POLYNESIAN AND MALAYAN. 155 
as primal. Yet we may establish two major groups of usage in all this 
intricacy. In languages purely Polynesian we shall find the system of 
determinant compounds in order to establish precision of the numerical 
statement of unity; in languages where the Polynesian has been taken 
up more or less completely with the adoption of a system of arithmetic 
thitherto unknown, we shall find most frequently simple stems and less 
commonly composites of the Polynesian system. In yet other lan- 
guages, those in which some slight system of counting existed yet had 
not arrived at the stage of an arithmetic, we shall find the Polynesian 
stem affixed as a precise member to the vernacular word which had been 
in some manner of use. 
The class of determinant compounds is one which I found it neces- 
sary to establish for the designation of one very important factor in 
the usage of these languages of isolation, that factor which by filling the 
speech with dissyllables of precision renders it inadvisable to use the 
older designation of this as the monosyllabic type of speech.* 
Simultaneously there operates a yet more rudimentary principle. 
In composition we are dealing with syllables established in some sort of 
signification. With the syllables as roots we pursue our dissection yet 
further to the seeds of speech; we examine their variety through the co- 
efficient value of their consonant modulants.{ I shall not here prose- 
cute in full these two interacting forces, for three particularly pertinent 
examples will serve to establish the method and thereafter there will be 
no difficulty in following it onward through the matter here assembled. 
The first seven items of the foregoing tabulation cover the word 
for one in all Polynesian languages, and it is apparent on inspection that 
we have to do with three elements, ta absolute in Rotuma, prefixed toa 
stem sa in Tonga and Niué, to a stem sz in the remainder of Polynesia. 
Furthermore we find that sa and si have one element in common, the 
consonantal modulant prefixed; its coefficient value is the same in the 
two cases; therefore such distinction as may be found to exist inheres 
in the varying element, the vowel. Our minute studies of these lan- 
guages show us that the basic value of these vowel demonstratives is 
that of relation in regard of the speaker, of the thinking mind finding 
speech expression—a relation which in its simplest terms is that of posi- 
tion. I shall not here repeat the evidence upon which this is based; 
it is readily accessible in the paper last cited; the conclusion is that a 
comes from the mouth to supplement the speech of the pointing finger 
for the purpose of indicating something remote, 1 something nearer. 
As yet the category of number has not come into being; therefore a and 
i refer to the many or the one alike. But as the need is felt for dis- 
tinction between the one and the more than one a consonant is applied. 
How the selection of the consonant modulant is made is not wholly 
* Principles of Samoan Word Composition,” 14 Journal Polynesian Society, 40. 
1‘ Root Reducibility in Polynesian,’ 27 American Journal of Philology, 369. 
