28 BEACH-LA-MAR. 
of explanation) this terminal of neutral vowel and final consonant is 
used not only on the islands to whose speech closed syllables are 
grateful, but quite as generally where the genius of the indigenous 
language is in favor of the open syllable. In the latter case (an even 
half of the island tongues which underlie and condition the use of the 
Beach-la-mar) the employment of this termination entails a con- 
scious effort and some phonetic difficulty. 
So far as concerns the form, and this has particular reference to the 
final nasal, I think that we may credit the termination to the white 
partners in the jargon. But it seems to me that the inspiration came 
from the islanders. They must have added some sort of termination 
to the vocables offered them; the white men must have been led by 
the resemblance in vowel quality and have jumped to the conclusion 
that this was the um with which they were familiar in recollection of 
the small language of early childhood. 
This explanation is borne out by familiar study of the many 
island languages. In almost all of them, Melanesian and Polynesian 
alike, there is a termination which may be applied distinctively to 
vocables when used in a sense similar to that which we know under 
the designation of verbs. This is the neutral vowel, represented by 
a when the languages are reduced to writing. It may be applied 
directly to the stem or it may require the assistance of the para- 
deictic 7. In the somewhat extended essays upon the syntax of the 
Polynesian languages, in the slender treatises to which we owe our 
knowledge of the varied Melanesian speech, the verb forms thus am- 
plified are considered inflected and are defined as the passive voice 
form. While working on this basis I was led to discover and to formu- 
late certain rules—which by these authorities are nowhere set forth in 
terms but which are readily deducible from more general statements. 
A passive verb may govern a direct object. 
A passive verb may govern an indirect object. 
A passive verb may govern the agent in the nominative. 
A passive verb may agree in number with its object. 
A passive verb may be active, deponent or middle. 
Such an outrage to my grammatical instincts was far too much. 
If I had come to the heart of the South Sea, and the joy of parsing, 
bright guiding star of speech, were thus rudely snatched from me, it 
was surely time to do something. 
As aresult, the study and analysis of this built-up form, which is 
really found to be governed by quite simple rules, has enabled me 
to identify in the verb-employment of the island vocables of the 
attributive class a special form to which I have given the name 
objective aspect. It is this objective aspect of their own grammar 
which the islanders have sought to apply to the jargon attributives 
when employed in verb sense. They have affixed the neutral vowel 
