tendency to incorporate the accessaries in the same word with the noun or verb, that separable prepositions were not to be found, or but rarely used, in any Indian language. Eliot, in the Massachusetts Grammar, and the authors of the English Seneca Spelling-Book, have enumerated respectively the parts of speech of those two languages; and prepositions are omitted in both. But reasoning à priori is unsafe; and facts are still wanted, in order to ascertain, in almost all the Indian languages, the number, the derivation, and the manner of using or compounding the inseparable and separable propositions.

Substantive Verb. Conversion of Nouns into Verbs.

The preceding observations relate rather to peculiarities than to the general character of the Indian languages. The substitution of intransitive verbs for the substantive verb, in cases, where this is generally used in modern languages, may be reckoned as one of the general characters of those at least of our Indians.

It appears certain that the Indians have one or more verbs, expressive of locality, and corresponding with the verb to be, when used in that sense, as, 'Peter is at, or in, such a place.' And it may be, that some of the nations have a verb denoting absolute existence. Mr. Schoolcraft has, in his vocabulary, To be,' v. s. Ja, and 'I am,' 'thou art,' nin dya, ki dya; Mr. Worcester mentions the Cherokee verb geha, meaning 'I exist,' and sometimes, I dwell,' and another defective impersonal verb gesunggi, but which seems rather to denote time, than to apply to existence. Mr. Compere alludes to a Muskhogee verb, domist, as implying existence; and other instances may perhaps be adduced. But, whether such a verb be found or not in some of the languages, and whatever may be its proper meaning, it is at least certain, that no such verb is used, either as an auxiliary in the passive voice, or in connexion with attributes, or with substantives susceptible of a verbal form. Although the English language has a great number of intransitive verbs; yet, in the passive voice, or when it is intended to express a certain particular state of passive existence, implying no voluntary, organic, or instantaneous action, the substantive verb is uniformly used. We say indeed, 'to run,' 'to sleep,' and even, 'to die'; in which last case,

the act of dying is alone implied. But if we intend to express the state, in which that act places the person, we must recur to the substantive verb and say, 'He is dead.' I may not have expressed the difference with sufficient perspicuity; and the line of distinction between the cases, where we use an intransitive, and those in which we must resort to the substantive verb, is not perhaps always accurately drawn in the language. It is sufficient for our purpose to say, that in all the cases, where we use the verb to be, in connexion with an attribute, or with a noun, the Indians use an intransitive verb; and that where we use it in connexion with the participle past, they substitute an inflection. Thus the passive voice in the Indian languages is, as in the simple tenses of the Latin, formed by an inflection, consisting generally of the insertion of a particle, such as xi, ssi, in the Delaware, ull in the Choctaw, &c.* And, instead of saying, I am cold,' 'I am sick,' 'I am a man,' &c., they say, I cold, I sick, I man, &c. These various expressions are, each of them, an intransitive verb conjugated through all its persons, tenses, and moods. The only difference is, that, in all those cases, it is the substantive verb which we conjugate; whilst the Indian conjugates what we call the adjective and even the noun itself, in the same manner as he does other intransitive verbs. We find, in the Latin language, several instances of similar neuter or deponent verbs such as sitio, esurio, ægroto, &c, which we cannot render into English, without resorting to the substantive verb. The Indian does, in every instance, that which in Latin occurs only in some cases; and he extends the principle to nouns and even to proper

names.

When the process is applied to a noun, the noun undergoes the inflexion proper to the verb. Thus in the Micmac, from lenno, a man,' is derived the verb, n'looi, 'I am a man,' the conjugation of which will be found in the Appendix. But the adjective, which, according to our habits, we should consider as converted into a verb, appears in the Indian languages, as if it were the simplest form of the verb. In most cases, the word. he is cold, or it is cold, is found to be identical with what we

*The passive voice in the Onondago and probably other Iroquois languages is formed by an inflexion, not of the verb, but of the pronoun; and, in the Choctaw, the objective case of the pronoun is used, beside the inserted particle.

call the adjective cold. Mr. Zeisberger accordingly hesitated, whether, in his Grammar of the Delaware language, he should consider the adjectives as a distinct part of speech; and he ultimately arranged the greater number of them under the head of verbs adjective. There are however, in every Indian language, some adjectives, or words generally considered as such, which from their nature are not susceptible of a verbal form, or which by usage appear only in that of an adjective. Instances of that kind will be found in Mr. Zeisberger's Onondago Grammar.

I believe that it must appear sufficiently obvious, that this general if not universal character of the Indian languages, the conversion into verbs and the conjugation, through all the persons, tenses, and moods, of almost all the adjectives and of every noun which, without a palpable absurdity, is susceptible of it, is entirely due to the absence of the substantive verb; * the idea of which is nevertheless as clear in the mind of the Indian, when he says, I cold, and conjugates the word, as in that of the European, when he says, I am cold,' and conjugates the verb I am.

