In similar manner the substantive verb is used to form a tense of the subjunctive.
The sign of both the perfects in this tongue is the syllable nit, and niy means “to die.” It is not improbable that this affix is derived from this verb. Death and destruction are suitable ideas to express the past, and some languages employ negative particles as signs of the preterit. In the Tamanaca this is not exactly the case, but the negative particle puni added to a word which signifies an animate thing, intimates that it has died; papa puni, the deceased father, literally, “father not.” In the Omagua tongue the same word signifies old, dead, and not present.
In the Maipure and Carib tongues the negative particles ma and spa are also the signs of the preterit. Bopp’s suggestion that the Sanscrit augment was originally a privative finds support in this analogy. Yet I would not speak conclusively on this point, as probably that, the Greek augment ε, and the Mexican o, are only lengthened sounds, intended to represent concretely the length of the past time. At any rate one must regard the negation as an actual destruction, a “been, and no longer being,” not as simply a negation of the present.
III.
The notion of Being is present in the Verbal form only in idea.
In this case the verb consists only of the stem, and the person, tense, and mode signs. The former are originally pronouns, the latter particles. Before they are worn down by use to mere affixes, the three following cases may arise:
1. That all three of these elements are equally separable and loosely connected.
2. That one of the two, the person or the tense and mode signs, obtains a closer connection with the stem, and becomes formal, while the other remains loosely attached.
3. That both these are incorporated with the stem, and the whole approaches a true grammatical form, although it does not fully represent it.