390 REMARKS AND OPINIONS. 



by particles. The pronouns are evidently the 

 same, and it has, with the two plurals of the first 

 person also a dual. The roots are employed with- 

 out distinction for the substantive, adjective, or 

 verb. In the verb the three tenses are expressed 

 by separate particles (adverbia) as in the Malay. 

 When two roots stand together, the first, as in 

 other dialects, is the substantive, and the other the 

 adjective. 



Notwithstanding this simplicity, the dialect of 

 Tonga, which is one of the most deviating, is per- 

 haps also, at the same time, one of the most polished 

 of Eastern Polynesia. Tonga lies on the western 

 frontier nearest to the forelands, and the numeral 

 system, as we have already observed, is not that of 

 New Zealand and the Sandwich islands. 



The language of the Sandwich islands really 

 appeared to us still more childish than the dialect 

 of Tonga does in its grammar. We found in it 

 only two pronouns, TVau for the first person. Hoe 

 for the second, and only two adverbs to determine 

 the time of the action. Mamure for the future, 

 Mamoa for the past time. The interrogative, or 

 doubting particle, Palta^ whicli is affixed, is very 

 much used. iVwe, and Nue riuCy very and great, 

 form the comparative and superlative. Some par- 

 ticles, mark, as prepositions, the relations of the 

 substantives.* 



* We cannot certainly assign the limits, of our own knowledge 

 of the language of the Sandwich islands, as those of the lan- 

 guage itself; bii# in other specimens of the langupges of 



