Page:On the Non-Aryan Languages of India.djvu/25

Rh but they are not all complete, and they occasionally run into each other, as when the same pronoun is both subject and object. It will be observed from the examples above given that the pronominal of the third person, when expressed, is always the last member of the compound, whether it represents the subject or object of the verb, and that it is unchanged in form; and whether it is to be regarded as expressing the subject or object, depends upon the form of the preceding suffix. These pronominal suffixes are in most cases evidently abridgments of the full forms of the pronouns.

There are eleven conjugations, but all the changes are limited to the singular of the indicative. The participles incorporate the pronominals, just like the other parts of the verb, and are for the most part constituted by adding a formative to the tense forms; thus the present verbal participle is tágnana 'I finding him,' the relative tágname 'the one that I find.' The dual and plural suffixes of the first and second pronouns are different from those of the third pronoun and of the noun; thus, ga 'thou,' gad 'you two,' gani 'you'; wainsa 'man,' wainsadasi 'two men,' wainsada 'men.' In the Vayu language the structure of the verb differs from that of the Bahing in this respect, that it can express the dual and plural of either the subject or the object, but not of both. If it is the case that all the languages referred to in this group have a common origin, including both those which have the elaborate conjugational arrangement of the class just mentioned, and those which have the simple structure, the mere juxtaposition of pronoun or noun and verb, we can hardly suppose that the complex system was once common to all, and that while some languages have retained it, others have so completely thrown it off as to leave not a trace behind. It seems more probable that the wild tribes who speak the languages of Class X. should have developed this system in the seclusion of the valleys or hills to which they betook themselves when they separated from the common stock. There are several other non-Aryan tribes in Nepal who speak, for the most part, dialects of Hindi which I shall not mention, with one exception, the Kuswar, which has preserved