Here are three forms for the present, not explained. Are they three conjugations, or do they express three shades of meaning, like the three English presents? I suspect the latter, for under ikiana, to want, Gabb remarks that the form in -etke, means “he wants you,” i. e., is emphatic.
The past aorist has two terminations, one in -na, and one in -e, about the uses and meanings of which we are left equally in the dark.
The future is utterly inexplicable. Even Prof. Müller, just after his note calling attention to the “great simplicity” of the tongue, is obliged to give up this tense with the observation, “the structural laws regulating the formation of the future are still in obscurity!” Was it not somewhat premature to dwell on the simplicity of a tongue whose simplest tenses he acknowledges himself unable to analyze?
The futures of some verbs will reveal the difficulties of this tense:—
| To burn, i-nyor-ka; | future, | i-nyor-wane-ka. |
| To cook, i-lu’; | ” | i-lu’. |
| To start, i-bete; | ” | i-bete. |
| To want, i-ki-ana; | ” | i-kie. |
| To count, ishtaung; | ” | mia shta’we. |
In the last example mia is the future of the verb imia, to go, and is used as an auxiliary.
The explanation I have to suggest for these varying forms is, either that they represent in fact that very “multiplicity of tense-formations” which Humboldt alluded to, and which were too subtle to be apprehended by Mr. Gabb within the time he devoted to the study of the language; or that they are in modern Bri-Bri, which I have shown is noticeably corrupted, survivals of these formations, but are now largely disregarded by the natives themselves.
Signs of the incorporative plan are not wanting in the tongue. Thus in the objective conjugation not only is the object placed between subject and verb, but the latter may undergo visible synthetic changes. Thus:
Je be sueng.
I thee see.