180 TRANSACTIONS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. [VOL. I. 



is whether it has been broken in one place or in many, by the middle or 

 otherwise, purposely or by accident, violently or by gentle pressure ; 3rd, 

 the form of the object, qualified, that is whether it is elongated or sphe- 

 roid, occupying a vast place or not, etc. 



Moreover these no distinct verbs can be multiplied by four or five ac- 

 cording as we give them the iterative, initiative, terminative, etc. forms 

 whereby their signification is also changed. For, as we shall see further 

 on, these forms are not mere modes in the usual sense of the word. Now, 

 where is the Aryan or even the Semitic language which can boast of such 

 lexical richness ? 



Nor should we overlook the fact that this wonderful discriminative 

 faculty is displayed in connection with each and every instrumentative 

 verb, and that almost any other class of conjugatable terms is even 

 superior in the variety of its forms and the precision and nicety of its 

 distinctions. Let us choose, for instance, the verbs of locomotion. The 

 single paradigm of the verb " to go " includes in my dictionary verbs that 

 are totally different according as to whether the locomotion thereby ex- 

 pressed takes place on two or on four feet, by running or hopping, totter- 

 ing as a drunk man or with the help of a staiT, creeping like a snake or 

 jumping as a frog, swimming or floating, packing or skating, playing or 

 in a state of madness, whistling or speaking, singing or grumbling, laugh- 

 ing or weeping, in sleigh or in canoe, paddling or sailing, diving down or 

 in parallel line with the surface of the water, etc. — also according as to 

 whether the movement is that of an empty canoe or that of the sun, the 

 stars, the clouds, the wind, the snow, the rain, the water, the earth, (/.^. rela- 

 tively to a person drifting down stream), the fire, smoke, fog, ghosts, human 

 mind, feather down, disease, news, etc. — or again, whether it is that of an 

 object elongated or spheroid, heavy or light, liquid or liquefiable granu- 

 lated, massive, soft, etc., etc. 



Furthermore, let us suppose that such varied locomotion takes place in 

 the water and all of these individually different verbs will be materially 

 altered ; in the fire, and a similar— not identical — variation will result. 

 Nor is this all. By giving them the negative, usitative, causative, causa- 

 tivo-potential, defective, reciprocal, initiative, terminative and iterative 

 forms, each and every one of them will thus be multiplied by the number 

 of forms assumed. And all the other verbs of locomotion can be affected 

 by similar mutations ! 



Now perhaps I shall meet with incredulous readers when I affirm 

 that this fecundity of the locomotive verbal stems is still surpassed by the 

 prodigious particularizing power evidenced by the objective verbs. Yet 

 this is a mere fact. I will not attempt even a reduced enumeration of 



