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AUGUST, 1891.]
ching, a ship: chinminga, a ship of a particular rig.
mattai, a village; mentai, a village of a particular community.
kentúka, a dance: kamentóka, a dance of a particular kind.
BOOK-NOTICES.
kandishe, a song: kamenndishe, a song of a particular kind.
The way in which these remarkable words are used may be thus illustrated,
heang yuang enkòiña, one man.
heang yang menkòiña, one man (or several men) of the same (one) race.
án yuang mônkòiña, two (or several) men of two races.
And again -
héang yuang kaling, one foreigner.
heang yang kamalenga, one (or more) foreigner of the same country.
tafual yang kamalénga, six (or more) foreigners of six different countries.
And in the phrase:
héang kammennòishe takòisha, di kamentóka takatoka (tai chua wahe); one kind of song was sung, two kinds of dances were danced (by me last night).
To turn to the adjectives: These, like the nouns, are uninflected for grammatical purposes, and may be preposed or postponed, but in the latter case the prefix ta is necessary, e. g. lapá kaling, a good foreigner: but kaling talapa.
Derivative adjectives are formed on the same principle as the nouns. The following are exampies:
leap, to be able: lamiap, expect. karan, iron: takaran, of iron.
puyél, hair: pamayôl, hairy. fp, the side: fapo, fat.
iteak, to sleep: iteakla, sleepy. pahóa fear: pahóapare, timorous.
lapá; good: lenpda, better: lenpdaka, best.
chòng, high: chinònga, higher: chinòngaka, highest.
placing the pronoun after the thing possessed, as in the case of nouns above-mentioned, or by turning it into a derivative adjective, after the manner already explained. Thus, due chia, my canoe, or due tachüa. Honorific forms are unknown, owing to the communistic condition of the social relations of the people. Relation is expressed as in the Indo-European languages: thus, following the English order, paiyúh ka leät-chuh, the man who went home. Reflexive action is also expressed by dêde or rére: e. g. an ofino ta-dede, he is beating (to)-himself.
As regards the pronouns there is no inflection as usual, but there is a form to express the dual' number. The possessive is expressed by simply
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Like the other parts of speech, many verbs are formed out of nouns, &c., by a process of alteration in form, by simple compounding, or by the addition of syllables. Examples are:
shomyo, to fill a sack, from shayo, a sack. ché-kaleták (shiver-tongue), to stammer. hawan, to net fish, from wan, a net.
The prefixes ha and ka are those most commonly used in thus forming verbs; the prefix wi expresses causation, as yom, a garden, wiyom, to cultivate: yo expresses tendency, as tòng, pus, yotong to fester; alde expresses completion, as aldebeät, to become healed: hen expresses action, as toknga, to break, v. n., but hentoknga to break,
v. a.
The prefix kaha is peculiar and may be compared with the form of the class-nouns already explained. It may be best illustrated by an example:loij, to meet by the arrival of one of the parties, kaha-lòij, to meet by the arrival of both parties.
Continuative action is expressed by alteration in form and the suffixing of yande, as top, to drink, tennopayande, to continue drinking.
For comparison, adjectives undergo changes auxiliaries. of form which are peculiar, thus:
In many cases the passive is the more primitive form of the verbs, as haròkhata, to burn, haruka, to be burnt; but the passive form is often expressed by prefixing ta as mandya, to inherit, tamanaya, to be inherited.
There is no inflection of the verb whatever, the grammatical relations being expressed by
Of the minor parts of speech, the adverbs, prepositions and postpositions call for few remarks, and the language is poor in conjunctions and interjections.
mitanto, short: entanta, shorter: entántaka, shortest.
The formation of many prepositions shews the same peculiarities as that of the other parts of
thickest.
fuòi, thick: fenndiyo, thicker: fennòiyoka, speech: e. g. we have ki, head, taksi, on, lakói, above: fap, side, tafáp, beside, kòltafáp. at the side of, yétafáp, to the side.
The Nicobarese reckon by the pair, score, and score of scores, and the only puzzle is that
