HINTS FOR TOE STUDY OF THE TEXTS. 9 



impossible, the sense of the word or phrase was reproduced as faithfully as 

 could be done within the narrow space allotted. Words in brackets were 

 inserted only to render the sentence complete. 



But to the student striving after a thorough understanding of the texts 

 all these helps will prove of partial assistance only. A thorough study of 

 the Grammar ought in fact to precede their perusal, and reference to all 

 the three portions of the work will frequently be necessary. 



The material portion of a language can be faithfully conveyed to our 

 understanding only by the correct pronunciation of its words, sentences 

 or texts. Hence all that is said of Klamath phonetics must be studied first, 

 and more especially the alternating processes, the proclisis and enclisis, the 

 sounds not occurring in English (as the linguals, the aspirate %, the vowel 

 u), and first of all the pronouncing list of alphabetic sounds, which is sub- 

 joined. To initiate readers into the distinction, empirically obtained from 

 the mouths of the natives, between the clear vowels a, e, i, u, and the 

 dumb or deep-sounding a, e, i, 4, the earlier pages of the texts contain 

 more indications than are given in the later. In certain terms long vowels 

 can turn into short, and short into long ones. Special attention must be 

 paid also to the study of elisions, apocopes, metatheses, etc. 



In the morphologic, part of the Grammai', the verbal and nominal 

 paradigms are particularly recommended to the student's attention, and a 

 previous knowledge of the mode of forming the distributive reduplication 

 from the absolute form is indispensable to the reader of my Texts, not only 

 for their full comprehension, but even for the use of the Dictionary. The 

 suflSx of the future tense is written -uapka, to distinguish it from a homony- 

 mous form -wapka, of different signification. The apocopes occurring in the 

 conversational style of language will soon be recognized as such by the 

 reader ; for example, -th for -tho, -hs for -kshi, dropping of -a, -ash, etc. 



To make the study of the Texts too easy by a flood of notes would be 

 as obnoxious to the true interests of science, as to present unsolved too 

 heavy grammatic difticulties to intellects yet untrained in the modes of 

 Indian speech. Scholars may decide to what degree I have succeeded in 

 avoiding- both extremes. 



