Gender. — In the human family sex is denoted by differ- 

 ent words, as, guri, a man ; gulban, a woman ; guraman, 

 a boy ; thukalbang or muna, a girl ; clhulle, a child of 

 either sex. Among animals, gender is distinguished by 

 words meaning "male" and "female," placed after the 

 name of the creature, as, wille yimbukai, a male opossum; 

 wille nyukabang, a female opossum. 



The principal cases are the nominative, causative, instru- 

 mental, genitive, accusative, dative and ablative. 



Nominative. — This case merely names the subject, and 

 is without flexion, as, mirri, a dog; burragan, a boomerang; 

 yarre, a native bear. It is also used with an intransitive 

 verb, as, guri nyinne, a man sits. 



Causative. — When a transitive verb is used the noun takes 

 a suffix, as, guri-nga burragan guru, a man a boomerang 

 threw. Mirri-nga wille-nga baiin, a dog an opossum bit. 

 Gulban-nga dhulle-nga bunyun,a woman a child beat (or hit). 



Instrumental. — This case is the same as the causative, 

 as, gulban-nga mirri bunyun gunni-nga, a woman beat a 

 dog with a yamstick. 



Genitive. — Guri-gudhun burragan, a man's boomerang. 

 Gulban-gudhun gunni, a woman's yamstick. 



Accusative. — Frequently there is an inflexion like the 

 causative, as, Guri-nga yarre-nga bunyun, a man a bear hit. 

 It is generally the same as the nominative when followed 

 by the instrumental case, as illustrated above. 



The dative and ablative cases also have distinguishing 

 postfixes, as, nguragu yung, to the camp go. 



Adjectives. 

 Adjectives are placed after the nouns they qualify, and 

 are similarly declined for number and case. They are com- 

 pared by making two positive statements, as, this is good 

 — that is bad. 



