1885.1 04\) [Brinton. 



The conjugation of this language, therefore, consists of elements not 

 readily analyzed. 



The Huasteca language prefixes the possessive pronouns as personal 

 signs. It may also drop them, and use in their stead tlie independent 

 pronouns ; or may combine both ; or may use abbreviated personals ; 

 so that there is a prevailing arbitrariness in this part of the verbal form. 



The tense signs are usually suffixes ; but in the future they are pre- 

 fixes, w^hich are incorporated with the personal sign placed between 

 them and the stem. They consist of simple sounds, of no independent 

 signification. But the particles of the imperative are so separable that 

 when this mode is preceded by an adverb, they attach themselves to it. 



The Othomi language does not make use of the possessive pronouns 

 in the conjugation, but suffixes abbreviated forms of the personals, or 

 else prefixes others of special form, but identical in many letters and 

 syllables with the personals. In tlie present condition of the language 

 the suffixes are used only with the substantive verb ; in the attributive 

 verb, however, they may have been driven forward by the governed 

 pronouns suffixed. Every verbal inflection may also take, besides its 

 pronominal prefix, also the unabreviated personal pronoun m front, or 

 the abbreviated one after it. 



The tense signs consist principally of single vowels, by means of 

 which the pronominal prefixes are attached to the stem. The imperfect 

 and pluperfect alone have besides this a loosely attached particle. The 

 past tenses possess a prefix, which we have already seen appears to have 

 been derived from an auxiliary verb. 



In the third person of some tenses in certain verbs the stem under- 

 goes a change of its initial letters, which appears to transform these in- 

 flections into verbal adjectives, an instance of the confusion of the ideas 

 of noun and verb common in all these languages. 



The Mexican language possesses a peculiar class of verbal pronouns 

 which form the personal signs. Tliis pronoun is similar to the personal 

 in its consonants, but has a vowel of its own. It is a prefix. The plural 

 is marked by the accent, or by a special termination. This personal 

 sign is inseparable from the verb, but the speaker may also prefix the 

 independent personal pronoun. 



The tense signs are all without signification, being single letters or 

 syllables. The perfect is marked not so much by an affix, as by changing, 

 the termination of the verb in various ways, but chiefly by shortening 

 and strengthening the sound. All tense designations are placed at the 

 end of the word, except the augment for past time. If by augment we 

 mean a vowel sound prefixed to the verb in certain tenses in addition to 

 their usual signs, then the Mexican is the only American language 

 which possesses one. 



The modes are designated by loosely attached particles, also by a dif- 

 ferent structure of the tenses, and in the second person a peculiar pro- 

 noun. 



