38 THE ORMURI OR BARGISTA LANGUAGE. [§77. 



after a vowel, it is fully pronounced, and the termination will be written yek, with a 

 full y. Ay is also often inserted before the o of -ok, but in that case appears to be 

 always fully sounded. 



This '"^ ek, {y)ok, or ak termination of the past participle and infinitive also exists 

 in the Waxi terminations -ak of the infinitive {e.g. W. kand-ak, 0. x^'^-^k, to laugh), 

 and -k of the past participle {e.g. W. mort-k, O. mul-ak, dead). It also occurs in the 

 Baloci infinitive termination -ay, as in x«w^-ay, to laugh ; but it is still more frequently 

 met with in the Pisaca languages, in which the junction- vowel t may be compared 

 with the e of the O. -ek. Thus : — 



Pasai, past part, and infin. han-lk, struck, to strike. 



Veron Kafir, infin. pesumtin-ik, to strike. 



Kalasa Kafir, infinitive, nis-ik, to sit; ty-ek to strike. 



Khowar, infinitive, d-ik, to strike; gan-ik, to take. 



Sina, infinitive, sido-iki, to strike ; past participle, sid-ego, struck. 



§ 77. Except in the case of a few irregular verbs, the past participles of the 

 first conjugation form the feminine singular by changing the termination 'ek to ak. 

 The plural, which is of common gender, is always the same as the feminine singular. 

 Thus, yafek, woven, fem. and plur. yafak. 



The past base of an Ormuri verb of the first conjugation is most easily obtained 

 by taking the feminine past participle and rejecting the final ak. Thus, yuf- from 

 yaf-ak. In the case of this and of most other verbs it can be equally easily obtained 

 by rejecting the final 'ek of the masculine; but this will not apply in all cases. 

 Some verbs are slightly irregular in their masculine past participles, while they are 

 regular in the feminine. In other words, in adding the masculine termination con- 

 tractions due to the following long vowel of the 'ek are found, which do not occur in 

 the simpler feminine form. Thus, from the Av. \/sav- , to go, we get quite regularly 

 the feminine past participle haw-ak. But in the masculine, under the influence of 

 the heavy following syllable, the aw is elided, and we get the contracted form h'ek. 

 It will thus be seen that the feminine (and plural) of the past participle is the simpler 

 form, and is that which retains the original past base with the least change. It will 

 be remembered that we have seen something of a similar state of affairs in the case 

 of nouns (§ 57). For instance, the plural, haml, of hom, an eye, is nearer to the 

 A vesta casman- than is the singular. 



§ 78. The two following verbs of the first conjugation are quite irregular in the 

 formation of the past participle :— Past participle. 



Infinitive. Mascuhne. Feminine 



and Plural. 

 kayek, to do, to make. dok. dak. 



pax'ek, to cook. paxak pyuxk. 



As explained above, there are also a few other verbs which are irregular owing 

 to contractions in the masculine, and for other phonetical reasons. It is unneces- 

 sary to give them here. They will all be found in the vocabulary, with their deriva- 

 tions so far as I have been able to ascertain them. 



