35a 



Here, although the formations are not exactly regular, 

 the prefixion of an initial syllable is evident. So is the 

 quinary character of the numeration. The prefix itself, 

 however, in the Tanna and Mallicollo is no labial, as in 

 the Louisiade and New Caledonian, but either ft or a 

 vowel. 



The next fact connected with the Louisiade vocabularies 

 is one of greater interest. Most of the names of the dif- 

 ferent parts of the body end in da. In the list in. question 

 they were marked in italics; so that the proportion they 

 bear to the words not so ending was easily seen. Now it is 

 only the words belonging to this class that thus terminate. 

 Elsewhere the ending da is no commoner than any other. 



What does this mean? If we look to such words as 

 mata-da=^ejes, sopa-rfa=lips, maka-da^teeth., and some 

 other naturally plural names, we should infer that it was 

 a sign of number. That this, however, is not the case is 

 shewn by the equivalents to tongue, nose, and other single 

 members where the affix is equally common. What then 

 is its import ? The American tongues help us here. 



