(Note that this paradigm needs some work). The verb phrase consists of a tense auxiliary1 followed by a modal auxiliary2 and the main verb3. The auxiliary verbs are derived from Kriol and the main verb can come from either Gurindji or Kriol: "His mother had to get him." Gurindji Kriol distinguishes between past (bin) and present tense (zero-marked for nouns, "-m" for pronouns) and marks future time using a potential marker (garra) which is also used to express obligation. Many of the auxiliaries also have reduced forms which attach to subject pronouns, such as "ai-rra" > "ai garra" 'I will'. Bound verbal morphology is also predominantly Kriol-derived. "Verbless clauses:"  Ascriptive clauses consist of a subject noun and nominalised adjective. "Poor thing, that child is only a baby." Existential clauses contain a subject with locative phrase. "The dog is underneath the chair." Possessive constructions consist of a nominal acting as a predicates, taking another nominal argument. In these clauses the head is marked dative. Inalienable nominals (body parts and kinship) are only optionally marked dative. "Hey you broke the frog's home (the bottle)." "Verbal clauses:"  Intransitive clauses consist of a verb and a subject with no object. Adjuncts may be added to express the location or time of an action. "A dog sleeps outside the shop." Transitive clauses consist of an optionally-ergative marked subject (66.5%) and an absolutive object. Word order is predominately SVO (87.6%) and the ergative marker is more likely to appear when the agent nominal is postverbal. "And the kangaroo he hit with a boomerang, the child did." Semi-transitive clauses are composed of an optionally-ergative marked subject and a dative object. "Another woman calls out to her child." Ditransitive clauses consist of an accusative object and dative indirect object, and alternate with a clause with two accusative objects. "The boy gives the man a cigarette." Passive clauses consist of an auxiliary verb git (< get) and the loss of the transitive marker from the main verb. The agent also loses ergative case marking as an adjunct and acquires ablative case instead. "The man got bitten by a dog on the hand."