9. Participle in -ank.
10. Past participle and verbal adjectives in -tko.
Tense and mode inflection is very rudimentary and is mostly accomplished by the use of particles. The study of the prefixes and suffixes of derivation is one of the chief difficulties of the language, for they combine in clusters, and are not easily analyzed, and their functions are often obscure.
The inflection of nouns by case endings and postpositions is rich in forms; that of the adjective and numeral less elaborate.
Of the pronouns, only the demonstrative show a complexity of forms.
Another feature of this language is found in verbs appended to certain numerals, and thus serving as numerical classifiers. These verbs express methods of counting and relate to form; that is, in each case they present the Indian in the act of counting objects of a particular form and placing them in groups of tens.
The appended verbs used as classifiers signify to place, but in Indian languages we are not apt to find a word so highly differentiated as place, but in its stead a series of words with verbs and adverbs undifferentiated, each signifying to place, with a qualification, as I place upon, I lay alongside of, I stand up, by, etc. Thus we get classifiers attached to numerals in the Klamath, analogous to the classifiers attached to verbs, nouns, numerals, etc., in the Ponka, as mentioned above.
These classifiers in Klamath are further discriminated as to form; but these form discriminations are the homologues of attitude discriminations in the Ponka, for the form determines the attitude.
It is interesting to note how often in these lower languages attitude or form is woven into the grammatic structure. Perhaps this arises from a condition of expression imposed by the want of the verb to be, so that when existence in place is to be affirmed, the verbs of attitude, i.e., to stand, to sit, to lie, and sometimes to move, are used to predicate existence in place, and thus the mind comes habitually to consider all things as in the one or the other of these attitudes. The process of growth seems to be that verbs of attitude are primarily used to affirm existence in place until the habit of considering the attitude is established; thus participles of attitude are used with nouns, &c., and finally, worn down by the law of phonic change, for economy, they become classifying particles. This view of the origin of classifying particles seems to be warranted by studies from a great variety of Indian sources.
The syntactic portion is divided into four parts: