Guugu Yimithirr Lesson 6
Nouns and noun-like words
In Guugu Yimithirr there are two large groups of words. One is verbs, or action words. The other large group nouns and noun-like words.
These words have one thing in common: their endings or form informs us about their place in the sentence.
Let’s look at a few examples. We have learned the sentence
Yarrgangun yarraman thabi. – “The boy kicked the horse.”
In Guugu Yimithirr there is an ending that shows us who the doer is: –ngun.
Here’s another example:
Nambal Johnnywi wuwaa! – “Give the money to Johnny!” or “Give Johnny the money!”
The ending –wi tells us that Johnny’s place in the sentence is to be the recipient. We have no such ending in English. In English we use the preposition “to”, a “helper word” instead of an ending, or we show that Johnny is the recipient through word order: the recipient comes before the gift in the sentence.
This is so important in Guugu Yimithirr so we’re going to remember the linguistic word for it: case. Case is the most important thing in Guugu Yimithirr nouns and noun-like words.
The other noun-like group of words we’ve studied is personal pronouns. We’ve learned:
ngayu – “I”
ngathu – “my”
nhundu – “you” (one person)
nhanu – “your” (one person)
Personal pronouns has a form for ownership. It’s not an ending like –wi/-bi in nouns; ngayu is irregularly changed to ngathu in the ownership case. But the main point is that personal pronouns have different forms depending on the place of the word in the sentence. They have that in common with nouns.
In English the word “I” has a special irregular form for ownership: “my”. Personal pronouns are the only words that have anything resembling case in English. In Guugu Yimithirr on the other hand, nouns and noun-like words have many different cases.
Absolutive case
The basic noun with no visible ending is also a case in Guugu Yimithirr. That case is called absolutive.
We recall that yarrga means “boy”. Here is yarrga in the cases we’ve studied:
- Form
- Yarrga
- Yarrgangun
- Yarrgawi
- Case
- Absolutive (basic case)
- Ergative (doer case)
- Dative (recipient case)
or
Genitive (owner case)
We’re not trying to memorise the names of the cases in the table now, but we show the table as an introduction to the rich topic of case in Guugu Yimithirr.
More personal pronouns
Let’s continue to learn words that enable us to talk in the home. We’ve learned words for “I” and “you” (one person). We’ll no learn words for “we” and “our”.
Guugu Yimithirr has different words for
we (two people)
we (three or more people)
ngali – “we” (two people)
ngaliin – “our” (two people)
nganhthaan – “we” (three or more people)
Video soon.
nganhthanun – “our” (three or more people)
Video soon.
We’ll finish of by learning some useful words:
buurraay – “water”
yugu – “tree, wood”
With our new words we can say many more sentences, such as:
Ngali Bama. – “We are Bama.” (two people)
Nganhthaan Bama. – “We are Bama.” (three or more people)
Yiyi buurraay. – “This is water.”
Nhayun yugu.– “That’s a tree.”
Nhayun nganhthanun muurruga. “That’s our car.” (more than two people, the whole family’s car)
SUMMARY OF LESSON 6
We learn about noun like words and learn more words for conversation.
WORDS IN LESSON 6
ngali – “we” (two people)
ngaliin – “our” (two people)
nganhthaan – “we” (three or more people)
nganhthanun – “our” (three or more people)
buurraay – “water”
yugu – “tree, wood”
GRAMMAR FACTS IN LESSON 6
Nouns and some other groups of words have many things in common. One noun-like group of words is personal pronouns.
Nouns and personal pronouns have case. This is one of the linguistic words that is really useful to know.
The case of a words tells us what the place of the word is in the sentence.
TEST YOURSELF
Now go to the Quizlet web site to practice what you learned in this lesson:
