The higher grade of incorporation includes both subject, object and verb in one word, and if for any reason the object is not included, the scheme of the sentence is still maintained in the verb, and the object is placed outside, as in apposition, without case ending, and under a form different from its original and simple one.
This will readily be understood from the following examples from the Mexican language.
The sentence ni-naca-qua is one word, and means “I, flesh, eat.” If it is desired to express the object independently, the expression becomes ni-c-qua-in-nacatl, “I it eat, the flesh.” The termination tl does not belong to the root of the noun, but is added to show that it is in an external and, as it were, unnatural position. Both the direct and remote object can thus be incorporated, and if they are not, but separately appended, the scheme of the sentence is still preserved; as ni-te-tla-maca, literally, “I, to somebody, something, give.” How closely these accessories are incorporated is illustrated by the fact that the tense-augments are not added to the stem, but to the whole word; o-ni-c-temaca-e, where the o is the prefix of the perfect.
In these languages, every element in the sentence which is not incorporated in the verb has, in fact, no syntax at all. The verbal exhausts all the formal portion of the language. The relations of the other words are intimated by their position. Thus ni-tlaçotlaz-nequia, I wished to love, is literally, “I, I shall love, I wished.” Tlaçotlaz is the first person singular of the future; ni-nequia, I wished; which is divided, and the future form inserted. The same expression may stand thus: ni-c-nequia-tlaço-tlaz, where the c is an intercalated relative pronoun, and the literal rendering is, “I it wished, I shall love.”
In the Lule language the construction with an infinitive is simply that the two verbs follow each other in the same person, as caic tucuec, “I am accustomed to eat,” literally, “I am accustomed, I eat.”
None of these devices fulfils all the uses of the infinitive, and hence they are all inferior to it.
In languages which lack formal elements, the deficiency must be supplied by the mind. Words are merely placed in juxtaposition, and their relationship guessed at. Thus, when a language constructs its cases merely by prefixing prepositions to the unaltered noun, there is no grammatical form; in the Mbaya language e-tiboa is translated “through me,” but it is really “I, through;” l’emani, is rendered “he wishes,” but it is strictly, “he, wish.”
In such languages the same collocation of words often corresponds to quite different meanings, as the precise relation of the thoughts is not defined by any formal elements. This is well illustrated in the Tupi tongue. The word uba is “father;” with the pronoun of the third person prefixed it is tuba, literally “he, father.” This may mean either “his father,” or “he is a father,” or “he has a father,” just as the sense of the rest of the sentence requires.
Certainly a language which thus leaves confounded together ideas so distinct as these, is inferior to one which discriminates them; and this is why the formal elements of a tongue are so important to intellectual growth. The Tupis may be an energetic and skillful people, but with their language they can never take a position as masters in the realm of ideas.
The absence of the passive in most American tongues is supplied by similar inadequate collocations of words. In Huasteca, for example, nana tanin tahjal, is translated “I am treated by him;” actually it is, “I, me, treats he.” This is not a passive, but simply the idea of the Ego connected with the idea of another acting upon it.