are some prepositional phrases. Negatives come at the ends of the clauses they negate. There is also a class of deverbal resultatives that follow the main verb (and its object, if any). 'The two of them killed a pig.' 'My cross-cousin doesn't understand Numbami.' 'We (excl.) put the food we've pared into the pot.' Possessive vs. attributive genitives Two kinds of genitive modifiers precede their heads while one type follows its head noun (Bradshaw 1982a). Whole-part genitives Noun-noun phrases denoting wholes and parts occur in the order stated, with the latter serving as head of the phrase: wuwu lau 'betel pepper leaf', tina daba 'headwater', nima daba (lit. 'hand head') 'thumb', kapala lalo (lit. 'house inside') 'indoors', Buzina bubusu 'Buzina (Salamaua) point'. Possessive genitives Genitive possessor nouns precede their head nouns, with an intervening possessive marker that distinguishes singular (na) from plural (ndi) possessors: wuwu na lau 'the leaves of the (generic) betel pepper plant; particular betel pepper plant's leaf'; kapala na lalo 'the insides of (generic) houses; the inside of a particular house'; Siasi ndi gutu 'the Siassi Islands; islands belonging to a particular group of Siassi people'; bumewe ndi bani 'food typically eaten by whites; food belonging to a particular group of whites'. Attributive genitives Attributive genitives resemble possessive genitives except that (1) the modifiers follow their heads, and (2) the "possessors" are nonreferential except in a generic sense, that is, they "never refer to a particular subset of the set they name" (Bradshaw 1982a:128): wuwu weni na 'forest (wild) betel pepper', wuwu Buzina ndi 'type of betel pepper associated with the Buzina people at Salamaua', walabeŋa tamtamoŋa na 'fish poison, native means of stunning fish', walabeŋa bumewe na 'explosives, European means of stunning fish'. Verb serialization Verb serialization is very common in Numbami. Within a serial verb construction, all verbs must agree in tense. Subject choice in successive verbs is severely constrained. Noninitial subjects can only refer to preceding subjects, preceding objects, or preceding events or conditions, and only in that order (Bradshaw 1993). Negatives come at the ends of the clauses they negate. 'Okay, we come back down carrying food.' 'Don't you turn around and talk to me.' 'They'll put dry fronds on top of the sago starch.' 'And you'll set it afire.' 'I saw you first.' 'Nowadays, we two don't see each other very regularly.' External links Numbami (Siboma) Wordlist at the Austronesian Basic Vocabulary