Page:Archæologia Americana—volume 2, 1836.djvu/227

 SECT. VI.] INDIAN LANGUAGES. 191 in the indicative mood. But an entirely different plan has prevailed in the subjunctive, or, as Eliot calls it, the supposi- tive mood, which is rendered into English by if or when. The initial characteristics of the pronouns are, in that mood, almost always omitted ; and the following examples of the simple conjugation and of the seven primitive transitions (from a singular to another singular person) will show how their place is supplied : If I love, if thou lovest, if he loves, if we love, rf ye love, if they love, If, when, he loves him, I love him, thou lovest him, he loves me, he loves thee, I love thee, thou lovest me, We find, in the two last transitions, the characteristics, /, and i, indicative of the action passing from the first to the second and from the second to the first person, but little affinity with the original pronouns. The plural terminations are diversified, enk, enkwe, yenk, y enkwe, ank, awank, kivek, kwenk, akhtite, &c, apparently with the general plural sign, but with difficulty reducible to general rules. The simple conjugation and the transitions in the singular number are very uniform, but dis- similar, in reference to the pronouns, from those of the indica- tive mood. Eliot's paradigm shows, that his suppositive mood was, in the Massachusetts language, of the same character with the Delaware subjunctive. It appears extraordinary, that there should be, for the moods of the same verb, two systems of conjugation so entirely dif- fering from each other ; that for the indicative founded on the inflections of the common pronouns, and that of the subjunc- tive without any apparent affinity with these, or with the in- dicative. In the subjunctive of our languages, the verb is governed by a separate conjunction, which requires a varied inflection in the Ahoalan, to love. Luen, to say. ahoal ak, luey a, ahoal anne, luey anne, ahoal at, lue te, ahoal enk, luey enk, ahoal eque, luey ek, ahoal akhtit, lue khtit. ahoal ate, 1 ate, ahoal akhte, 1 ake, k'd ahoal anne, 1 at panne, ahoal ite, 1 ite, ahoal quonne, 1 uk quonne, ahoal anne, lei lanne, ahoal iyanne, 1 iyanne.