Page:Archæologia Americana—volume 2, 1836.djvu/250

 214 A SYNOPSIS OF THE INDIAN TRIBES. [iNTROD. Dumber of forms expressing the accusative case of pronouns governed by the verb. All the European languages do like- wise express that relation by inflections belonging to the conjugation of the verb and by the termination of the several persons of the pronoun. These accessary forms have pro- duced not less than twenty-seven different inflections for each tense of the Greenlandish language, in order to express the action when it terminates in the third person ; and there are as many for that terminating in either of the two other persons. Analogous inflections are found in every tense, and in each tense of every mood, as also in most of the various forms indi- cated in the preceding paragraph. (Mith.) The paradigms of conjunctions are very difficult ; as you must conjugate with the adjunction of the active pronouns (and of those in the oblique case), through the three numbers in both, and also through all the tenses and moods, of which the conjunctive alone is inflected in twelve different ways. So that we shall find each verb, whether in the affirmative or nega- tive form, to contain one hundred and eighty inflections, neces- sary to be kept in the memory ; a difficult task, though the inflections are regular. (Crantz.) Negative form. — This form is expressed by the termination ngilak and other changes according to the tense, and then is also liable to variations similar or analogous to those of the affir- mative form. (Mith.) Syntax. — There are several rules, such as, that the nomina- tive precedes the verb, unless there is in the sentence an oblique case, when the nominative is put at the end of the sen- tence ; the adjective assumes the same termination as the sub- stantive, &ic. The learned authors wonder " how such people can have performed such philological work, which can only have been the result of profound and abstract meditations." (Mith.) Their proper numeral table is Jive; then counting on their fingers they call six by the name of the first finger and for the following, repeat two, three, four, five ; and count from ten to twenty with their toes. Sometimes instead of twenty they say a man; for one hundred, five men. But the generality are not so learned, and the number, if above twenty, they call innu- merable. (Crantz.)