Page:Archæologia Americana—volume 2, 1836.djvu/259

 APP. NO. I.] GRAMMATICAL NOTICES. DELAWARE. 223 tion between the two genders, the animate and the inanimate, he has not, in the simple conjugation of the transitive verbs, desig- nated the difference of inflections due to that cause. But the paradigms are most useful for a comprehension of that part of the language, and most honestly done. It is clear that they exhibit the language such as it is, and not such as it ought to be. Want of space prevents our making as many extracts as we could wish. We have tried to condense as many as possi- ble in the appended tables. But we insert here some partic- ular forms which could not be embraced in the tables, and which show how rich is the language in that respect.] From the verb achpin, ' to be in a particular place,' is de- rived epia, ' where I am ' ; from lissin, ' to be so disposed,' elsiya, 'as I am disposed ' ; from aan, ' to go,' eyaya, ' whither I go ' ; and from luen, ' to say,' eloweya, ' what I say,' and luehundi, 6 it is said.' Some verbs at least have three inflections of the infinitive, and some, three distinct participles. Gauwin, 'to sleep' ; gauwineep, 'to have slept'; gauwint- schi, ' to be about to sleep,' (dormiturus esse.) Mikemossin, ' to work,' mikemossit, ' working,' mikemossit- schik, 'having worked ' ; mikemossintsch, ' being about to work.' And the participles are occasionally susceptible of transitive forms. From wlamallsin, 'to be happy,' is derived ivlamaUcs- scheen, 'to make one happy ' ; and the participle wlamallcsso- haluwed, ' he who makes one happy,' is made by various in- flections to mean, 'he who (or, O thou who) makes me, thee, him, us, you, them happy.' We find also, beside the causative form, already pointed out, various others ; such as, A continuous form ; wawulamallsin, ' to be always happy.' A social form ; witeen, ' to go with.' [This verb in its transitions, 'I go with thee, with him,' &c, seems to correspond with the special dual of the Cherokee ; ' thou and I,' ' he and I,' &:c.] A reciprocal form ; from ahoalan, ' to love,' ahoaltin, ' to love one another.' Those reciprocal forms have generally the infinitive termination in tin. [Quaere, whether this is not derived from the pronoun ntintin or ntinin, ' self ? See Maynard's Micmacs.] This reciprocal form is what some of the Spanish grammarians call the double transition, inasmuch as ' we love one another ' embraces the two transitions, ' I love thee,' and ' thou lovest me.']