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Transcription
has a permissive as well as a causative voice, a
reciprocal as well as a reflective voice. W Threlkeld
ennumerates 15 kinds or voices of verbs (1) active transitive
(2) Active intransitive (3) Reciprocal (4) Continuative (5)
Causative by permission (6) Causative by personal agency (7) Causative
by instrumental agency (8) effective (9) neuter (10) Double on
(increasing?) (11) Privative (12) imminent (13) Inceptive (14)
Iterative (15) Spontaneous. In Kamilaroi the affix mulle
signifies to cause to do and - bille to allow to do. As Nginda
Ngunna {ngummilmulla?} = you show me, i.e. make me to see.
Kamil Yarri ngunna {bumanabilla} = Harry will not allow me to be beaten.
This marvellous flexibility of language, accompanied as
it is with great precision in the use of the
inflections, is another unquestionable relic of
antiquity. A language capable of expressing
by inflection minute shades of thought must
have been the instrument of minds endowed
with considerable acumen and power of
generalization. And as this large variety
of verbal inflections is common to all the
Australian languages which have been
examined, it affords another proof of their
original unity