98 LYMAN— NATURE OF THE JAPANESE VERB. [April 12, 



Latin and English terminations of the same significance do. The 

 literal translation of Sabiiro no katana would, therefore be: " Sabu- 

 ro-thing sword," for Saburo's sword ; and the expression " Saburo- 

 thing " would be two nouns adjectivally connected, and that expres- 

 sion, again, would be adjectivally prefixed to " sword." The two 

 words tsii and mono, both meaning thing, may either have originally 

 had different origin, and been adopted into the language from dif- 

 ferent sources, perhaps at different times ; or may have had at first 

 a slightly dififerent shade of meaning. Tsn may have meant a thing 

 by itself, apart, independent, and be connected with tatsu, standing, 

 Latin stare. Mono may have meant rather a single object, or com- 

 bination, a united thing, the Latin nnus, and the Greek ^lovo'i, the 

 English one. Even in English, one is often used in the sense of 

 thing; as in, good ones, bad ones, little ones, big ones, young ones. 

 The termination ing, also, appears to have the same original mean- 

 ing; as, loving (Latin amare, or amase). 



It is a striking coincidence, to say the least, that the German 

 genitive and plural terminations are not only alike, as the Latin and 

 English ones are, but, together with, likewise, the infinitive termina- 

 tion, are en, so similar to Japanese no. The same termination 

 occurred in antiquated English, and less than sixty years ago, about 

 1854, I myself heard a countryman in Massachusetts speak of "two 

 housen " (that is, two housing, or house-in', with still quite an intel- 

 ligible meaning). Evidently, this en termination, as well as ing, and 

 the antecedent separate word from which they were derived must 

 have had the same meaning as the termination ^ and its antecedent 

 word ; and must have been more or less closely identical with the 

 word one and the German ein, Latin nnus, and Greek ev. 



The other Japanese genitive particle, already mentioned, ga, 

 appears to be a contraction from no-ka, the ka being, perhaps, an 

 indefinite something, or somewhat, like the Latin quid; and probably 

 the same as the interrogative particle ka placed at the end of Japa- 

 nese questions, as kya (allied to quid) is placed at the beginning of 

 Hindoostanee questions, plainly meaning what. Ga is defined in 

 Hepburn's dictionary, not only as a " sign of the genitive case," but 

 as "designating the subject of an intransitive verb, having also an 

 indefinite sense ; as : aine ga funi, it rains " [that is, of rain falling 



