ilídshäs I kill, pasátäs.
háyäs I make, háhaidshäs; pl. of subject hayäkīs.
mutchasídshäs I make new, mutchasakúidshäs.
ki`lä′dshäs I cause to know, apprize, ki`lakuídshäs.
túläs I fell (a tree etc.), tultuídshäs I fell repeatedly, or many objects.
falápäs I split; ítun falá'hlidshäs I split many sticks separately.
náfkäs I strike, nafnákäs.
hopíläs I inhume, hopilhuídshäs and hopiláχäs.
tádshäs I cut off, sever, wá`läs.
Syntax.
Many conjunctions are formed from the auxiliary verbs ómäs, mómäs and thus are in fact verbs, not particles. In spite of the frequent use to which they are put they do not relieve the sentence of its heaviness to any perceptible extent; for what we call incident clauses and also many co-ordinate principal sentences are uniformly expressed by groups of words, the verb of which stands in the -t or -n verbal, which nearest corresponds to our participle in -ing, or to having (h. gone, carried), sometimes five or six of them, followed at the close by a finite verb. Instances of this our Creek text affords almost on every page. This sort of incapsulation greatly embarrasses interpreters in the rendering of Creek texts in any of the modern European languages, which have a tendency towards analytic and an aversion to synthetic structure of the sentence, and therefore use conjunctions freely. A conjunction corresponding in every respect to our and exists in none of the Maskoki dialects.
The syntax is remarkably simple and uniform; the multiplicity of grammatic forms precludes the formation of many syntactic rules, just as in Sanscrit. The position of the words in the sentence is: subject, object, verb. The adjective when used attributively stands after the noun qualified.
Lexical Affinities.
Several Creek words possess a striking resemblance with words of equal or related signification, pertaining to other languages. Some of them are undoubtedly borrowed, while others may rest on a fortuitous resemblance. A few of them were pointed out by H. Hale, in Amer. Antiquarian V, 120. I consider as being borrowed from Cheroki:
Cr. átasi war-club, in Cher. atsá, at'sá; occurs in the Cher. war-name: At'sá utégi the one throwing away the war-club. It contains the idea of being bent, crooked; inatá atassíni the snake is crawling.
Cr. tchū′ska, post-oak, H. tchíski; Cher. tchuskó.
Cr. yĕnása, Cha'hta yánash bison, buffalo; Cher. yánasa.
The Creek sulitáwa soldier and the Cha'hta shulush shoe were borrowed from the French terms soldat and soulier (from Lat. subtalare).
Alike in Creek and Cheroki, but of uncertain provenience are tsúla, tchúla fox, in Yuchi sátchoni; hía, i-a this, this one (pron. dem.). Compare also Cr. níni road, trail with Cher. naⁿnóhi, nä-ĕnóhi road. The Cr. words tíwa hair, scalp, and wáhu winged elm are said to be borrowed from foreign languages. It will be noticed, that names of plants, and especially of animals hunted by man often spread over several contiguous linguistic areas.
The Maskoki dialects, it must be acknowledged, have remained remarkably free from foreign admixture.