BOAS] 



HANDBOOK OF INDIAN LANGUAGES TAKELMA 



93 



By far the larger number of verbal bases are monosyllabic. Where 

 the simplest radical element that can be analyzed out remains dis- 

 syllabic (as in dawi- fly, agan- perceive, yimi- lend), the proba- 

 bility is always very great that we have to reckon either with ampli- 

 fications of the base, or with suffixes that have become so thoroughly 

 amalgamated with the base as to be incapable of separation from it 

 even in formal analysis; in some cases the dissyllabic character of 

 the verb-stem is due to a secondary phonetic reason (thus dawi- is 

 for dawy-, cf. dauy-; while in agan- the second a is inorganic, the 

 real stem thus being *agn-) . Most bases end either in a vowel or, more 

 frequently, in a single consonant; such as end in two consonants (as 

 yalg- dive, s'omd- boil, hilw- jump) may often be plausibly suspected 

 of containing a petrified suffixed element. 



The few examples of verb and aorist stems already given suffice to 

 indicate the lack of simple, thorough-going regularity in the forma- 

 tion of the aorist stem from the base. Given the verb-stem, it is 

 possible only in the minority of cases to foretell the exact form of the 

 aorist stem. Thus, if do'^m- had followed the analogy of the pho- 

 netically parallel naP-g-, we should have in the aorist not t.'omom-, 

 but domo-; similarly, the phonetic similarity of odo- and loJio- would 

 lead us to expect an aorist stem lo^h-, and not lohoi-. for the latter. 

 Nor is it safe to guess the form of the verb-stem from a given aorist 

 stem. Thus, while the aorist lohoi- corresponds to a verb-stem loho-, 

 yewei- corresponds to yeu- return; nagai-, to na- say, do; and 

 Jc.'emei-, to Jclemn- do, make. Mere phonetic form has, indeed, com- 

 paratively little to do with determining the relation of the two 

 stems. This is clearly evidenced by the following cases of homony- 

 mous but etymologically distinct bases with corresponding aorist 

 stems. 



39 



