Pronouns

Pronouns
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Pronouns have person, number and case, but not gender. There are two forms in the first person of the dual and the plural, for the purpose of expressing the inclusion or exclusion of the person addressed.

Here is a list of the nominative, possessive and objective pronouns:

Singular

1^st pers.:	I	Ngadhu	my	Ngaddhi	me	Dhi
2^nd pers.:	you	Ngindu	your	Nginya	you	Nu
3^rd pers.:	he	Ngillu	his	Ngigula	him	Lugu

Dual

1^st pers.:	we incl	Ngullu	our incl	Ngulligi	to us, incl	Ligi
	— excl	Ngullina	— excl	Ngullingina	— excl	Ligina
2^nd pers.:	you	Ngindiwulu	your	Nginyanula	to you	Nula
3^rd pers.:	they	Ngillibula	his	Ngigulagu	to them	Lugula

Plural

1^st pers.:	we incl	Ngeane	our incl	Ngeanigi	to us, incl	Ngenaga
	— excl	Ngeaninna	— excl	Ngeanigina	— excl	Ngenagina
2^nd pers.:	you	Ngindugal	your	Nginyuga	to you	Nugal
3^rd pers.:	they	Ngillugula	his	Nguggagala	to them	Lugugal

The compound forms of the pronouns are used above all as answers to a question. For example: ‘Who is sitting over there?’ can provoke the reply, ‘Ngulligina’; and to the question, ‘Who is it?’ one can answer, ‘Ngeanigina’. In everyday language, however, the natives prefer to use contractions, shown in the paragraph headed ‘Verbs’.

There are also forms of objective pronouns which signify ‘towards me’, ‘from me’, ‘with me’, etc.

Interrogative pronouns — Who, ngandi? Who (did it), nganduwa? For whom, ngangu? What, minyang? Why, minyangu?

Demonstratives — This, nginya. That, ngunna. These are put after the nouns and are declined in their numbers, doubles and multiples.

Particular words are used to indicate the relative position of the object from the person who is speaking, while other particular words indicate this position in relation to the person being spoken to.

Often the third-person pronouns are used as demonstratives. Hence the great number and irregularity of these pronouns in the Australian languages.

The demonstrative pronouns also often acquire the sense of the definite article, as for example: Kuragai nginya, which can mean either ‘this possum’ or ‘the possum’ according to the text. The adverbs ‘here’ and ‘there’ are generally identical to ‘this one’ and ‘that one’ and have on occasions the same sense as the definite article.

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