1847.] Personal Pronouns. 763 the ground-form commences with a consonant and receives the prefix as an additional syllable; thus, ngulu, strong; yingula, singulu, according to the number and declension of the noun to which it belongs. Before the word tenatena, red, and some other words, the vowel of the prefix is a, as yatenatena, etc. The second class embraces those adjectives whose initial changes are analogous to those that are produced on the incipient syllables of so many nouns in the different declensions successively; i. e. they assume, reject or change their initial vowel according as nouns of the different declensions would. The word mpolu belongs to this class; and the example already given under the head of the inflection of adjectives generally, will explain the characteristic just mentioned. The third class embrace such adjectives as combine both of the above peculiarities in their own inflections; this occurs in the words enge, much, and ango, little; neither of which is ever used by itself. With nouns of the first declension it is nyenge, pl. sinyenge; in the second declension it is ezenge, pl. yenge; in the third, inyenge, pl. amange; and in the fourth it is onyenge, pl. imienge, etc. The ordinal numbers are derived from the cardinal, by simply prefixing the definite pronoun, all of which, as well as the cardinal numbers themselves, are to be arranged under the different classes of adjectives according to their incipient syllables respectively. Pronouns. Personal Pronouns. All three of these dialects have a large number of personal pronouns, resulting from contracted forms of the same word, forms to express objects of importance or diminutiveness, emphasis, etc., in which there are some peculiarities for each one. Neither has any forms to express gender; and, with the exception of an objective form of the first person singular in the Grebo, they have no case. The Grebo has a form of the third person singular and plural for insignificant objects. The following is a list of the personal pronouns in each. They are declined thus: First Pers. singular. Nom. mia, I Poss. nă and mâ, my Second Pers. singular. Third Pers. singular. Nom. á and nå, he, she, or it Third Pers. dim. Sing. Nom. ěh and ně, he, she, or it Poss. ěh, his, her, its Obj. ně, him, her, it First Pers. plural. am and amu, us. Second Pers. plural. ǎh and ahmu, ye Third Pers. plural. oh and no, thy oh and no, their no, them. Third Pers. plural. eh and ne, they eh and ne, their ne, them. NOTE. The first and second persons, both singular and plural, are not distinguished from each other except by intonation, which is marked in writing by h final. The following are the pronouns personal of the Mandingo, viz. 1. Pers. singular, nte (cont. forms), n, m, I, me The nominative and objective cases are always the same; the possessive case, which belongs properly to possessive pronouns, is formed by suffixing la to the personal pronouns; thus, The following are Mpongwe personal pronouns : 1. Pers. singular, mie, mi, m' (emphatic) miě, I, me o, à, awe, you ě (in combination a), ye, aye, he, she, it, him. i 1847.] Verbs. 765 The possessive pronouns are formed by prefixing the definite pronouns; which see under the head of Adjectives. á and è are used both as nominative and objective cases, only however when they are incorporated with the final syllable of the verb. Relative Pronouns. The Grebo has a relative pronoun, singular and plural; as, nya (who), pl. nyo (who), which neither of the others has; but both these have more than one word for this purpose. O is the ordinary relative pronoun in Mpongwe, mande, when a question is asked. In Mandingo, man, many, or men. All three dialects form a reflective pronoun by suffixing a syllable; in Grebo it is dui, from which comes âdui (himself); in Mandingo, the suffix is fang or dung; as, m'fang (myself); in Mpongwe, it is mě; as, miemě (myself), ayěmě (himself), etc. Verbs. There are but few points of resemblance among the verbs of these three dialects. Neither has any inflections to indicate the person or the number, i. e. the first, second and third persons, singular and plural, are of the same form. The second person plural of the imperative mood in Mpongwe verbs, has a form different from the singular, which is almost the only exception to the above principle that is worthy of notice. Another circumstance common to all is that they use conjunctions, and other auxiliary particles, to express the various shades of meaning of the different tenses and moods; and some of these particles are the same in two or more of them, which cannot justly be regarded in any other light than an accidental circumstance. Grebo verbs are exceedingly meagre in point of inflections. They have an indicative, an imperative, and an infinitive mood. The subjunctive mood is little else than the indicative, having the conjunction ne (if) placed before it; and the potential mood is likewise dependent upon auxiliary particles. Tense is well defined in Grebo verbs, perhaps much more minutely than in either of the other two dialects. With the aid of auxiliary particles, there are as many as