LIST OF SUFFiXES. 305 



two prefixes is rarely seen, but one of four suffixes is not uncommon, and 

 the manifold ways in which they combine into novel functions are quite 

 surprising. The list of suffixes, simple and compound, which we give 

 below, is already more than triple the full list of simple and compound 

 prefixes, although the suffixes of the language are not fully enumerated 

 in the list, for the good reason that they are practically inexhaustible in 

 their combinations. Thus in regard to suffixation this upland language can 

 be called poli/synthefic in an eminent degree. 



Suffixation prevails in the large majority of all the languages explored 

 and some languages are known to possess no prefixes at all. On the other 

 side, the Ba'ntu languages of South Africa inflect by prefixes only. The 

 same cause has prompted the dark races of the Ba'ntu to prefix their pro- 

 nominal roots to the radical syllables, which has prompted most Europeans 

 to place the articles the and a before and not after tlie noun. The power 

 of largely multiplying pronominal roots under the form of suffixes, which 

 appears in many Asiatic and American tongues and also in the Basque 

 (Pyrenees), seems extraordinary to us, because we are accustomed to the 

 analytic process in thought and speech. The Klamath Indian has no special 

 words corresponding to our about, concerning, to, on, at, in, upon, through, but 

 expresses all these relations just as clearly as we do by means of case suffixes 

 or case-postpositions; he has not our conjunctions while, because, but, as, than, 

 when, that, since, until, before, after,^ but all the relational ideas suggested by 

 these are expressed by him just as distinctly by conjugational suffixes. 



The Klamath Indian employs derivation-suffixes to express the fol- 

 lowing material ideas, which English can express by separate words only: 

 commencing, continuing, quitting, returning from, doing habitually, fre- 

 quently, or repeatedly, changing into, moving at a long or short distance, 

 moving in a zigzag or in a straight direction, going upward, along the 

 ground or downward, circling in the air, coming toward or going away from, 

 seen or unseen, moving within or outside of the lodge, on or below the 

 water's surface ; also an infinity of other circumstantial facts, some of which 

 we would not observe or express at all, but which strike the mind of the 

 Indian more powerfully than ours. 



' Before, luiJitana, atfd after, tapitana, are known to him only as prepositions or rather postposi- 

 tions, not as conjunctions. 



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