Ray & Haddon — The Languages of Torres Straits — II. 137 



names. This agrees witli the accusative suffix in the pronouns ngona, 

 ngino, noino. There seems, however, to be some confusion between 

 the nominative and accusative. 



Example 1 : Withoxit suffix : — Noi purutan puhato, he eat locusts ; 

 tana iadupalgan tanamim watri pawa^ they declared their bad deeds ; 

 nginu doham mani, take thy bed. 



Example 2 : With suffix : — JVado Petelun iman, she saw Peter ; 

 Ta7ia lesimd gasammi, they took Jesus ; gouguan mani, bring medicine ; 

 danal patamoiziu ita minarpolai malaegan, watch the scribes; hulun 

 tariz, to kneel [kulu, knee). 



(c) Genitive or Possessive. 



This is shown by the suffi:ses u or w, ne. 



Example in u : — Koziu tati, the child's father ;pudau kuta, a reed's 

 point ; ludaialaigau huiTculunga, Jew's King ; mahaegau iautumoizingay 

 man's commandments ; alasiu ter, salt's flavour. 



n : — Augadan haselaia, God's kingdom ; Mosen tusi, Moses' book ; 

 Simonane lago^ Simon's house ; gigino Tcazi, thunder's child ; asinan 

 kazi, asses' child (foal) ; Simonan ipiu apu, Simon's wife's mother. 



There seems to be no distinction between u and n. It is indiffe- 

 rently augadau or augadan, asinau or asinan. There is a peculiar use of 

 the genitive to denote " son of," e.g. lahohou Alefaio, James son of 

 Alpheus ; laholou Zeledaio. This is evidently not a Saibai idiom, and 

 is due to the translator's imitation of the Lifu lahoho i Alefaio, 

 lakoho i Zebedaio, in which i is the genitive preposition. The 

 meaning has, however, been curiously reversed, the Saibai being 

 " Alphseus of James" and the Lifu "James of Alpheus." 



{d) Dative. 



The dative denoting motion to, or purpose for which a thing is 

 intended, is shown by the suffix pa. It may be compared with the 

 directive ngapa and the verbal prefix pa. 



Example : mahaegopa, to a man ; padapa, to a hill ; daparpa, to the 

 sky ; muiapa, into the fia'e ; wara mahaegopa mulaigi, don't tell (to) 

 any man. 



In names of persons I is usually inserted between the name and the 

 suffix, Cf. I in the pronominal suffix mulpa. 



Example : Simonalpa, to Simon ; lesulpa, to Jesus. 



With names of places, the suffix is used, Galilaiapa, to Galilee j 



