Swanton] TUNICA, CHITIMACHA, AND ATAKAPA LANGUAGES 31 
related, nor is a connection between them and the Atakapa form 
impossible. It is, however, a curious fact that both the Chitimacha 
and the Atakapa affixes correspond exactly with the similar stems 
of the verb “to go”’ in the respective languages, and it is also curious 
that their position in the verb complex shows considerable irregularity. 
The possibility may therefore be suggested that they originated in the 
employment of the verb to go as an auxiliary much as we in English 
say, ‘‘I am going to do so and so.” In that case we should have to 
assume that the Tunica suffix was unrelated or else that it had evolved 
after the incorporation of the stem -tcw had become complete. In 
Atakapa there is a second future suffix —he or -ehe not identified in the 
other two languages. 
The possibility of an evolution like that just suggested is reenforced 
by the position of the negative suffix in the three varieties of speech. 
These agree closely in form, in Tunica and Atakapa -ha and in 
Chitimacha —ka, but the Chitimacha and Atakapa forms also appear 
as auxiliary verb stems, while the Tunica suffix never does. In 
Tunica we do, however, find a verb stem pa to which -ha may be 
suffixed, the resulting form having the significance of ‘it is nothing.” 
Possibly pa may be the true equivalent of the other negative suffixes, 
but this can not be determined. 
As intimated in the foregoing discussion, all three languages have 
a suffix —n or —ni which I have sometimes called a noun-forming 
suffix, but it frequently has a perfect or passive significance, and in 
Atakapa is cften employed to bring one verb or clause into subordi- 
nation to another. 
The suffix —c, which I call the infinitive suffix, is present or contin- 
uing in connotation instead of perfect and complete like —n. It has 
- about the force of the English ending —ing or the present participle of 
the auxiliary to be—being. Although placed close to the verb stem 
in Atakapa and at the very end of the complex in Chitimacha it is 
used in both in such similar ways, notably in the subordination of one 
verb to another, that there can be little doubt regarding its essential 
identity in the two. In Tunica its place is taken in part by a parti- 
cipial suffix -te, which has about the same significance but is almost 
entirely syntactic in function. As -c is placed after personal and 
demonstrative pronouns in the two former languages to give emphasis 
it is possible that the nominal locative suffix —c in Tunica may be con- 
nected with it, and that either one suffix has been differentiated into 
two in that language or two have been reduced to one in the others. 
The past suffix in Atakapa is —at or -et and is extremely well devel- 
oped. In Chitimacha a similar differentiation between past and 
present, or rather past and aorist, has taken place and traces exist 
in Tunica, but nothing clear enough to rest an argument upon. 
