In the Maipure and Carib tongues the negative particles _ma_ and _spa_ are also the signs of the preterit. Bopp’s suggestion that the Sanscrit augment was originally _a_ privative finds support in this analogy. Yet I would not speak conclusively on this point, as probably that, the Greek augment ε, and the Mexican _o_, are only lengthened sounds, intended to represent concretely the length of the past time. At any rate one must regard the negation as an actual destruction, a “been, and no longer being,” not as simply a negation of the present. III. THE NOTION OF BEING IS PRESENT IN THE VERBAL FORM ONLY IN IDEA. In this case the verb consists only of the stem, and the person, tense, and mode signs. The former are originally pronouns, the latter particles. Before they are worn down by use to mere affixes, the three following cases may arise: 1. That all three of these elements are equally separable and loosely connected. 2. That one of the two, the person or the tense and mode signs, obtains a closer connection with the stem, and becomes formal, while the other remains loosely attached. 3. That both these are incorporated with the stem, and the whole approaches a true grammatical form, although it does not fully represent it. _Case 1st._ The only language I can instance here is that of the Omaguas, as I know no other with such a decided absence of all true grammatical forms in the verb. The independent pronouns, the stem words of the verbs, and the particles of tense and mode are merely placed together without any change, without internal connection, and apparently without fixed order; _usu_, to go; 1st pers. sing. pres. _ta usu_; 2d pers. sing. perf. _avi ene usu_ (_ene_ is the pronoun, _avi_ the sign of the perfect). Subjunctive, 1st pers. sing. pres. _ta usu mia_; 2d pers. sing. perf. _avi epe usu mia_. Sometimes, when a misunderstanding is not feared, the verbal stem is employed without these qualifying particles, and cannot then be distinguished from a noun. _Paolo amai amano_. The last word means “to die,” but grammatically the sentence can as well be rendered, “Paul only die” (_i. e._ has died), as “Paul only dead.” It is true that the suffix _ta_ changes nouns to verbs: _zhiru_, clothes, _zhiru-ta_, to clothe; but it also changes verbs to nouns, _yasai_, to cover, _yasai-ta_, a cover. This may be explained by the theory that this suffix conveys the idea _to make_, which is taken sometimes actively, sometimes passively. According to the above, the Omagua conjugation falls in the class where an attributive is united to a pronoun and the verb is omitted; only that here definite tense syllables appear, and this brings the construction nearer to the idea of a conjugation. _Case 2d._