There being no relative pronoun in Delaware, dependent clauses are either included in the verbal of the major clause, or include it as a secondary. The scheme of the simple sentence is usually subject-verb-object; but emphasis allows departures from this, as in the following sentence from Bishop Ettwein's MSS.:-- _Jesus wemi amemensall w'taholawak._ Jesus all children he-loved-them. Of the formal affixes, the inseparable pronouns are the most prominent. They are the same for nouns and verbs, and are-- 1st. _n_, I, my, we, our. 2d. _k_, thou, thy, you, your. 3d. _w_ or _o_, he, she, it, his, their. Past time is indicated by the terminal _p_, with a connective vowel, and future time by _tsch_, which may be either a prefix or suffix, as-- _N'dellsin_, I am thus. _N'dellsineep_, I was thus. _N'dellsintschi_, } or } I shall be thus. _Nantsch n'dellsin_,} The change or "flattening" of the vowel of the root in suppositive propositions, was recognized as a fact of speech, but not grammatically analyzed by Zeisberger. Its effect on verbal forms may be seen from the following examples from his _Grammar_:-- _Examples of Vowel Change in Lenape._ _N'dappin_, I am there. _Achpiya_, if I am there. _Epia_, where I am. _N'dellsin_, I am so. _Lissiye_, if I am so. _N'gauwi_, I sleep. _Gewi_, he who sleeps. _N'pommauchsi_, I walk or live. _Pemauchsit_, living. _N'da_, I go. _Eyaya_, when I go. _Eyat_, going. Another omission in his Grammar is that of the "obviative" and "super-obviative" forms of nouns. These are used in the Algonkin dialects to define the relations of third persons. They prevent such obscurity as appears in the following English sentence: "John's brother called at Robert's, to see his wife." Whose wife is referred to is left ambiguous; but in Algonkin these third persons would have different forms, and there would be no room for ambiguity. In his writings in Lenape, Zeisberger makes use of obviatives, with the terminations _al_ and _l_, but does not treat of them in his Grammar. As a question in philosophical grammar, it may be doubted whether the Lenape has any true passive voice. Cardinal Mezzofanti was accustomed to deny the presence of any real passives in American languages; and he had studied the Delaware among others. The sign of the Delaware passive is the suffix _gussu_ or _cusso_. In the Cree dialect, which, as I have already said, preserves the ancient forms most closely, this is _k-ussu_, and is a particle expressing likeness or similarity in animate objects[171]. Hence, probably, the original sense of the Lenape word translated, "I am loved," is "I am like the object of the action of loving." FOOTNOTES: