n - University of Newcastle

liv IKTBODCCTION.
2. Nevertheless, several dialects have forms which shom the
agglutinative xords on the way to become inflexional. In the
dialect of Western Australia, . the woman's staff ' is yago-li k
wanna, in which the -ik has lost its independence, and is as
much a case-ending as the a, i, or is of the Latin genitive. So also
in Awabakal ; the -6mba of kokara emo fim ba, ' my house,'
may be regarded as inflexional ; for, although the -ba can be de-
tached and used as a separate word, not so the -dm. I believe
the -6nlba to be a weathering for gu-mba, the gu being s
dialect form of the post-position ko, as in Wiradhari; yet the
-6 cannot stand alone ; the 91% belongs to the ba.
3. As to the Cases of nouns and pronouns, they nre shown by
separable post-positions which are thenlselves nuuna, adjectives,
or verbs. The post-position birung, for example, meaning 'away
from,' is an adjective in the Wiradhari dialect, and means 'far
distant,' while birandi, another form from the same root, is the
post-position, 'from.' The other post-positions in the paradigm
on page 16 are all taken from the monosyllabl~s ka and ko.
Of these, I take Iro to be a root-verb, implying ' motior to,' and
lia another, meaning 'to be ' in a certain state or place ; but of
their origin I can give no account, unless ka be related to the
Draridian rerb Agu, already noticed, and ko be a modifiedform
of ka. These tn-o roots, rariously combined, become the post-
positions k ai, kin-ko, ka-ko, kin-ba, ka-b a, ka-birung, kin-
birung on page 16 ; by the influence of the final consonant of
the words to which they are joined, the initial k of these becomes
t, Z, or 9-.
A similar account of the post-positions in the Karrinybri, the
Diybri, and other distant dialects could, no doubt, be given, but
from the ~cantiness of our k~olvledge, that is at present im-
possible.
4. As to the Gender of nouns, that is either implied in the
meaning of the word or to he guessed from the context. In
Fijian, a word is added to mark the gender ; for example, gone
is ' child,' and, from it, a gone tagane is ' a boy,' but a gone
alema is 'a girl.' The Samoans say uli po'a and uli f afine
to mean a ' male dog' and a 'female dog,' and the Ebudans
something similar. Our Australians have no such devices, but
they hare some words in which the gender is clearly distinguished
by an ending added on, or by a chauge of the vorrel sound of the
finalsyllableoftheword. Thelllostcommonfeminine suffix is -gun;
as, mobi, 'a blind man,' mobi-gun, 'a blind woman'; yinril, 'a
son,' yinal-kun, ' a daughter'; another suffix is -in ; as, Awaba-
lral, 'a man of Awaba,' Awab a-kal-in, 'a moman of Amaba '; ma-
k oro-ban, In akor o-bin, 'a fisher-man,' 'a fisher-woman,' shom a
change in the vowel sound. I think that, in proportion to the
extent of the language, instances of this kind-the expression of
INTRODCCTION. lv
gender by change of termination-are quite as common in
Australian as they are in English. To this extent, therefore, the
Australian dialects are sex-denoting.
The -ban in n~akoro-ban seems to be a masculine suffix ; in
the Minyung dialect, yerrubil is 'a song,' yerrubil-gin, 'a
sin~er,' md y err u b i 1-gin-g u n is a 'songstress.' The Wjradhari
-daln in birbal-dain, 'a baker,' from birblira, ' to bake,'and
in many other words, is also R masculine termination.
5. As to LVu~~zber of nouns and pronouns, the same word, and
the same form of it, does duty both as singular and plural ; the
context shows which is mcant ; e.g., k u ri is ' a (native) man,' but
kfiri is also 'men'; if the speaker wishes to gay, 'a man came
home,' that ~oulcl be walidl kriri, 'one man '-the numeral
UP Saxon ' an,' ' ane '-but
woman' (page 49 of Appendix), is
ion aclded 0% to form the plural uf a
m much akin our Australian language
ian and other branches of the Turaniall family.
in as a plural euding, and to that affixes the
case which are used for the singular number. As
I cite the Turallian of Hungary; there, ur is ' master,'
my ' master,' ur-aim, ' my masters,' ur-am-nak,
ter,' ur-aim-nak, 'to my masters.' The Dravidian
general, post-fixed possessives, but our I'u'arrinyeri
hem, and they are quite common in the Papuau and
guages. In Fijian, the possessives, with nouns of
or members of the body or parts of a thing, are
. And in Dravidian, when a noun denotes a
inal termination is suffixed.