Gender.—Baual, a man; bullan, a woman. Words for “male” and “female” distinguish the gender of animals, as, gurabun muddun, a bear, male; gurabun dhuruk, a bear, female.
Case.—The principal cases are the nominative, causative, instrumental, genitive, accusative, dative and ablative.
The nominative is the name of the sbuject at rest, and is without flexion.
The causative, or nominative-agent, represents the subject in action, as, bullanga gudha ngubumuiñ, a woman a child beat.
Instrumental.—Baualga burraingu nguburiñ dyuiñga, a man a wallaby killed with a spear. Here the instrument, a spear, takes the same suffix as the causative. The wallaby, burrai, takes the genitive affix, as being the possessor or recipient of the killing.
Accusative.—Except in such instances as the wallaby in the last example, the accusative is the same as the nominative.
The genitive case is represented by an affix to the name of the property as well as to that of the owner, a peculiarity which I was the first to report[15] in Australian languages. Baualngu mirriwung, a man’s dog.
Every object over which ownership may be exercised can be declined for
number and person, as under:—
Singular 1st Person My dog (dog my) Mirridya.
2nd „ Thy dog Mirridyi.
3rd „ His dog MIrriwung.
and so on through all the persons of the dual and plural.
If a couple or more articles be claimed, an infix is inserted between the noun root and the possessive affix, thus: Mirribuladya, dogs both mine; mirridyimmadya, dogs several mine.
Dative.—Ngurani munnagai, to the camp come.