Verbs

Verbs
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The verbs have number, person, tense and everyday mood. Like the pronouns, they have inclusive and exclusive endings to express the dual or the plural in the first person.

Each tense has its own special ending, such as: gumurra, guma, gumullaga, the present, past and future of the verb ‘to hit’. A contraction of the pronoun is added to the root of the verb to point out the number and the person.

Here, for example, is a summary of the conjugation of the verb gumulli ‘to hit’.

Present indicative

	1^st person	I hit	Gumurra-dhu
Singular	2^nd person	you hit	Gumurra-ndu
	3^rd person	he hits	Gumurra-lu

	1^st person	we (incl) hit	Gumurra-li
Dual	1^st person	we (excl) hit	Gumurra-lina
	2^nd person	you hit	Gumurra-ndula
	3^rd person	they hit	Gumurra-lula

	1^st person	we (incl) hit	Gumurra-ne
Plural	1^st person	we (excl) hit	Gumurra-ninna
	2^nd person	you hit	Gumurra-ndugal
	3^rd person	they hit	Gumurra-lugal

The past and future forms of verbs have endings that vary according to whether the action was of longer or shorter duration. These different endings stay the same for all persons, whether in the singular, dual or plural. By adding the necessary pronominal suffix, the verb acquires a special ending for each person and each number of all the tenses, as shown by the conjugation of the indicative present given above. I will therefore give examples only of the first person singular, past and future.

Past

	I hit, indeterminate	Gume gadhu
Singular	I hit, this morning	Gume ngurranyedhu
	I hit, yesterday	Gume gumbirradhu
	I hit, a long time ago	Gume ngargambodhu

Future

	I will hit, straight away	Gumulla-galladhu
Singular	I will hit, indeterminate	Gumulla-gadhu
	I will hit, tomorrow	Gumulngurriagadhu
	I will hit, soon	Gumullagawandugagadhu

Imperative

Singular:	Gumullagu,	hit someone
Dual:	Gumullagulla	hit two people
Plural:	Gumullagugal	hit everyone

Conditional

Gumullagayadhu, perhaps I will hit

Reflexive mood

The reflexive form of the verb describes the action that a subject performs directly on himself:

Present:	I hit myself	Gumadyillingadhu
Past:	I hit myself	Gumadyillingedhu
Future:	I will hit myself	Gumadyillingadhu

Reciprocal mood

This modification of the verb applies to cases where two or more people hit each other and, as a consequence, is limited to the dual and the plural.

Dual:	We (incl) hit each other	Gumullanullali
Plural:	We (incl) hit each other	Gumullamillane

It is understood that in all examples given, the other numbers, persons and tenses are subject to the same inflections.

The passive has no special form. As such, the sentence ‘a dog was bitten by a snake’ is expressed by ‘a snake bit a dog’.

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