LANGUAGES OF THE KILIMA NJARO DISTRICT. 473 
*ni, and either of these two maybe doubled to intensify 
or modify the sense. 
The meanings of verbal-roots may be altered by 
various affixes and prefixes. Among the former are— 
-so, causative (from -iso, to give). 
-ate, reciprocalve. 
-ie, transitive. 
-si, intensitive (from -si, again). 
-ge, restrictive (from -ge, only, but). 
-ka, applicative. 
The verb “ to be, to have (viz. be with), to become, 
to exist,” is expressed by three forms :— 
- ra, -ta, and -ti. 
'-ra applies more to actual existence, and is only used 
in the present tense, -ta is used in present and past, 
and with compounds. It is often translated by “to 
have.” -ti applies to locality generally, and is possibly 
nothing but the preposition ti,“ in, on” (dm, t£ I am here,” 
Iti, “thou art here, or there,” &c.). There are some few 
defective verbs, and one or two such as “ to go,” “ to 
come,” which are irregular, and made up of several 
different roots, as happens of ten in other tongues. 
As previously explained, great variety of meaning 
may be obtained from the original monosyllabic roots, 
which express simple concepts, by the agglutinative 
process which tacks on before and behind other par¬ 
ticles which enlarge, diminish, or intensify the primi¬ 
tive sense of the verb. 
Adverbs in Masai are generally affixed, and preposi¬ 
tions prefixed to the verb-root. Many independent 
nouns or verbs have the form of adverbs and pre¬ 
positions. The conjunctions are au, “ or, either;” o 
and na 9 “ and, with,” according to gender. 
Having now passed the main features of this lan- 
