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2.2 Singular, plural, subjects, objects, and more
Every language has its own way of organising its words and sentences, and to understand how words work, it helps to understand how the language organises itself. For example, one
way that English organises itself is in terms of singular and plural. You need to pay attention to singular and plural in English when you choose whether to use the word dog or dogs.
This section talks a little more about the organisation of Ganggalida. It introduces some important ideas, and ways to discuss them.
The idea of Number The term Number is used to talk about ideas like Singular and Plural. In Ganggalida, Number
is a little more complex than in English. In Ganggalida, one thing is Singular, two things are Dual and three or more things are Plural. Sometimes, it will also be useful to talk about
Non‐singular, which is two or more. A summary is in Table 16.
Abbreviation One person or thing
Singular sg
Two people or things Dual du
More than two Plural
pl More than one
Non‐singular nonsg Table 16. Number in Ganggalida
The idea of Person When we speak, we can talk about ourselves, or about the person we’re speaking to, or
about other people or things. The idea of Person is concerned with these choices, and you can see a summary in Table 17.
Abbreviation Me
First Person 1
Me and you First Person Inclusive 1inc
Me and someone else First Person Exclusive 1exc
You Second Person
2 Anyone else or anything else Third Person
3 Table 17. Person in Ganggalida
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First Person is when you mention yourself, for example in English, it’s when you use the words I or me. Second Person is when you mention the person you’re speaking to. In English,
it’s when you use the word you. Third Person is when you mention anyone or anything else. There is one more issue: in English, the word us can mean ‘me and you’ or ‘me and someone
else’. In Ganggalida, those two meanings are kept distinct. The meaning ‘me and you’ is called First Person Inclusive. The meaning ‘me and someone else’ is First Person Exclusive.
The idea of Subjects, Objects and Goals The Subject of a sentence is the one who is doing the action. The Object of a sentence is the
one who is having the action done to them. In Ganggalida, some sentences have a person or thing which we can call the Goal. One kind of Goal is someone who receives something, or
who benefits for the action. You can find out more about Goals in sections 3.5 and 3.6. The idea of Transitivity
Subjects, Objects and Goals influence how Ganggalida words are put together. An important idea related to them is Transitivity. Sentences that have a Subject and no Object, like the
man sleeps are called Intransitive sentences. Sentences that have a Subject and an Object, like the goanna eats the crab, are called Transitive sentences. In addition to Intransitive and
Transitive sentences, Ganggalida also has Semi‐transitive sentences, which have a Subject and a Goal. A summary is shown in Table 18. To learn more about when a sentence has an
Object and when it has a Goal, see section 3.5.
Transitive sentence Subject Object
Semi‐transitive sentence Subject Goal Intransitive sentence
Subject Table 18. Basic sentence types in Ganggalida
2.3 Stems and endings for pronouns
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