THE MALAGASY LANGUAGE. 
501 
exist in which voa cannot be used, the word must be a root 
before which it can be used. Hence, wherever voa immediately 
precedes a word, that word is both a root and a passive par¬ 
ticiple— voa voly, planted; voa jinza, cut down; voa vaky, 
broken ; voa dio, cleansed. 
10. Where voa is prefixed to a root, that root is usually of 
the nature of a passive participle belonging to a verb active and 
transitive. Where the verb is of a neutral or intransitive nature, 
the voa is seldom used— sasatra aho, I am wearied. Or, as an 
example of the same word occurring in two senses, and forming 
the one an active and the other a neutral verb: tory. 
Voa tory ko—proclaimed by me, mitory—I proclaim, 
tory izy—sleeping is he, matory—to be asleep. 
11. Some roots are nouns, and do not form verbs, excepting 
those which belong to the fourth class of verbs, in maha, a par¬ 
ticle of the most extensive use in the whole language. 
12. Nearly all the roots in the language, and the words de¬ 
rived from them, admit of a reduplicated form, which is some¬ 
times intensive, and sometimes diminutive. Except that this 
form so frequently diminishes the strength of the signification, 
it might be thought to resemble the pihel of the Hebrew. 
Mangotraka, to boil ; mangotrakotraka, to boil vehemently. 
This form is synonymous with mangotraka dia mangotraka. 
13. Roots can generally be traced by rejecting the prefix 
and postfix formatives and affix pronouns. The pronouns can 
be ascertained at a glance: they are few, and can be acquired 
by a little attention to the rules on pronouns. The other affixes 
and prefixes are explained with the nouns and verbs, as mi , 
man, &c., and ana as the participial termination. Thus, byway 
of an example or two, 
Mampifaly— mampi is a regular verbal prefix : faly is the root. 
Nifaliako— ko is an affix pronoun; a preceding it belongs to 
ana, na being cut off, when the affix follows, ni is a parti¬ 
cipial prefix, past tense. Fali alone is left; i and y are 
one letter, i being used in the middle of words. Hence 
faly is the root. 
Fahafinaretana— faha is a prefix forming nouns; ana a parti¬ 
cipial termination used in nouns, changed from tra ; e length¬ 
ened from i. Finaritra, happy ; noun, happiness. 
Fandrenesana—participial form of a noun—verb mandrenesa in 
the imperative : (changing/into m gives the verbal form :) 
the simple form in the indicative is mandre; man is the 
active prefix— d is inserted before r; re, heard, is the root. 
These remarks respect the roots of the language generally : 
as to the uses of the roots of verbs alone, they properly belong 
to that chapter of a grammar which embraces verbs. 
