[41] It will also be recollected that the gerunds and participles will, in that language, often subserve the same office. Thus we have, ante domandum, before they are tamed; urit videndo, he burns when he looks; cum Epicurus voluptate metiens summum bonum, whereas Epicurus who measures the chief good by pleasure.
[42] This is an exception to what we find in English, and other languages, the finite verb in them being very seldom found after an oblique case; i. e., after any case beside the nominative, unless the relative, or the personal pronoun with some conjunction, intervene. We may observe, also, that the verbal particles will be often prefixed to other words beside the verb; e. g., e kore koe e pai kia mau e hanga? Are you not willing that you should do it? kia mou ai te kainga, that the land should be yours.
[43] That the English language had once a similar tendency might, we think, be shewn by many examples. Thus we hear, "have pity on me," "have her forth," "I have remembrance of thee in my prayer." Many of our tenses, also, are formed by this auxiliary; e. g., "I have seen," "he had gone," "I would have loved, &c." The frequent use, also, of this form in the Greek may be seen in Donnegan's Greek Lexicon, under "echo," to hold.
[44] As the English language supplies but few illustrations of this mode of construction, we will here lay before the student some extracts from Professor Lee's Hebrew Grammar, as well to shew how much this usage obtains in Oriental languages, as to enable him to enter more readily into the subject. Professor L. says, page 328, "any writer commencing his narrative, will necessarily speak of past, present, or future events with reference to the period in which his statement is made." This, he says, is the "absolute use of the tense." Again, "A person may speak of those events with reference to some other period, or event, already introduced into the context. This is the relative use—Hence, a preterite connected with another preterite will be equivalent to our pluperfect; a present following a preterite to our imperfect, and so on." Again, page 330, "They, the Arabians, consider the present tense as of two kinds; one they term the real present, which is what our grammarians always understand by the present tense. The other they term the present as to the narration; by which they mean the time contemporary with any event, and which may therefore be considered as present with it, although past, present, or future with regard to the real or absolute present tense." In page 334 is a good illustration from the Persian: "last night I go to the house of a friend, and there see a delightful assembly, and enjoy a most pleasing spectacle." The student will see in the above example that go, see, and enjoy, are relative presents, being presents to last night, the time in which the speaker, in his imagination, now places himself. This mode of construction abounds in the O. and N. T., vid., for example, Mark xiv., he saw Levi and says to him. Says, here, is present to saw, though past to the time of the narration.
[45] Note.—The student is recommended to notice the various forms contained in the preceding table, and to endeavour to add to them from his own observation. It would also be most useful to throw into one form all the various examples of simple and compound times that he will find in pages 37, 41, to 44, as well also as those contained in the preceding part of this chapter.
[46] The passive verbs wheterongia, titahangia, &c., to which we allude, page 39, note, may, we think, on reflection, be most correctly reduced to this head.
CHAPTER XX.
OF THE PREPOSITIONS, ADVERBS, AND CONJUNCTIONS.
These have been considered at large in chapters 8, 9, 10, 11, and require now but little notice. We proceed to consider the prepositions which follow the verbs, and to offer a few other remarks respecting them.
Verbal postfixes.—An active verb will (as was observed page 60) take i after it, to denote the object of the action. Sometimes, however, ki will be found to supply its place; e. g., mohio ki a ia, matau ki a ia, wehi ki a ia, whakaaro ki tena mea, karanga ki a ia, kua mau ki te pu, seized his gun. Whiwhi ki te toki, obtain an axe, &c.