56 SIDNEY H. RAY. 
force them to think the name of an action a different sort of word 
from the name of a thing.”* 
“There is a class of vocables in the Melanesian languages which 
certainly are not now the names either of objects or actions. These 
are the particles which point in one direction or another, the 
demonstrative directive particles with which language itself gesti- 
culates. These may be found separate as demonstrative particles, 
and probably as the simplest prepositions; but they are found 
combined in pronouns, in adverbs of place, and therefore of time, 
and in articles. If they are fragments of old nouns, they are now. 
nothing but fragments of that which has been lost; they name 
nothing, they only point. These cannot like ordinary words, 
become, as the speaker is pleased to use them, nouns or verbs ; 
they never can have an article or a verbal particle prefixed.” + 
In some of the Island languages, the tendency is towards 
analysis. This still further separates them from the agglutinate 
type, and confirms the analogy to the inflectional. It is mainly 
owing to the want of prepositions, for example, that such languages 
as the Fin or Turkish are denied a place with those of the inflec- 
tional type,{ but in Oceania prepositions are commonly found. 
Yet, where the inflections are fullest as in Tanna and HKromanga, 
the prepositions are fewest. Like the Aryan prepositions, too, 
the Oceanic may be often shown to consist of a nominal or verbal 
combined with a pronominal or adverbial root. The Banks Island 
(Mota) ‘apena’ is analogous to the English ‘about i¢’ both in 
structure and signification, and literally means ‘at its side.§ A 
is the locative particle, ‘at,’ pe is a noun, ‘side,’ na is a pronoun 
‘its’ The English ‘about it’ may be resolved into :—a ‘at 
or on,’ be ‘by’; ‘out, an adverb, and the pronoun i. By is 
explained as a noun meaning (a place) ‘ around,’ the Greek ’apdu, 
§ Melanesian Languages, p. 108. 
* Melanesian Languages, p. 104. 
+ Farrar—Language and Languages, p. 391. 
{ Melanesian Languages, p. 209. 
