1889-90.] 



THE DEn6 languages. 



201 



follow them, because in D^n6 these alterations of the verbal structure 

 affect the whole of both the affirmative and the negative conjugations, 

 while some of them, as the potential, alter quite as much, if not more, the 

 body of the verb as their English equivalent, which in all the dictionaries 

 is regarded, not as a modal variation of the verb, but as a quite different 

 word. Thus from the verb kce,noe,sJiyes, " I break," we obtain, with the 

 help of the potential, koe,sq(jes, " I am breakable." On the other hand, 

 some of these forms consist simply in the change of conjugation, which 

 can hardly be likened to a mode. 



The principal forms affecting the verbs, in the Carrier dialect, are the 

 affirmative, negative, usitative, potential, causative, reciprocal, reflective, 

 iterative, initiative, terminative, plural and impersonal. I shall explain, in 

 as few words as possible, the nature of each of them. 



Of the affirmative nothing needs be said,. since it is the normal state of 

 the verb. Yet it may be well to note that a few verbs, the meaning of 

 which is essentially negative, as ImlcBA, " there is not ;" Jmllil, " it disap- 

 peared," lack the affirmative form, and still are destitute of the elements 

 characteristic of the negative. 



The negative can, in Carrier, affect the material structure of the 

 verb in three different ways, viz.: by the incorporation of a negative par- 

 ticle (/, Ce, CcB, Ci, Co, according to the tense and the letter following these 

 particles) ; by an inflection of the personal syllable, and oftentimes, though 

 not in every case, by a modification of the mutable part of the desinen- 

 tial radical, i.e.^ the vowel or final consonant — the initial consonant of a 

 syllable being, as a rule, immutable in Dene. An example will facilitate 

 the intelligence of these remarks. Here are two tenses of the verb nces-'a, 

 " I keep in my custody," conjugated under the affirmative and the negative 

 forms. 



Present Tens^. 



D. 



Proximate Future. 



This form is proper to the Western Den^s, and, when under its three 



