244 E. B. Shaw —A Grammar of the Language [No. 3, 
Lory). The mark of the accusative ni is at the present clay in common 
use as an independent pronoun signifying “what”. 
When we follow these affixes into Western Turkish, they seem to 
have lost their initial consonants, and to have sunk into mere inflectional 
terminations.* 
At the early period above referred to, the verb was perhaps a mere 
noun of action, destitute of any conjugation, although afterwards label¬ 
led by means of certain syllables (originally independent words) to indicate 
the several times and modes of the action. Such compound words, which 
could hardly be considered verbs, would apply equally to the agent , the 
action , and the object acted upon. In this stage the Turki verb would 
have answered to the description of the same part of speech in an allied 
tongue : “ The Tibetan verbs must be regarded as denoting, not an action 
or suffering or condition of any subject, but merely a coming to pass... 
...they are destitute of what is called in our languages the active or passive 
voice, as well as of the discrimination of persons, and show nothing beyond 
a rather poor capability of expressing the most indispensable distinctions 
of tense and mood.The inflection of verbs...is done in three different 
ways:.(c), by adding [to the Eoot] various monosyllabic appendices f 
the Infinitive, Participles, and so called Gerunds are formed.” [Dr. 
Jaeschke’s Tibetan Grammar, printed at the Moravian Mission Press at 
Ivyelang, in British Lahaul, Chapter VI, §§29 and 30], (see also page 262, 
below). 
A further development of the language would consist in also label¬ 
ling these verbal nouns with the several pronouns or the corresponding 
possessive affixes (according as the desired sense might require) to point 
out the subject of the action ; and thus were at last obtained several tenses 
of a real conjugation. 
* This will he seen by an inspection of the following comparative statement:— 
Nom. 
Gen.. 
Dat. . 
Acc. . 
Abl. , 
Eoot. 
Kashghari 
Post-positions. 
Osmanli 
terminations. 
at 
at 
at 
at 
ning 
gah 
ni 
-mg (ah) 
-ah 
-i 
tit 
din 
&c. 
-tin 
&c 
