with a certain class of verbs, of which an example is afforded by 

 the sentence ' ngatu, nudu matumina = I struck him ' ; and the use of 

 the second set of these pronouns (i.e. the nominative) is illustrated by 

 ' ngainue ' (not ngatunudu) mulem, &c., =1 told him, &c.," [ii., p. 299). 

 The difficulty in Macgillivray' s examples is that both subject and 

 object have the same affix, but according to the analogy of the Gospel 

 the sentence should be ngato noino mataman, with an objective in no. 

 His second example would be ngai nubepa muliz, I told to him. In 

 many cases the ordinary form of the nominative is used instead of the 

 instrumental forms. 