thirteen tenses; viz. the present, indefinite past, imperfect indefinite past, the past tense of to-day, the imperfect past tense of to-day, the past tense of yesterday, the imperfect past tense of yesterday, the past tense of time previous to yesterday, the imperfect tense of time previous to yesterday, the indefinite future tense, the future tense of to-day, the future tense of to-morrow, the future tense of time subsequent to to-morrow. This remarkable minuteness in defining the precise time of an event or action, is not effected, however, by changes wrought upon the radical word, but by the use of auxiliary particles, which are seldom used except in this capacity. There is not, strictly speaking, any future tense; the only way by which they can express future action, is by employing the verb minio or mi (to go), as an auxili. ary, and the infinitive mood; thus, to say, "I will do it," they say, mi nè numu, i. e. "I go it to do." And so miě ně numu, “I am going it to do, presently, or some future part of the day." And in all these cases, the auxiliary verb receives the inflections, whilst the infinitive mood of the principal verb remains unchanged. No Grebo verb is capable, of itself, of more than twelve or fifteen different forms; for all the accessory ideas or shades of meaning, it is indebted to the use of auxiliary particles, many of which are inflected instead of itself. It has a passive voice, which is made by affixing the letter è to the active form; but it is never used, when it can be avoided by circumlocution. Instead of saying he was killed, they would say, he or they or somebody killed him. Instead of saying, he was killed in war, they would say, war killed him. The want of passive verbs characterizes the Mandingo, the Basa, the Fantee, the Acra, and perhaps all the dialects of Northern Africa. The particles ne (is) and mana (was) are the only parts of a substantive verb used in the Grebo. A reciprocal form is produced by a reduplication of the incipient syllable. Mandingo Verb. The Mandingo verb possesses but little more completeness or system than the Grebo. It seems to be equally dependent upon auxiliary particles, and, like the Grebo, but not to the same extent, it defines the time of an action with considerable minuteness. The radical or ground form is capable of but few inflections, even less than the Grebo. It has a causative form, which is made by the aid of a suffix, which the Grebo has not; but on the other hand, it wants a reciprocal form, which the Grebo has. It differs essentially from the Grebo, in its not being under the necessity of employing the verb to go or come, to aid in expressing a future tense. It is said to possess seven tenses and four moods, but strictly speaking, there are, perhaps, not more than three moods, 1847.] Mpongwe Verb. 767 the conditional being expressed by aid of conjunctive particles. It uses a greater variety of particles in the sense of substantive verbs. Mpongwe Verb. The Mpongwe verb has four moods, the indicative, the imperative, the conditional or subjunctive, and what may be denomi nated the conjunctive mood. By the aid of auxiliary particles, it forms a potential and an infinitive mood. The conjunctive mood has only one form, and is used as the second verb in a sentence, where the two verbs would otherwise be joined by a copulative conjunction. Although not inflected itself, it is joined with verbs of all moods, tenses, and persons. The conditional mood has a form of its own, but uses conjunctive particles as auxiliaries at the same time. Different conjunctive particles are used with the different tenses. The imperative mood is derived from the present of the indicative, by the change of its initial consonant into its reciprocal consonant; thus, tonda, to love; ronda, love thou; denda, to do; lenda, do thou. These changes will be noticed more fully presently. The potential mood is made, like the subjunctive, by the aid of auxiliary particles. The tenses in Mpongwe are a present, past or historical, perfect past, and future. The perfect past tense, which represents the completeness of an action, is formed from the present tense by prefixing a and by changing a final into i; thus, tõnda, to love; atondi, did love. The past or historical tense is derived from the imperative by prefixing a and changing a final into i; thus, rõnda, love; arondi, have loved, etc. The future tense is formed by the aid of the auxiliary particle be; as, mi be tonda, I am going to love. It must be carefully noted, however, that this same combination of words, if the nominative follows, expresses past time; thus, ne be tõnda Anyambia Ebreham, i. e. God loved Abraham. When it is future, the nominative goes before the verb in the order of construction. When an action is immediately to take place, the present tense is used as a future; thus, mi bia, I am coming immediately; but, mi be bia, I am coming after a while, or at some indefinite future time. The passive voice is formed from the active, simply by changing a final into o; thus, mi tonda, I love; mi tõndo, I am loved. In the historical and perfect past tense, which terminate in i, |