Eay & Haddon — The Languages of Torres Straits — II. 159 



2. The salutations are: lawa ! good-bye! farewell! Sangopa! 

 good morning! The latter is perhaps a corruption of the Samoan 

 alofa. 



Similar expressions are : Kami ! (m) homi ! (n) my dear ! I 



say! look here ! (said by a female to a male). Kawhi! (m) Tcilci! (n) 



with the same meaning are said by a male to a female. Beagi! (m) 



a call to a blind person. Maige ! (m) maigi ! (s. b) wan-nur ! (m) 



don't ! 8ina ! china ! (m) stop ! enough ! Tuma ! (b) wait a bit !. 



Aie! come! 



3. The vocatives ama ! and lala ! have been noticed in the section 



on nouns. 



§ X. — Syntax. 



The following are the chief syntactical rules : — 



1. The Subject precedes the verb. Goiga puti%6, the sun sets. 



2. The Direct Object follows the subject and precedes the verb. 

 Tana arahato putran, they cut a hole. 



3. The Indirect Object often follows the verb. lesu iamuUz 

 tanamulpa. 



4. Adjectives and possessives precede the noun. Kain dumawaJcu, 

 new garment ; ngau Jca%i, my son ; lagou hala, house's back ; nginu 

 watri paiva, thy evil deeds. 



5. The adverb precedes the verb. lesu mamu iman, Jesus carefully 

 looked ; tana muasin putra, after they had cut. 



6. Government of Verbs. — There is a great variety in the cases 

 used with verbs, depending apparently upon the nature of the action 

 expressed by the verb. An examination of the commonest words in 

 the Gospel show them governing cases as follows : — 



{a) With accusative or no case ending, when the verb expresses 

 the direct action of one thing upon another. Examples — ^baptise, 

 behold, cast out, cleanse, confess, cut, do, drink, eat, forgive, make, 

 pour, preach, prepare, send, take. 



(h) With dative when action of one thing influences or is directed 

 towards another. Examples — ask, believe, betray, blaspheme, call, 

 come to, convulse, fear (for), give, have dealings with, inform, kneel 

 to, know, lead, minister to, pity, punish, rebuke, say, see, seek, send, 

 show, teach, tell, tempt, testify, throng, watch. 



(c) "With ablative when the action arises from the influence of 

 another. Examples — fear (arising from something), issue. 



