LANGUAGE. 
355 
whicli is rejected in conjugating. In the Fantee it is not dis- 
tinguished from the first person present, or root. The use of the 
infinitive mood, even in Accra, is very circumscribed, for it is not 
found even in the most natural case when two verbs come together, 
as I want to eat, for which they say, " meton meyay," I want I 
eat. The infinitive is generally used for the imperative in the 
Accra, but, otherwise, it only occurs in an idiom almost pecuhar 
to that language, for instance, for are you walking now, they say, 
" JVeomong oh 7260 neh,'' 
" To walk are you walking now.'^ 
For I am straightening it, 
" J adjumong mejadjio leh." 
" To straighten I am straightening it." 
Verbs are invariably used thus, interrogatively, and, generally, in 
replies. I said almost peculiar, because I think this pleonasm is 
identified in the Greek idiom, Ou%< (Jt^svov a-oi s^sve. Remaining, did 
it not remain to thee." 
The Accra has the present, imperfect, perfect, and future tenses: 
the imperfect and future being distinguished by the prefixes blek 
and ah, the one before, the other after the pronoun. 
" me yayne. bleh me yayne. me yay. m*ahye." 
I eat it, I was eating it. I eat. I will eat. 
But the imperfect tense is never used, unless a sentence precedes 
it, as 
" Bennay heh ba bleh me yay."" 
" When he came I was eating." 
Otherwise, they use the perfect for the imperfect, never replying 
to a question even, in the latter. The perfect is only distinguished 
from the present by being pronounced short. These explicative 
particles, and ah, would, no doubt, be found to be remnants 
of verbs of appropriate signification, as the ai of the French future 
