Ke je be wai su-na.
Not I thee (?) see-did.
In the latter sentence na is the sign of the past aorist, and the verb in synthesis with it drops its last syllable. The wai Gabb could not explain. It will be noticed that the negative precedes the whole verbal form, thus indicating that it is treated as a collective idea (holophrastically).
Prepositions always appear as suffixes to nouns, which, in composition, may suffer elision. This is strictly similar to the Nahuatl and other synthetic tongues.
Other examples of developed synthesis are not uncommon, as—
away, imibak, from imia to go, jebak, already.
very hot, palina, from ba + ilinia.
The opinion that the Bri-Bri is at present a considerably corrupted and worn-down dialect of a group of originally highly synthetic tongues is borne out by an examination of the scanty materials we have of its nearest relations.
Thus in the Terraba we find the same superfluous richness of pronominal forms which occurs in many South American tongues, one indicating that the person is sitting, another that he is standing, a third that he is walking.[[315]]
The Brunka has several distinct forms in the present tense: