Brinton.J O'i.b [March 20, 



In the language of the Mocobis the personal signs consist merely in 

 letters, prefixed and suffixed, and have no apparent relationship to the 

 pronouns. By affixing these letters, phonetic changes take place so 

 that the stem is combined with them into one form. 



Among the tense signs, a prefixed I indicates a past time, a suffixed o, 

 the future ; but the others are independent particles, loosely attached 

 to the stem. 



I have already shown how the Mbaya language conjugates adjec- 

 tives with the independent pronoun, and participles with the possessive 

 pronoun. The signs used in the conjugation proper of the attributive 

 verb, do not appear elsewhere in the tongue, and must have descended 

 from an older period of its existence. 



In the tense and mode signs it is easily perceived how descriptive 

 phrases pass into true forms. For the imperfect and pluperfect the 

 speaker can choose among a number of particles, all of which indicate 

 past time. The modes have definite signs, but these are merely 

 appended, and some have separate significations. The future and per- 

 fect have not merely fixed particles, but these are worn down to one 

 letter, so that the stem is actually incorporated with them. 



2. In the languages heretofore considered the personal signs added 

 to the word make up the conjugation, and the other signs are attached 

 loosely and externally. The reverse of this, thougli not perfectly so, 

 appears in the Lule language. Tlie tense and mode signs, often of but 

 one letter, are immediately and firmly attached to the stem, and the 

 pronouns are affixed to this to complete the conjugation. These pro- 

 nouns are, however, the ordinary possessives, so that noun and verb 

 become in a measure identical; thus, came means both "I eat "and 

 "my food;" cumuee, "I marry" and "my wife;" only in a few ex- 

 amples are the verbal pronouns distinct from the possessives. 



In tills case, therefore, the personal signs are independent elements, 

 occurring elsewhere in the language, while the tense and mode signs 

 are true affixes. 



The inflection-syllables form with the stem real verbal forms, and so 

 far the conjugation of tliis language belongs to the third case. But 

 each of the elements has its fixed position, and as soon as one has the 

 key to the combination, he can recognize and separate them at once. 



Keasons which it would require too much space to set fortli render it 

 probable that .all the tense signs are really auxiliary verbs or come fiom 

 them. This is evident of the optative, as has already been shown. The 

 present only is simple, as it has no tense sign. 



Slight differences are found between the personal signs of some 

 tenses, so that these tenses can be distinguished by them, a trait usually 

 seen only in tongues so far cultivated that the grammatical forms have 

 undergone such changes as no longer to present simple and uniform 

 combinations. Equally curious is the regular omission of the tense 

 sign of past time in the third person plural only. Although, except in 



