Page:American Anthropologist NS vol. 1.djvu/203

 174 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST [n. s„ i. 1899

Die Sprache der Bribri-Indiancr in Costa Rica, Von H. Pittikr de FAbrega. Herausgegeben von Dr. Friedrich MOller. Wien, 1898. 8°, 150 pp., map.

This monograph appeared in the SitzungsbeHchte of the Academy of Sciences of Vienna, and was issued about two months after the death of the distinguished editor. Professor Mtlller was certainly the most comprehensive student of languages of his generation, although prob- ably not the most profound of linguists. He did not venture deeply into the philosophy of human speech, and treated languages more from their historic and ethnographic aspects.

For his knowledge of American idioms Professor Mttller stood easily first, his great work, the Grundriss der Sprachwissensehaft, pre- senting the analysis of forty-two of these tongues. No one, therefore, could have edited with greater ability the collections in the Costa Rican languages made by Dr Pit tier de Fabrega, the President of the Physico- Geographical Institute of that republic.

With characteristic frankness, Professor Mtiller acknowledges that his explanation of the Bribri verb given in his Grundriss, Bd. 11, Ab. h PP- 3*9» 3 2 °» ' s shown to be incorrect by the new material. He had there stated that the verb was composed of a verbal stem and an in- separable pronominal prefix, and hence the intransitive verb could be regarded as a term of possession. It appears, however, that when the subject is expressed, and sometimes when it is not, the pronominal form may be omitted ; nor is the position of subject and object to the verb of a fixed character, as both may precede or follow it.

In these respects the Bribri verb differs from the plan of most American tongues. It is less " incorporative " in its morphology. But * that all signs of this process are absent would be far too much to say. The regular construction is to place the object between subject and verb ; and there is a class of verbs which permits the object to be infixed (p. 50). It is also stated (p. 40) that the original form of the verb was a substantive with an attached pronominal increment.

Professor Pittier is of opinion that there is in the first person plural an inclusive and an exclusive form ; but the editor could not find evidence of this in the texts.

In rendering the sounds of the language, the same alphabet is adopted as in Professor Mtiller's large treatise. The words differ widely from those in the extensive vocabulary published by William Gabb in 1875 ; but this is explained by his inaccuracies rather than by a change in mode of utterance. Nevertheless, Professor Pittier acknowledges (p. 26) that it is practically impossible to present an

�� �