nouns (pp. [9]-11). He also recognizes their formal similarity to the verb and treats them briefly as a sub-class of the substantive verb (pp. [32]-33), but his heavy reliance upon the semantic categories of Latin does not permit him to follow Rodriguez who is able more clearly to recognize their formal as well as their functional distinctiveness.
Concerning prepositions, Collado was confronted with an all but insurmountable taxonomic problem. Here too Rodriguez was unable to develop a completely satisfactory descriptive framework. In the Arte the term posposição is used for those particles which function in a manner similar to the Latin prepositions; e.g., tameni, taixite, and tomoni (cf. 73-73v and 140-148v); the term artigo is used for those particles having the functions of the inflectional endings of Latin; e.g., ga, ye, and ni (cf. 1-2, 78, and 137-140); and the general term particula is used to cover the broad spectrum of particles that include adverbs, conjunctions, and exclamations, as well as those otherwise unaccounted for elements which end phrases, clauses, and sentences; e.g., no, nite, and yo (cf. 77-78 and 144-154v).
Collado, rather than attempting to refine the system suggested by Rodriguez, follows the Arte in listing as praepositio those elements which translate the Latin prepositions (pp. [57]-59) but uses the term particula to cover all the other particles of the language.
This tendency of Collado's to retreat from the challenging problems left unresolved by Rodriguez constitutes the greatest weakness of his description. Given concise grammatical descriptions on the one hand and over-simplified versions of previous works on the other, the Ars Grammaticae Iaponicae Linguae unfortunately falls among the latter.
In his shorter work, the Arte Breve of 1620, Rodriguez retains the same general format, but makes every effort to reduce the description to its barest essentials. Thus:
Book I
A General Note on the Language ... 1-2
An Essay on How to Learn the Language ... 2v-6
The Orthography ... 6-8
Composition of the Syllables ... 8v-9v