will appear from the sequel, that it possesses no affinity with either. All the changes which take place in Mpongwe nouns, except such as result from the laws of contraction and coalescence, are invariably on the incipient syllable. An abstract verbal noun is derived from the verb by prefixing the letter i; thus, The noun of agency is formed by prefixing the letter o, which may be regarded as a sort of a relative pronoun; thus, There are some exceptions and variations from the above rules, not important to be mentioned. In Mpongwe there are four modes of forming the plural from the singular, which furnish the basis for a classification of its nouns, as well marked and as complete as a similar classification of Latin and Greek nouns. For the sake of convenience, these classes are called declensions, although this term is not strictly and philosophically correct. The first declension embraces all those nouns which commence their singular number with one or more consonants; and the plural is formed from the singular by prefixing i or si; thus, Derivative nouns which begin with i, belong to the plural only of this declension. The second declension comprises all those nouns which com mence with the letter e, and form their plurals by dropping e. If the first consonant should be z, e is not only dropped, but z is changed into y; thus, The third declension embraces all nouns whose incipient letter is ; (except the derivative nouns, which commence with i, and 1847.] Mpongwe Declensions. 759 belong to the plural of the first declension), and forms its plurals by changing into a; thus, Singular. idâmbe, a sheep ikânda, plantain Plural. If the first consonant should be v, it is changed into mp; thus, The fourth declension embraces such nouns as have o for their incipient letter, and form their plurals by changing o into i; thus, The fifth declension embraces such nouns as commence with a, and have both numbers of the same form; thus, This declension may belong to the plural of the third. The only irregularities which occur are in relation to the words oma (person) and onwana (child), and such words as are compounded with these; as, omanto (woman), the plural of which is anto; and onwágiam, the plural of which is anwâgiam. The plural of oma is aulaga, and the plural of onwana is anwana; so it would seem that the singular of these nouns belong to the fourth, and the plural to the Fifth declension. These, however, are the only irregularities which occur in Mpongwe nouns. This classification of Mpongwe nouns does not rest, however, entirely or chiefly on their different modes of deriving the plural from the singular number; but it is rendered much more conspicuous and necessary from the different modes in which they receive their adjectives, as will be seen presently. Some changes take place on the final syllable of nouns, as has already been mentioned, in obedience to the laws of contraction or for the sake of euphony; the following are some of these changes, viz. a final followed by y incipient, is changed into i; thus swaka yam (my knife) becomes swaki yam; the same change takes place before w incipient; thus, olambi wam, and not olamba wam; o final before y are both superseded by w; thus, ndego wam is used for ndego yam, etc., etc. Adjectives. In relation to this part of speech, there are a few particulars in which there is some general resemblance among these dialects, not such however as would be so likely to arise from any existing affinity, as from the uncultivated state of these languages. In the first place, this class of words are not numerous in either, but much less so in the Grebo and the Mandingo than in the Mpongwe; 2, neither have degrees of comparison; and 3, neither have inflections for number, except the Mpongwe. The deficiency of adjectives in these languages is made up by the use of a substantive and verb; thus in Grebo, kanu ni ná, hunger works him, for hungry; â kâ te plande, he has many things, ά for rich; and so in Mpongwe e jâgâ njana, he is sick with hun ger, for he is hungry; are nániva, he has money, for rich, etc. A similar usage prevails in all three to express the relative qualities of things; thus in Grebo, to say "his knife is better than my knife," they would say â fa hio na fa, i. e. excels or passes my knife. To express the superlative degree, they would connect with the word hio another, viz. pěpě which means "all" so as to make the phraseology hio pěpě, i. e. excel all. Their modes of counting differ. The Grebo counts up to five, and then there is a reduplicative up to ten, and then another up to twenty; after which they count by twenties up to ten twen ties, which is huba, or two hundred. The Mpongwe and Mandingo have what may strictly be called a decimal system; each counts to ten, where there is a reduplication; eleven is ten and one, twenty is two tens; ten tens is one hundred, for which each language has a word. The Grebo has no ordinals; the Mandingo forms its ordinals by a suffix, the Mpongwe by a prefix. In all three, the derivatives are formed simply by repeating the numerals. Having noticed the points of difference and resemblance between these dialects, as far as they go, we proceed now, to point out some very remarkable peculiarities of the Mpongwe adjective, which are entirely unknown to the others, and perhaps are unknown to any other language.in the world. Mpongwe Adjectives. Under this head are included adjectives of every description, viz. possessive, demonstrative, distributive, numeral and a species 1847.] Adjectives and Definite Pronouns. 761 of pronominal adjective, that is denominated for the sake of convenience, the definite pronoun. All of these are included under one head, because they are all governed by the same general rules of inflection. Though they have no inflection to indicate gender or case, they have a singular and plural, and a species of declensional inflection by which they accommodate themselves to nouns of all declensions; thus, the same adjective has one form for a noun of the first declension, another for a noun of the second declension, etc. This will be better understood by an example; thus, Here then, without anything that can be denominated case or gender, we have as many as seven different forms for the adjective large, viz. mpolu, impolu, evolu, volu, ivolu, ampolu, and ompolu, in the use of which the natives are governed by the strictest and most uniform principles of grammar. Adjectives again are to be divided into three distinct classes, not according to the classification of our grammars, into demonstrative, possessive, distributive, etc., but according to the peculiar mode which each adopts of being inflected through the declensions. Before entering into a description of these different classes, it is necessary to give some explanation of the definite pro noun. Definite Pronoun. This particle, yi, ya, or yo (it assumes these different vowels according to rules that will be mentioned presently), is a part of speech peculiar to the Mpongwe, but is so intimately interwoven with the whole structure of the language, and is used for such a variety of purposes, that it is difficult to assign it a place under any of the established divisions of speech. It partakes of the nature of the personal pronoun; is used as a relative pronoun and points out its antecedent with admirable precision; and serves as a connecting link between the nominative and the possessive cases. These different forms of it incorporate themselves with the initial vowel of all verbs of the past tense; they serve as an auxiliary in forming the infinitive mood; someVOL. IV. No. 16. 65 times they exercise the function of a preposition; they serve to 1. DEC. {Sing. nyare yi re, the cow it is there 2. DEC. { Plur. gare yi re, Sing. egare zi re, the chest it is, etc. 3. DEC. 4. DEC. 66 44 All the parts, singular and plural, being yi, si, zi, nyi, mi, wi. If it is united to a word, no matter whether it be a noun, adjective, or verb, that commences with a vowel, it drops its own vowel, and incorporates itself with the following word, in the same manner as the French article with a noun which commences with a vowel or a silent h. The vowel is superseded by a before certain consonants, but under what particular circumstances is not known. When it takes o it is either in the objective case, or it is a nomi native possessing something of a demonstrative character; thus, ininla nyi denda mpani mbe, nyo be juwa, i. e. “ the soul that sins, it (the very same) shall die," etc. It differs from adjectives and nouns, but agrees with personal pronouns in having an objective case. Having now explained the nature and office of this somewhat anomalous particle, which makes a marked, if not a radical difference between this and the other two dialects, we may complete the classification of adjectives. The first class of adjectives embraces all those which receive the definite pronoun as a prefix, which they may do in two ways, 1. when the ground-form commencing with a vowel, incorporates the prefix with itself without forming an additional syllable; thus, 'am is the ground-form for my but is never used by itself; by receiving the prefix it becomes y'am, s'am, z'am, etc.; and 2. when |