236 PHILOLOGY. 



ai ae ta-gata, and he placed there the man. This ae, when joined with another particle, 

 as a, of, mo, and, &c., becomes simply e, as, he -gaue ae Mesia, the works of the Mes- 

 siah ; Ice ilo ae lelei moe kovi, to know good and evil. He properly answers to se in 

 Samoan, but it has also the meaning of the definite article in English, as in one of the 

 examples given above. 



That an article te once existed in this dialect we may infer from its presence in some 

 of the numerals, as te-kau, one score ua ya-kau, two score ; te-kumi, a measure of ten 

 fathoms (une dizaine), tolu ya-kumi, twenty fathoms ; teau, a hundred, -fa ~geau, four 

 hundred, &c. 



[The missionaries make two definite articles, a and e, " the former used before the 

 nominative when the verb is neuter or intransitive, and the latter where it is active or 

 transitive." This, however, is an error, the result of another error, namely, the failure 

 to distinguish between the active and passive states of the verb. The e is merely, as in 

 all the other Polynesian dialects, the preposition by (Latin a or ab) before the ablative. 

 The sentence bea tabuakii akinautolu e he OtiM, and God blessed them, means properly, 

 and they were blessed by God. Much confusion has arisen from this source, in the 

 missionary translations into this language.] 



In the dialect of New Zealand the articles are te and he; in those of Tahiti, Rarotonga, 

 Mangareva, and Nukuhiva, te and e. 



The Hawaiian has for its indefinite article he; for the definite, a double form, te and ta. 

 The former is used before all nouns commencing with t, and before many commencing 

 with a and o; some also which begin with p have te for their article. Other nouns, with 

 some few exceptions, have ta. No noun takes both, unless with some change of mean- 

 ing, which makes it a different word, as ta aho, sticks for thatching, te oho, the breath. 



The only other dialect in which ta is found as an article is that spoken in the small 

 island of Niua or Immer, one of the New Hebrides, but inhabited by a Polynesian tribe. 

 In a brief vocabulary, obtained by the Rev. J. Williams, (on his last cruise, just before 

 his murder at that group,) this article occurs several times, as ta kuru, the breadfruit ; 

 ta one, the earth ; tafanua, the country. 



In New Zealand, a is frequently used before proper names and pronouns ; as ano ka 

 kite a Jesu, when Jesus saw ; akoe, thou ; aia, he. 



In Rarotongan, the a also occurs, though not so frequently as in New Zealand ; as 

 namua atu ra a Jesu, Jesus went before ; aia, he. 



It is perhaps to this article that we must refer the a, which, in all the dialects, comes 

 between the prepositions ki and i, and the proper name or pronoun following ; as kia 

 Pea, to Pea ; kia ia, to him. 



In Mangarevan, a preceding a noun, with an adverb of place after it, is used as a 

 demonstrative ; it is perhaps this same article ; noku a tamariki ara, that child (the child 

 there) is mine ; a mea nei, this thing (the thing here). 



[It seems likely that the Polynesian had originally three articles, namely, fc for the 

 singular, ya for the plural, and se indefinite. The first has been changed in Samoan to 

 le, in Tongan it is replaced by the particle a, connected with the indefinite he, and in 

 Hawaiian it becomes generally ta. These changes are perhaps the result of a desire for 

 euphony, for as te was not only an article, but a relative pronoun, and a sign of the 

 future tense, its frequent repetition, particularly in public speaking, was likely to be 

 offensive to the fastidious audiences of Samoa, Tonga, and Hawaii, in all of which great 



