402 GRAMMAR OF THE KLAMATH LANGUAGE. 



aiul verbals, again, connect with the auxiliary verb gi to he, to exist, and thus 

 form a ([uite extensive array of forms constituting a periphrastic conjuga- 

 tion. Finally, the large majority of verbs possess a distributive form, the 

 use and meaning of which differs essentially from that of the absolute form. 

 The same tenses, modes, and verbals exist here, being formed by the same 

 phonetic processes as in the absolute form. 



TENSE INFLECTION. 



Tense, as a distinct grammatic form, is very little developed in Klamath. 

 Here, as well as in many other languages, there are only two tense-foi-ms, 

 one for the completed and the other for the incompleted act or state expressed 

 by the verb; and in Klamath both forms, whether appearing in the verb or 

 in some substantives (cf -uish, suffix), originally had a locative character 

 now pointing to distance in time only. 



The tense of the completed action usually terminates in -a, and stands 

 for the present as well as for the past or preterit of other languages. I call 

 it the PRESENT TKNSE in the following pages, and in the Sioux-Dakota, where 

 it also occurs, the grammarian Stephen R. Riggs has named it aorisf, which 

 means unlimited, indefinite in regard to time. When the Klamath Lake or 

 Modoc Indian places no temporal adverb before or after the verb to specify 

 the time of the act or state, it is supposed to occur at the present time, or 

 at the time being; when he adds to it hu'nk, unk, hun, in Modoc hu, the 

 act«is placed in the past tense, and the verb may then be called a ))reterit. 

 This particle may also be replaced by some other temporal adverb, or the 

 context may unmistakably point to an act performed in the past, and then 

 no temporal particle is needed. The language possesses a large number of 

 these particles to express the distance in time, corresponding to our to-day, 

 now, recently, a while ago, years ago, etc. To the verb in the present tense the 

 Northern dialect sometimes prefixes the particle: a, now, which can be identi- 

 fied with ha at hand, in hand; whereas hunk, though intranslatable, corre- 

 sponds best to yonder, then, and is often coalescing with tchui then: tchuyuk, 

 tchuyunk for tchui huk, tchui hunk. This particle hunk, unk has to be 

 kej)t clearly distinct from the pronoun demonstrative hunk, hun, huk, and 

 also from lin, una (for un ha), also a temporU particle, "sometime fron) 



