Brinton.] o4 i 0ct 2> 



But in the modern tongue it is : 

 boia o-sou ae. 

 snake he-bites him. 

 With the other persons the rule is still for the object to pre- 

 cede and to he attached to tbe theme : 

 xeoroinca, I thee kill. 

 xepeinca, I you* kill. 

 xeincayepe, me killest thou. 

 Many highly complex verbal forms seem to me to illustrate a 

 close incorporative tendency. Let us analyze lor instance the 



word, 



xeremimboe, 



which means " him whom I teach " or " that which I teach." 

 Its theme is the verbal mboe, which in the extract I have above 

 made from Montoya is shown to be a synthesis of the three ele- 

 mentary particles Tie, mo, and e ; xe is the possessive form of 

 the personal pronoun, "my "; it is followed by the participial 

 expression temi or tembi, which, according to Montoya, is equiva- 

 lent to " illud quod facio ;" its terminal vowel is syncopated with 

 the relative y or i, "him, it"; so the separate parts of the ex- 

 pression are : — 



xe + tembi + y + Tie + mo + e. 

 I will not pursue the examination of the Tupi further. It 

 were, of course, easy to multiply examples. But I am willing 

 to leave the case as it stands, and to ask linguists whether, in 

 view of the above, it was not a premature judgment that pro- 

 nounced it a tongue neither polysynthetic nor incorporative. 



The Mirfsun. 

 This is also one of the languages which has been announced 

 as " neither polysynthetic nor incorporative," and the construc- 

 tion of its verb as " simple to the last degree."* 



*"Kein polysynthesis nnd keine incorporation," says Dr. Heinrich Wink- 

 ler (Uralaltaische VOlker und Sprachen, p. Hit), who apparently has obtained all 

 his knowledge of it from the two pages devoted to it by Professor Friedrich 

 Muller, who introduces it as "Kusserst elnfacb." Grundrisa der Sprachwissen- 

 scha/t, Bd. ii, p. £37. 