The adjective, whether considered as the root, or as one of the forms of the verb, appears nevertheless to have preserved some of the properties of the noun adjective. A few, in the Choctaw, have a distinct plural form. The feminine gender in the Onondago, the inanimate or animate in other languages, are distinguished by a varied inflection. The degrees of comparison are in almost every language expressed by words, corresponding to the English more and most, preceding or following the adjective.

It appears, that in the Onondago language, a distinction is made between the adjectives which may, and those which do not coalesce with the substantive, and that, when thus coales

Father Febre says, that the passive voice, in the language of Chili, is formed by substituting for the termination of the active (in the first person of the present indicative) gen, which he asserts to be the substantive verb sum, es; and, in another place, that the same termination gen, meaning existence, added to an adjective, makes the noun substantive of abstract qualities, (corresponding to the English termination ness.) This makes an exception, as to the passive voice, for that language. But the adjectives, substantives, and even proper names are, in the Chilian, as in our Indian languages, converted into intransitive verbs and conjugated without the aid of gen, or of any other analogous auxiliary verb.

cing, the adjective invariably becomes a verb: eniage, 'hand'; ostwi, 'little'; eniastwi, 'a little hand'; wageniastwi, ' my hand is little'; saniastwi, 'thy hand is little'; honiastwi, 'his hand is little.'

It will be perceived that, in this instance, the conjugation can he carried through all the tenses and moods, but only in the third person; the variations of hand and hands, and of my, thy, his, our, belonging properly, the first to the noun and the other to the pronoun.

The notions of time belong properly to the action and not to the object, to the verb and not to the nouns. Yet we find, contrary to the universal usage amongst our own languages, inflections, in those of the Indians, of nouns and adjectives denoting time, both in the past and future tenses. Mr. Schoolcraft has given instances of it in the Chippeway, where the termination, bun, added to a noun proper, indicates that the person has ceased to exist. But the most numerous examples, applying both to adjectives and to substantives, are found in Father Maynard's Notes on the Micmac. It may be, that this peculiarity is due to the verbal form, so easily assumed by nouns of every description.

This process of conversion is reciprocal. Verbs, in almost all the Indian languages, may by a small varied inflexion be converted into nouns. Both verbs and adjectives become substantives in the Chippeway, by adding to them the termination win. The same result is obtained in the Delaware by the termination gan, and in the language of Chili by that of gen. This termination appears, in the three languages, to be principally used for the purpose of forming abstract nouns expressive of qualities. Thus are derived, in the Chilian, cumegen, 'goodness,' from cume, 'good'; in the Delaware, wulissowagan, 'prettiness,' from wulisso, 'pretty'; in the Chippeway, minwaidumowin, 'happiness,' from minwaindum, 'he (is) happy.'

Of Pronouns.

Nouns substantive are often and the verbs are always embodied, the first with the possessive, the other with the personal pronouns, so as to form in each case respectively but a single word. And this union of the verb includes the pronoun not only in its nominative case, or as agent or subject of the

action, but also in its objective case, or as object of the action. Thus the various sentences" He loves me," "I love thee," &c., are always expressed by a single word. This feature is found universally in every American language, from Greenland to Cape Horn, which has been investigated.

John Eliot accordingly commences his Grammar with an examination of the pronoun; "because of the common and general use of the pronoun to be affixed with both nouns and verbs and other parts of speech, and that in the formation of them; therefore, that is the first part of speech to be handled.” But although the principle is the same in all the Indian languages, it has been applied in a different manner in almost every one of them. Referring for further details to the Appendix, we will give here only some general notions on that part of speech.

In almost all the Indian languages, there is an intimate connexion between the separate personal pronouns, and the personal or possessive connected with the verb or the noun. An exception is found in the Cherokee, where the pronouns of the first and second person, when used in an absolute sense, in answer for instance to a question, (Who has done it? 1.) differ from those united with the verb; but these are the same with the possessive united with the noun.

In conformity with what has already been said of the dual and plurals, the inflections which designate the number affect particularly, and in some languages exclusively, the pronouns ; varying, for the dual and plural and for their subdivisions, according to the nature of each dialect. The only exceptions are found in the third person, for which there is no personal pronoun in the Choctaw, and no distinction between the singular and plural in some other languages. In the Sioux also, the general termination pee, designates alone the plural in many instances; and the plural sign te, prefixed, performs the same office in the Cherokee with respect to the objective case of the pronoun.

In the Eskimau and in the language of Chili, the personal pronouns are affixed to the verb, and the same rule applies, in the Eskimau, to the possessive pronoun connected with the The possessive and also the personal pronoun, both in its nominative and objective case, are prefixed to the noun and to the verb respectively, in the Choctaw, the Sioux, the Cherokee, and apparently the Iroquois. In the Muskhogee, the per

noun.