| Pronouns which, with a predicate, convey a verbal idea. | Pronouns which, by themselves, possess verbal power. | |
| Singular. | ||
| 1. | en | ten |
| 2. | ech | tech |
| 3. | lai lo | lai |
| Plural. | ||
| 1. | on | toon |
| 2. | ex | teex |
| 3. | ob | loob |
This similarity leads to the thought that a true phonetic radical may exist in this t, and may induce us to consider this word not as a pronoun but as a substantive verb. But this makes no difference. The fact remains that the word is used both as a simple pronoun and also as a substantive verb. In the translation of the Lord’s Prayer, the word toon is a simple pronoun. If t is a radical, it may just as well come from the pronoun. Some languages offer clear examples of this. In the Maipure the expression for the third person singular recurs with all the other persons, as if this sound meant the person, the man generally, and the first and second persons were denoted as the “I-person,” “thou-person,” etc. In the Achagua language the same radical occurs in all the pronouns, but does not, as in the Maipure, stand alone for the third person singular, but in it, as in the other persons, appears as an affix.
At any rate, this pronoun answers, in the Maya, all the purposes of the substantive verb, and there is no other in the language.
It is quite intelligible that in the conceptions of rude nations the idea of an object, and especially of a person, cannot be separated from the idea of his existence. This may be applied to the forms of expression above mentioned. What seems a violent and ungrammatical omission of the verb, is probably in those people an obscure association of thoughts, a non-separation of the object from its being. Probably it is from the same source that in some American languages every adjective is so considered that it includes not the idea alone, but the expression, “it is thus, and thus constituted.”
In the Yaruri language the absence of a phonetic radical meaning “to be” is yet more apparent. Each person of the pronoun is a different word, and they have no single letter in common. The pronoun which has verbal power is almost identical with the independent personal pronoun. The tense signs are prefixed to it. Thus, que, I am; ri que, I was, &c. This ri, however, is merely a particle which expresses that something is remote, and corresponds with our “from.” Ui-ri-di, there was water there, literally “water far is” (from us is). The subjunctive of this substantive verb is given as ri, “if I were.” This means, however, “in,” and is a particle. The notion of Being is added, as in the pronoun; and the ideas, “in the being,” and “if I were,” pass into each other.
Strictly speaking, both the verbal notations here expressed are identical with those already mentioned. Here also the verb is supplied by the mind. The difference is that in the latter case the pronouns alone signify being, and contain this notion in themselves, whereas in the other cases this notion arises from the conjunction of subject and predicate. Then also in the Maya language there is a special pronoun for this sole purpose. As far as the forms go, they entirely resemble those of a true verb, and if que and ten are regarded as mere verbs substantive, one who did not examine their elements would take them to be true verbs like the Sanscrit bhū, the Greek ειμι, and the Latin sum. The example of these languages thus teaches that in the analysis of the substantive verbs of other tongues it is not necessary that a common phonetic radical need be employed.
In the Huasteca language the substantive verb is replaced by affixing a tense sign to the independent pronouns; naua itz, I was, tata itz, thou wert, etc. But the case is not the same. The pronoun receives the verbal power by the suffix itz, and this appears only in later times to have become a sign of the preterit, and in an earlier period to have had a general sense. The mountaineers who seem to have retained the older forms of the tongue use the itz, not only in the preterit, but in the present and future. It was doubtless the expression of some general verbal idea, as, to be, to do, etc.
II.
The notion of Being is incorporated with the verb as an Auxiliary.
Auxiliary verbs are used only for certain tenses, or form the entire conjugation. The former arises from accidental causes having relation only to these tenses, not to the verb in general. The latter readily arises when a substantive verb offers an easy means of conjugation by uniting with another verb. Sometimes the conjugation by means of an auxiliary shows that the linguistic sense of a notion sought something beyond the person and tense signs to express the verbal power itself, and therefore had recourse to a general verb. This can, indeed, only be constituted of those elements and a radical; but the want in the language is thus supplied, once for all, and does not return with every verb.
An excellent example of this is furnished by the Maya conjugation. In an analysis of it we find an element that neither belongs to the root, nor is a person, tense or mode sign, and when their varieties and changes are compared, there is evident throughout a marked anxiety to express the peculiar verbal power in the form of the verb.