Indian Antiquary Vol 48

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarkar
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 326

THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
infinitive, the future, and verbal substantive, -ngaba for pres. and imperf. indic., -ngata for perf. and entóba-ngata pluperf., and -re for past participle.16 Certain verbs distinguish the subject and others the object, as human and non-human, by change of prefix, but no rule can be given as to when & verb does one or the other, so that this is a mere matter of practice. There are also reflective verbs formed by pronouns.
The greatest peculiarity of the language is the treatment of the personal and possessive pronoun. All the pronouns are sexless, but the forms used for the so-called dative seem to vary with the group. The normal form is that for the third person, 'he, she, it,' for which I will use it' only for brevity, and 'they' for the plural. We have then sing. 61 it (subjeot), la of it, en, úl, at, ik, eb to it, in different forms, en it (object), and in it: pl. à l'bichik they, o'nta of them, et, d'lat, atat. Ôntat, illet, eb et to them, in different forms, el them, 6-llet in them. These relations may also be expressed by the postpositions answering to case. Then for the first person sing. and m- plur., and for the second ng- sing. and plur., are prefixed to these forms; as ôl it, dôl I, ngôl, thou, molồichik we, ngòlòichik you. There is also what has been called a "fourth person," obtained by prefixing 1 to those forms of the third person, which are not the subject of the sentence, and those give common postpositional forms, as li'a of a or the (or English possessive '8), len to or in a or the, and also the object of a verb, lat, leb to & or the.
These preliminary explanations will serve to make intelligible the following examples, and will shew the structure of the language better than a long series of grammatical explanations. Observe that in all these examples a hyphen at the end of a word means that the suffix -da (applied to all things) may be added, but that it is omitted in construction, and heard only in isolated words or at the end of a clause. The hyphens between parts of a word separate the prefix, the suffix, the postposition and the parts of which the word is compounded, and are used merely for the purpose of assisting the unaccustomed reader, generally they should all be written together in one word without hyphens, just as in German ereifern and not er-eifer-n, though the latter shews the approximate composition.
PREFIXES ILLUSTRATED.
Cited hereafter as No. 1, 2, etc. No. I. beri-nga good (animate but non-human, or inanimate).
No. 2. jā bag- bad (ditto). No. 3. a-beri-nga-good (human). No. 4. ab-jā-bag- bad (ditto). No. 5. ad-bê-ri-nga- well, that is, not sick (animate).
15 Mr. Man. conjugates' a verb thus, twing the inflexional names. I translate the suffixes -ke do. doen, ka -ing -was, he did, eto., as the nearest inflexional representatives, but they do not give the true feeling of the original, to which we have nothing which corresponds in English.
ACTIVE. Inf. mamike sleep-to. Pres. dsl md mi-ke I sleep-do. Imperf. d6l ma'mi-ka I sleep-iny. war, Perl, dsl ma'mi-re I sleep-did (I slept), Pluperf. dôl ent8-ba ma mire I already sloep.did. Fut. d61 mdmi-ngabo I sleep-will. Imperative do md mi-ke me sleep-let, md mi sleep!,8 má mi-ke him sleep-lot, mo'cho ma'mi-ke us sleep-lot. Optative dál má mi-nga to guk I sleep-(verbal subs.) might. Con. tinuative participle, mdmi-nga ba-dig sleep (verbal subs.) while = while sleeping.
PASSIVE. Inf. ko'p-nga sooo plod)-to-be. Pres. kdrama då•l-la ko'p-ngaba bow me-by sooo ped-isbeing. Imperf. ka rama d8·2-la achfbaiya kip-ngaba bow me by then scooped-was-being. Perf. ká-rama
3-2-la ko-p-ngata bow mo-by scooped-has-been. Pluperf. kdrama dô-l-la entô-ba káp ngata bow me-by already scooped had boon. Put. kdorama d&-z-la köp-nga bow me by scooped-will-bo.