Page:A Sketch of Mota Grammar.djvu/26

(22) up, his companion John. Tak is a common appellative, like "mate."

This use is confined to persons, and to things which can naturally be regarded as going together, as fellows.

X. VERBS.

A Verb in Mota is a word used in a verbal form. There are indeed some words whose natural use is in a verbal form, some which having a special verbal termination are particularly verbs; but any word with which the verbal particles are used is so far forth a verb, whether substantive or adjective, or preposition, or adverb, or even article perhaps, in its more proper use.

Thus, Me qon̈ veta, "It is already night;"—qon̈ is a substantive. O ima me mantagai munina, "the house has become too small for us;" mantagai is an adjective. Ni me siwo ma, "He came down hither;"—siwo is an adverb. Nau te munia mum tamana, "I will be to him a father;"—mun, a preposition. O matava wa o ravrav me o qon̈ vagaruei, "The morning and the evening were the second day;"—o is the article, but perhaps here it is the clause o qon̈ vagaruei, which has become a verb.

On the other hand, words like nonom, 'think,' sua, 'paddle,' representing operations of the mind and body, are true verbs, and have to undergo an alteration to become substantives—nonomia, suava.

The prefixing or affixing of a syllable or letter of a certain character will make a verb with a special force out of a verb, or out of a word which may have been before either verb or substantive. Thus, esu, 'live' or 'life,' and vaeseu, 'make to live;' ron̈o, to be in a state as patient not agent, and ron̈otag, to hear or feel.

Before the consideration of special forms of verbs, comes that of the verbal particles which are the signs of a verb, and in which in so many cases the verbal force seems to reside.