THE VERB 
The pronouns were: 
imi = I 
aki — thou 
ema = he or she 
sheghi or paghi — we 
tagJii = you 
emaghi = they 
When immediately before a verb these were abbreviated 
into I or it, a or ac, e or ex, pa or pag, ta or tag, e or et 
-— I, thou, he or she, we, you, they, according to their 
preceding a vowel or a consonant. With words beginning 
with a consonant only the first syllable of the pronoun was 
used. 
The verb itself did not vary in the various persons, 
but it did vary in its tenses by suffixes, sometimes after 
the pronoun, sometimes after the verb. In the present 
tense the Bororos generally used for the purpose the 
word nure, usually between the pronoun and the verb, with 
the pronoun occasionally repeated after the nure; but in 
general conversation, which was laconic, the pronoun was 
frequently suppressed altogether — similarly to the fre¬ 
quent omission of the pronoun in the English telegraphic 
language. 
There were various other forms of pronouns, but I 
could not quite define their absolute use — such as the 
tched or tcheghi, which seemed to include everybody, 
corresponding to the English we in orations which in¬ 
cludes the entire audience, or the whole nation, or even 
the entire human race. 
The Bororo language was complete enough, the con¬ 
jugation of verbs being clearly defined into past, present, 
imperative, and future. 
The past was formed by interpolating between the 
pronoun and verb the words re gurai, generally abbrevi¬ 
ated into re. The imperative was made chiefly by the 
accentuation of the words, and was susceptible of in¬ 
flexion in the second person singular and plural. The 
future was formed by adding, sometimes after the 
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