28 THE POLYNESIAN WANDERINGS. 



B. 



Dr. Macdonald now plunges into the critical test, that triliteralism 

 of the root which has stamped the Semitic as a speech apart. It is 

 so vital to his contention that the thesis must be presented in his 

 own words: 



It is now to be shown that the Oceanic primitive language had, like each 

 of its sister dialects, Arabic, Assyrian, etc., its share of the common stock 

 of purely and exclusively Semitic trilateral words (nouns and verbs) with 

 the purely Semitic common method of word formation or inflection by 

 internal vowel change and external additions (prefixed, infixed, suffixed) 

 and its share also of the limited common stock of purely Semitic particles. 

 This, if it can be shown, will be admitted to be conclusive. The particles 

 will be dealt with subsequently. 



The ancient Semitic finite verb, with its perfect and imperfect, was 

 simply a verbal noun joined in a certain way with the personal pronouns, 

 and with it or from it other and numerous verbal nouns were formed by 

 vowel changes and external formative additions. The ancient finite verb 

 with its perfect and imperfect so formed is no longer found in the existing 

 broken-down Oceanic languages, though as analytic substitutes for it we 

 have as the finite verb, for instance, in Efatese "the verbal pronoun" 

 joined with these verbal nouns after the fashion of the imperfect ; as a bano 

 I (amor was) going, equal to I go (or I went), and in Malagasy the "pro- 

 nominal adjunctive" joined with these verbal nouns, after that of the 

 perfect, as tiaku, my loving, equal to I loved or I love. The verbal nouns 

 that were formed with or from that of the ancient finite verb were numerous, 

 and in them we have the ground forms of the modern Oceanic verb. * * * 



We now proceed to compare the Oceanic triliteral words with Arabic, 

 Assyrian, etc., just as, for instance, we compare, say Assyrian or Himyaritic 

 words with Arabic, Hebrew, Syriac, or Ethiopic. 



Take the simple Efate lifai, to bend round ; malibai, bent ; lofa, a thing 

 bent; lofai, to bend; malofa, bent; kalofa or kolofa, bent; lufa (Samoan 

 lavalava), a wrapper round the loins; Samoan lofa, to crouch; lofata'ina, 

 to cause to crouch; lave, lavelave (Arabic la/elafa, to wrap round, etc.), to 

 entangle; lavelavea, to be entangled; Fiji love, loved ha (Samoan lavasi), to 

 coil, to fold, to bend; kalove, bent; salove, flexible; Malay lipat, lampit, 

 lampis, lapis, a fold, to fold, to plait; Malagasy lefitra, also lufitra, folded, 

 bent, plaited; Arabic lafja, to be involved, intertwined, to wrap up, wrap 

 round (oneself, as clothing), to fold; laff, lifj, laffat, lifjat, involved, inter- 

 twined, etc. ; lofja, loffat, coil of turban, winding of road. In this example 

 the six commonest forms of the modern Oceanic verb (or noun), the ancient 

 verbal noun, are seen, viz : 



i. lave. 3. lofa, love, lufa. 5. lipat. 



2. Ufa. 4. lampit, lavasi. 6. lovedha. 



The inference is irresistible that in the Oceanic primitive or mother 

 tongue this word was triliteral, and had the vowel changes peculiar to the 

 Semitic languages most fully preserved in the ancient Arabic ; and that as 

 a triliteral word with the middle radical doubled it underwent the usual 

 contractions, set forth in all Semitic grammars, of such words, as is plainly 

 seen by comparing it with the Arabic. These forms, originally verbal 

 nouns and still often used as such, formed from the ancient finite verb, 

 as lipat, a fold, lofa, a thing bent or bending, have become ground forms 



