2Q4 MAN : PAST AND PRESENT. [CHAP. 



they must conform in the same way. With nominal roots the 

 postfixes are necessarily limited to the expression of a few 

 simple relations ; but with verbal roots they are in principle 

 unlimited, so that the multifarious relations of the verb to its 

 subject and object are all incorporated in the verbal compound 

 itself, which may thus run at times to inordinate lengths. Hence 

 we have the expression "incorporating," commonly applied to this 

 agglutinating system, which sometimes goes so far as to embody 

 the notions of causality, possibility, passivity, negation, intensity, 

 condition, and so on, besides the direct pronominal objects, in 

 one interminable conglomerate, which is then treated as a simple 

 verb, and run through all the secondary changes of number, 

 person, tense, and mood. The result is an endless number of 

 theoretically possible verbal forms, which, although in practice 

 naturally limited to the ordinary requirements of speech, are far 

 too numerous to allow of a complete verbal paradigm being 

 constructed of any fully developed member of the Ural-Altaic 

 group, such, for instance, as Yakut, Tungus, Turki, Mordvinian, 

 Finnish, or Magyar. 



In this system the vowels are classed as strong or hard (a, o, u\ 

 weak or soft (the same unlimited : a, <>', //), and neutral (generally 

 e, /), these last being so called because they occur indifferently 

 with the two other classes. Thus, if the determining root vowel 

 is a (strong), that of the postfixes may be either a (strong), e or / 

 (neutral); if a (weak), that of the postfixes may be either a (weak), 

 or e or z as before. The postfixes themselves no doubt were 

 originally notional terms worn down in form and meaning, so as to 

 express mere abstract relation, as in the Magyar vel -- with, from 

 veli companion. Tacked on to the root fa = tree, this will give 

 the ablative case, first unharmonised: fa-rel ; then harmonised: 

 fa-val = tree-with, with a tree. In the early Magyar texts of the 

 1 2th century inharmonic compounds, such as haldl-nek, later 

 haldl-nak at death, are numerous, from which it has been inferred 

 that the principle of vowel harmony is not an original feature of 

 the Ural-Altaic languages, but a later development, due in fact to 

 phonetic decay, and still scarcely known in some members of the 

 group, such as Votyak and Highland Cheremissian (Volga Finn). 

 But M. Lucien Adam holds that these idioms have lost the principle 



