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BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY 



[bull. 40 



(pHm)w&sana'7iinlc' they will spear (salmon) with it 28.15 (cf. 

 sana'nY they will spear it) 

 Although, as was suggested before, the prefix wa- as instrument 

 may be ultimately identical with the adverbial wa- together (the 

 concepts of doing something with, by means of it and doing 

 SOMETHING TOGETHER WITH IT are not vcry far removed), the two 

 can not be regarded as convertible elements. This is clearly brought 

 out in such forms as hem 'wai,Hwsit!oxo'xi^n i picked them together 

 WITH STICK. Literally translated, this sentence reads, stick i- 

 together-hand-with-it-picked-them; the first wa- is the adver- 

 bial prefix; 1-, the general instrumental idea conveyed by the 

 character of the verb (gather avith one's hands) ; and the second 

 wa-, the incorporated' representative of the more specific instrument 

 hem STICK. If preferred, ^- may be interpreted, though less prob- 

 ably, as a local element {-Iwa- = with it in hand) . 



2. Formation of Verb-Stems (§ § 39 , 40) 



§ 39. GENERAL REMARKS 



By a verb-stem will be here understood not so much the simplest 

 possible form in which a verb appears after being stripped of all its 

 prefixes, personal elements, tense-forming elements, and derivative 

 suffixes, but rather the constant portion of the verb in all tense and 

 mode forms except the aorist. The verb-stem thus defined will in 

 the majority of cases coincide with the base or root, i. e., the simplest 

 form at which it is possible to arrive, but not always. Generally 

 speaking, the aorist is characterized by an enlargement of the base 

 that we shall term "aorist stem," the other tense-modes showing 

 this base in clearer form; in a minority of cases, however, it is the 

 aorist stem that seems to coincide with the base, while the verb-stem 

 is an amplification of it. Examples will serve to render these remarks 

 somewhat clearer: 



39 



