Karri-borlbme Kun-wok

ngabebme

ngabebme

Listen Yi-biddjuyme (Click play)

English Translation
(Kun-balandaken)
I arrive, I appear, I come out
Pronunciation
(Bale ka-yime karri-ngeybun?)

nga-bep-meh
IPA [ŋaˈbɛpmɛ]
The first b sounds like b, the second at the end of the syllable is unvoiced and therefore sounds like p. To hear the audio, follow the links:
http://words.bininjgunwok.org.au/words

Morphology
(Karri-wokdjobdjobke)

nga- is the first person singular prefix 'I' that goes on verbs.
-bebme is the non-past form of the verb. That means that this form is for the present or future tense. In the past tense it would be ngabebmeng (nga-bebme-ng) 'I arrived/I came out'.

Notes
(Njalenjale)

It's the same spelling in this case in both Kunwinjku and Gundjeihmi 'ngabebmeng' although in Gundjeihmi there is a variant pronunciation of nga- and a-
abebme or ngabebme.
Again, any other pronoun prefix is possible (hyphens show word part breaks):
yi-bebme 'you appear'
ka-bebme (W) ga-bebme (Gdj) 'she/he appears'
kabirri-bebme (W) gabarri-bebme (Gdj)
kabene-bebme (W) gabani-bebme (Gdj)
ngune-bebme
karri-bebme (W) garri-bebme (Gdj) and so on (look up the meanings of these various prefixes on the blog post about verb prefixes).

Usage
(Bale kabirri-yime?)

Balekeno kabirribebme? (W)
When are they arriving?

Yibebmen! (W or Gdj)
(you singular) Go outside!

Ngurribebmen! (W or Gdj)
You (3+ people) go outside!

Yimbebmen!
Come outside (here)!

Arriwarrmi ngarridjoukgeyi wanjh arribebmi, arrirei Pine Creek. (Gdj)
We swam across (the river) and then we arrived and used to travel on to Pine Creek.

In the above example -bebmi is the past imperfective tense 'what used to happen in the past'.

Date
(Balekeno)
28 Nov 2012