The Verh. 23 



tlie manner just pointed out, by these verbs substantive or 

 pronominal particles with personal pronouns attached, along 

 with the participle; or by the participle alone : Ges. Heb. Gr. 

 § 134. The participle with the separate personal pronoun, 

 or noun in the nominative, in Anc. Syr. denoted the present 

 tense (see Ahlemann's Gram. § 64, 2, a) ; in the same way, 

 and sometimes by help of the auxiliary verb and particles, 

 it denoted the past and the future. Ibid. B. and 0. ; and the 

 various moods, Ibid. 3. In Syr., Ibid. § G5, 1, A., the present 

 is expressed '' usually by the participle," in the manner just 

 noted ; and so the past, Ibid. B. The Oceanic Semitic 

 personal pronouns in the nominative include, more or less 

 clearly, the idea of the verb substantive. The tenses of the 

 Oceanic verb are, generally speaking, as we shall now see, 

 expressed in the above way by means of the participle ; the 

 ancient Semitic tense-forms, called the perfect and imperfect, 

 having disappeared from the Oceanic, perhaps to a still greater 

 extent than from the Mod. Syr. 



§ 6. The Tenses. 

 a. The Present. The present tense in Oceanic is expressed 

 generally by the participle alone, but sometimes emphasised 

 by a verb substantive or particle. Crawford (My. Gr. p. 48 j 

 says, " The verb in its simple or compound form expresses 

 present time, when no other is specified or implied, as . . 

 diya Tiiakan, he eats." So Mg. izy mihinana, Fa. i kani, 

 Sam. e'ai oia (ps. 'aina), he eats. In the Sam. alone, in 

 these examples, a particle e is used. In this word, m is 

 prefixed in Mg. and My., not in Fa. and Sam. But in Mg. 

 izy mataJiotra, My. diya onanakut, Fa. i mifaku, Sam. 

 e mataHt oia, he fears, the on is prefixed in all. But while 

 this verb never appears in Fa. and Sam, Avithout the m, in 

 Mg. we have it as tahotra, and in My. as takut. This 

 prefixed ni is most used in Mg., next most in My. ; and 

 in Mg. it is most used in the present tense, and hence by 

 some people has come erroneously to be regarded as a mere 

 sign of the present in that language. It is, however, in Mg. 

 what it is in My., Fa. and Sam., and that is, the m of the 

 participle, and it is because it is such that it so naturally 

 and usually expresses the present, though it not infrequently 

 expresses the past in Oceanic. This '5:^1 is undoubtedly 

 identical with the common and Avell-known Semitic m., 

 originally pronominal (III. § 2, a (1), Ges. Heb. Gr. § 52, 1) 

 of the participle ; and the Semitic participle, with and without 



