1885.] ®b [Brinton. 



We know the tongue only through the Grammar and Phrase- 

 Book of Father de la Cuesta, who acknowledges himself to be 

 very imperfectly acquainted with.it.* With its associated dia- 

 lects, it was spoken near the site of the present city of San 

 Francisco, California. 



Looking first at the verb, its " extreme simplicity " is not so 

 apparent as the statements about it would lead us to expect. 



In the first place, the naked verbal theme undergoes a variety 

 of changes by insertion and suffixes, like those of the Quiche 

 and Qquechua, which modify its meaning. Thus : 



Ara, to give. 



Arsa, to give to many, or to give much. 



Arapu, to give to oneself. 



Arasi, to order to give, etc., etc. 

 Again : 



Oio, to catch. 



Oirii, to come to catch. 



Oimu, to catch another, etc. 

 The author enumerates thirty-one forms thus derived from 

 each verb, some conjugated like it, some irregularly. With re- 

 gard to tenses, he gives eight preterits and four futures ; and it 

 cannot be said that they are formed simply by adding adverbs of 

 time, as the theme itself takes a different form in several of 

 them, aran, aras, aragts, etc. In the reflexive conjugation the 

 pronoun follows the verb and is united with it : As, 



aragneca, I give myself, 

 where ca is a suffixed form of can, I ; ne, represents nenissia, 

 oneself ; the g, is apparently a connective ; and the theme is ara. 

 This is quite in the order of the polysynthetic theory and is also 

 incorporative. 



Such syntheses are prominent in imperative forms. Thus 

 from the above-mentioned verb, oio, to catch, we have, 



oiomilyutSi gather thou for me, 



* Grammalica Mutsun ; Por el R. P. F. F. Arroyo de la Cuesta; and Vocabulario 

 Mutsun, by the same, both in Shea's "Library of American Linguistics," 



