The Philosophic Grammar of American Languages, as Set Forth by Wilhelm von Humboldt: With the Translation of an Unpublished Memoir by Him on the American VerbBrinton, Daniel G. (Daniel Garrison)
Philosophy
The Philosophic Grammar of American Languages, as Set Forth by Wilhelm von Humboldt: With the Translation of an Unpublished Memoir by Him on the American Verb
Brinton, Daniel G. (Daniel Garrison)
Grammar, Comparative and general; Humboldt, Wilhelm, Freiherr von, 1767-1835; Indians -- Languages
The tense signs are suffixed, and consist merely of terminal letters
or syllables, except two true particles, which distinguish the
continued present from the present aorist.
There are an initial _y_ and a _t_ occasionally appearing in all
persons, of which we can only say that they are not radicals.
The conjugation of this language, therefore, consists of elements not
readily analyzed.
The Huasteca language prefixes the possessive pronouns as personal
signs. It may also drop them, and use in their stead the independent
pronouns; or may combine both; or may use abbreviated personals; so
that there is a prevailing arbitrariness in this part of the verbal
form.
The tense signs are usually suffixes; but in the future they are
prefixes, which are incorporated with the personal sign placed between
them and the stem. They consist of simple sounds, of no independent
signification. But the particles of the imperative are so separable
that when this mode is preceded by an adverb, they attach themselves
to it.
The Othomi language does not make use of the possessive pronouns in
the conjugation, but suffixes abbreviated forms of the personals, or
else prefixes others of special form, but identical in many letters
and syllables with the personals. In the present condition of the
language the suffixes are used only with the substantive verb; in the
attributive verb, however, they may have been driven forward by the
governed pronouns suffixed. Every verbal inflection may also take,
besides its pronominal prefix, also the unabreviated[TN-9] personal
pronoun in front, or the abbreviated one after it.
The tense signs consist principally of single vowels, by means of
which the pronominal prefixes are attached to the stem. The imperfect
and pluperfect alone have besides this a loosely attached particle.
The past tenses possess a prefix, which we have already seen appears
to have been derived from an auxiliary verb.
In the third person of some tenses in certain verbs the stem undergoes
a change of its initial letters, which appears to transform these
inflections into verbal adjectives, an instance of the confusion of
the ideas of noun and verb common in all these languages.
The Mexican language possesses a peculiar class of verbal pronouns
which form the personal signs. This pronoun is similar to the personal
in its consonants, but has a vowel of its own. It is a prefix. The
plural is marked by the accent, or by a special termination. This
personal sign is inseparable from the verb, but the speaker may also
prefix the independent personal pronoun.
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