12 BUEEAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [bull. 40 



fashion to the a" and a of ya^TiaY you went, and y&nada'^ you will 

 GO. On the other hand, the o" of p'o^p'au- (aorist stem) blow is 

 organically a diphthong (ou), the o^ of the first syllable being related 

 to the au of the second as the iu of Viuk'au- (verb stem) brandish 

 is to its au. Similarly, the -o"- of s'o'^^Jc'op'- (verb stem) jump 

 is organic shortened ou, related to the -owo- of the aorist stem 

 s'o'wo^Tc'op^- as the -e*- of Jie'^^x- (verb stem) be left over is to the 

 -eye- of heje^x- (aorist stem). A similar acoustic difficulty is experi- 

 enced in distinguishing ii", {W^) as long vowel from the u- diphthongs 

 of ii, (u). 



Examples of unrelated stems and words differing only in the 

 length of the vow^l or diphthong are not rare, and serve as internal 

 evidence of the correctness, from a native point of view, of the vowel 

 classification made: 



gai- eat, but gdi- grow 



verb-prefix dcf^- ear, but da- mouth 



wd^xa his younger brother, but wa'xa at them 

 It may happen that two distinct forms of the same word differ only 

 in vocalic quantity; ysi^da'H' he will swim, yada'H' he swims. 



It is, naturally enough, not to be supposed that the long vowels 

 and diphthongs always appear in exactly the same quantity. Speed 

 of utterance and, to some extent, withdrawal of the stress-accent, 

 tend to reduce the absolute quantities of the vowels, so that a nor- 

 mally long vowel can become short, or at least lose its parasitic 

 attachment. In the case of the i- and u- diphthongs, such a quan- 

 titative reduction means that the two vowels forming the diphthong 

 more completely lose their separate individuality and melt into one. 

 Quantitative reduction is apt to occur particularly before a glottal 

 catch; in the diphthongs the catch follows so rapidly upon the second 

 element (i or u) that one can easily be in doubt as to whether a full 

 i- or u- vowel is pronounced, or whether this second vowel appears 

 rather as a palatal or labial articulation of the catch itself. The 

 practice has been adopted of writing such diphthongs with a superior 

 i OT u before the catch: a*^, a""', e"^, and similarly for the rest. When, 

 however, in the course of word-formation, this catch drops off, the i 

 or u that has been swallowed up, as it were, in the catch reasserts 

 itself, and we get such pairs of forms as: 



nagaJ^^ he said ; but nag&'ida^ when he said 



sgele'^^ he shouted; but sgele'uda^ when he shouted 

 § 4 



