160 LINGUISTICS IN THE WESTERN PACIFIC. 
gives the particular difference in signification. But both Polynesian 
and Melanesian have a stem, a noun, to which identical pronouns are 
suffixed to give a possessive sense.” (Mel. Lang., p. 133.) 
2. PRONOUNS. 
All the Oceanic languages have inclusive and exclusive forms in the 
first person plural of the personal pronoun; in one case the person or 
persons addressed are included with the speaker, in the other they are 
excluded. Polynesian languages have no trinal number as apart from 
the plural; indeed, the Polynesian plural is practically composed of a 
plural to which the numeral tolu, three, has been added, and the so- 
called trinals in Melanesia have the same explanation. All Polynesian 
and Melanesian languages use a dual. 
3. VERBS. 
Verbal particles are used in all the families of Oceanic language. It 
is by means of these particles (which precede the verb) that a word 
expresses itself as a verb and also that the verb exercises its power of 
expressing tense and mood. Madagascar, Polynesia, and Melanesia 
all show the presence of these verbal particles in their languages. 
(a) In Melanesia the pronoun when used as object is sufixed to the 
verb, certain shortened forms of the pronoun being used; and in some 
languages in the Solomons the regular object is preceded by an antici- 
patory object consisting of this sufixed pronoun in the third person. 
Thus in Sa‘a, I paddle a canoe, noko hotela ‘inie ‘iola, 1. ¢., | paddle it 
canoe. With this may be compared the “pidgin”’ English use ““How 
many boy you catch ’im?’’—where ’7m seems reminiscent of the native 
idiom. 
(b) The Melanesian languages freely add consonantal and syllabic 
sufhxes to verbs in order to make them transitive or to give them a 
more definitely transitive force. [These verbal suffixes can be found 
present in all the Oceanic languages with the possible exception of 
Malagasy. ‘Their use is seen in fullest force in Melanesia. Many 
words in the Polynesian and Micronesian dictionaries show their 
presence, but Samoan is the only Polynesian language which uses them 
with anything like the fullness and freedom that obtains in Melanesia. 
(c) In all the Oceanic families of language a causative is used when 
a verb comes to signify the making to do or be. In Melanesia the 
Causative prefix is va, pa, fa, either alone or with a second syllable 
ka, ga. In Polynesia the causative 1s whaka, faka, and this is plainly 
the same as the Melanesian forms. Identically the same forms appear 
in Malagasy, but Malay does not possess them. 
(d) Reciprocity of relationship or of action is marked in the Mela- 
nesian languages by a prefix to the verb. ‘This prefix has two forms, 
var, and ha‘i (vag) or fe (ve), and the latter form appears in Samoan, 
but nowhere else in Polynesia. 
