1888.] 9 [Volapiik. 
‘«his book,” literally ‘book he.’’ It might be queried whether the 
universal language would not gain in ease and simplicity by adopting 
this method of placement. 
The dative, or régime indirecte, could be supplied in a similar man- 
ner by a pronoun in an oblique form. There is no necessity for more 
than two oblique cases of the pronoun, and they can be added to all 
nouns as a substitute for prepositions, when needed for clearness. 
The pronouns of the modern tongues, and especially of their collo- 
quial dialects, demonstrate that the relative, interrogative and demon- 
strative forms can be blended without loss of lucidity. The German 
der, the English that, are both relative and demonstrative; the French 
qui and ¢a are both relative and interrogative in Creole. 
The reflexive pronoun is used very unnecessarily in most modern 
Aryan tongues. There is no logical propriety in the French Je me casse 
le bras. The use of sucha form should be greatly restricted. 
The verb has tense and mood, number and person. It is conjugated 
in all Aryan languages sometimes regularly, sometimes irregularly , 
and it has many forms. In studying its history, however, no one can 
overlook its steady tendency toward simplification of the form of the 
theme and the adoption of the periphrastic method of conjuga- 
tion, or that by auxiliaries. By this process the verb loses all inflec- 
tions and is reduced to a single form ; person and number are expressed 
in the subject, tense and mode by auxiliaries. This should be the 
process adopted by the universal language, with perhaps the exception 
that the simple past and future might be expressed by terminations, 
every verb being absolutely regular. The future termination is now 
lost in English and German, and.even the past termination is often dis- 
pensed with in both tongues, as “I give,” ‘‘I did give,” “ich that 
geben ;”’ but as both are vigorous in the cultivated Romance tongues, 
these formal elements might be conceded. 
A very delicate question relates to the substantive verb, ‘‘to be.” 
Shall we omit it or express it? The Latin rarely introduces it, and 
there are numerous tongues in which it has no equivalent. On the 
other hand, modern Aryan speech has developed it markedly; the 
Spanish has its ser and estar, the German its sein and werden, expres- 
sive of shades of meaning included in our verb ‘‘to be.” This promi- 
nence of the expressions for existence seems to be connected with 
marked psychological advances, and a ripening self-consciousness, as 
has been lately set forth by a profound French critic of language, M. 
Raoul de la Grasserie. We should be inclined, therefore, to respect this 
expression, and allow it ina universal language the prominence it enjoys 
in most Aryan tongues of modern type. 
The prepositions offer great difficulties in modern languages. The 
most of them can be omitted by making all verbs which have an active 
meaning govern their object directly, and have the direct object follow 
the verb and the indirect object placed later in the sentence. The 
PROC. AMER. PHILOS. soc. Xxv. 127. B. PRINTED FEB. 20, 1888. 
