440 



PHILOLOGY. 



ananau te buok, the war is long. In like manner the adjective becomes a verb by taking 

 the pronominal prefixes, as, tia ananau, I am tall ; ko bdbaki, thou art great. 



The degrees of comparison are expressed by the prepositions kai and ru, which are 

 placed after the adjective, and are then to be rendered than and among, as, Tia ananau 

 e kaim, I am taller than thou (lit. tall to thee). Antai ananau e rur, who is the tallest 

 of us (lit. who is tall among us) ? 



NUMERALS. 



The natives of Taputeouea furnished us with several sets or classes of numerals, which 

 are probably used in counting objects of different kinds ; but on this point we had no 

 means of obtaining from them any explanation. The interpreters, also, although they 

 were aware of the existence of these several classes of words, and believed them to have 

 distinct applications, yet were unable to give any precise information respecting them, and 

 were accustomed to use them indifferently. They thought, however, that those which 

 terminated in mana were used in reckoning months or moons, and those in pay for days, 

 (or rather nights.) It is possible that those which end in ua are used in counting pairs. 



The higher numbers are as follows : 



20 uabui 1,000 



30 tenibui 2,000 



40 dbui 3,000 



50 nimdbui 4,000 



60 onobui 10,000 



70 itibui 20,000 



80 oanibui [oanubuiT] 30,000 



90 ruabui 



100 te yd 



200 tia yd 



300 teni yd, &c. 



One of the natives, in counting his fingers, used what seemed to be ordinal numbers, 

 formed by prefixing ka and suffixing ya, as, ka ieriya (?), second ; ka tinaiya, third ; 

 ka diya, fourth ; ka nimdiya, fifth. 



e repu or repu 



ua repu 



tendepu (for teni repu) 



d repu, &c. 



te kuri 



ua kuri 



teni, kuri, &c. 



