APPENDIX. 445 



were ; and other familiar terms of inquiry, denial, or affirmation 

 in daily use. 



6. Coiijiigation. — The simplest form in which their verbs are 

 heard, is in the third person singular of the indicative, as lie 

 speals, he says, he loves, lie dances, or in the first person present 

 of the imperative. The want of a distinction between the pro- 

 nouns lie and she, is a defect which the language shares, I believe, 

 with other very ancient and rude tongues. Conjugations are 

 effected for persons, tenses, and number, very much as they are in 

 other rude languages, particularly those of the transpositive class. 

 The verb is often a single root, or syllable, as saug, love ; but 

 owing to the tendency of adding qualifying particles, their verbs 

 are cluttered up with other meanings. The word sang is there- 

 fore never heard as an element by itself. In the first place, it 

 takes before it the pronoun, and in the second place, the object 

 of action; so that nesaugeau, I love him, or her, or a person, is one 

 of the simplest of their colloquial phrases. And of this term, the 

 e, being the fourth syllable, is mere verbiage, means nothing by 

 itself, and is thrown in for euphony. 



Tenses are formed by adding gee to the pronoun for the perfect, 

 and gah for the future, and gahgee for the second future. 

 These terms play the part, and supply the want of, auxiliary 

 verbs. The imperative is made in gah, and the potential in dau 

 where the second future is daugee. The subjunctive is made 

 by prefixing the word Idsh^nn, meaning if. The inflection nuh, 

 asks a question, and as it can be put to all the forms of the 

 conjugation, it establishes an interrogative mood. The particle 

 see, negatives the verb, and thus all verbs can be conjugated 

 positively and negatively. 



To constitute the plural, the letter g is added to the conjuga- 

 tions ; thus, nesaugeaug means, I love them. But this is an ani- 

 mate plural, and can only be added to words of the vital class. 

 Besides, if the verb or noun to be made plural does not end in 

 a vowel, but in a consonant, the g cannot be added without in- 

 terposing a vowel. It results, therefore, that the vowel class 

 of words have their plurals in dg, eeg, ig, og, or ug. But, if the 

 class of words be non-vital and numerical, the plural is made 

 in the letter n. But this letter cannot, as in the other form, be 

 added, unless the word terminate in a vowel, when the regular 



