22 The Oceanic Languages Semitic: 



The third great Semitic verb substantive and auxiliary, 

 see /. above, is generally in Oceanic, and often in Mod. Syr., 

 a mere vowel, and on this account, and because of the 

 difficulty or impossibility of always distinguishing between 

 the verb substantive and the demonstrative radicall}^ con- 

 nected with it, we do not discuss it in this connection at 

 present. As to the verbal pronouns or " fragmentary pro- 

 nouns," we find them in some dialects of Oceanic and Mod. 

 S^'r., the ancient so-called tense-inflexion being lost, used 

 with the participle : see Stoddart, p. KJl. But neither in 

 Mod. Syr. nor Oceanic are they all the same as in the 

 ancient Semitic. Yet some are the same, and those inde- 

 pendently formed are equally with the ancient Semitic 

 verbal pronoun, fragments of the full or separate pronoun, 

 and having the same elements radically identical. See the 

 separate and verbal pronouns in I., and compare the suffixed 

 nominative " fragments " in the so-called " pronominal ad- 

 junctive " of the Malagasy. 



A fourth great Semitic verb substantive, see c. above, has 

 the same ambiguity (verb or demonstrative) about it, and is 

 used with the personal pronoun before a participle for the 

 finite verb, thus Heb. eslika, moshia, thou savest, literally 

 " thou-art saving." This explains the Oceanic method, and 

 particularly the Mg. pronoun with the verb, thus, izaho = 

 I am ; izy, he is ; izaJiay, we are ; isikia, we are, inclusive ; 

 that is, the Mg. iza, isi, is substantially identical with 

 the Heb. verb substantive, esh, Aram, ith, and the compound 

 of this with the personal pronoun expresses with the 

 participle the finite verb : compare Negrito siko, Heb. eshkay, 

 thou (art), and Negrito sikaon, Heb. eshkem, ye (are), with 

 Syr. itha, I am, compare Sam. ita^, I (am). 



Again, to take the ambiguous or demonstrative verb 

 substantive ot e above, it is used exactly in the same way 

 before a participle in Semitic for the finite verb : thus 

 compare Heb. hinka, Mod. Arb. innek, Amh. nah, with 

 Sumatra enko, Mota iniko, Motlav. inek, nek, Fa. nago (for 

 naJvo), Malay angkau (for ankoAi), thou (art), the last is 

 plural : compare Heb. hinkeon, Arb. innekom, with it, and 

 with Fa. nimiu (for nikemu), ye (are). So compare M}^. 

 inia, Fa. enea, nai, with Arb. inneho, Heb. hinno, Amh. 

 noAue, he (is). 



§ 5. In the Semitic languages we find sometimes the finite 

 verb, in the present, past, and future tenses, expressed in 



