Thus, t as well as ni means " I;" a', da, occurs as the pronoun of the third person, but not otherwise; and a trace of forming the feminine is found, as with the hie," thou," which is used in addressing a masculine person, an 71 appears when applied to a feminine subject. The inflexion of the verb is entirely dependent on the pronoun; and in the declension also many endings of pronominal origin are found. From all this it will be seen that the pronoun of this language has an especial sig n ificauce.
The verbal inflexion of the Euskara is not easily explained, but it appears more difficult than it really is. It is based almost entirely on two auxiliaries—on the root 1.7., esse, " to be," and the root en, " to have," to which verbal substantives are added. The former of these auxiliaries, forms neuter verbs, verbs signifying a state; the sec ond, en, active verbs, which signify an influence on an object (Dar rigol).
The following is the form of the present tense: I am; giro, we arc; hth, thou art; cirete, you are; da, he is. dire, they arc.
It is apparent that in //is-, I1:7, we have the pronoun of the first and sec ond persons—that means " I am," and " thou art;" but wIn.t is rid ? It is the pronoun of the third person, but without the verbal root. The verbal root is also absent in the plural: is" we " (get), with the pronominal emphatic addition; can be traced back to do ; and from yon," has, besides the emphatic, also a plural end ing (le). El/tor/Lyn niz is, " I come," or, literally, "In the coining I ;tin " (en is the ending of the case meaning "in "); do, "he will come," literally, " for the coming he" (co is the ending of the case mean ing " for"); the sentences are to be completed by the addition of true ver bal ideas. A governed pronoun is inseparably united to this auxiliary verb, from which new difficulties arise.
Thus, elhorizen netzdt (Abbadie) means " I come for von," where nuou consists of "I," u (.7), the root whose vowel is changed and whose z is dropped before the following z, and on, the polite pronoun of the second person. Also, elhortoen ;ink, "I come to you man," et/tort:en nun," I come to you woman," where in link, nun, the z of the root iz has been omitted before k and n, the characteristic letters of the masculine and feminine second person of the verbal object. There are also emphatic
forms; for example: elhortzen I am for you man in the coin ing," also for you woman," where the emphatic syllable is probably of pronominal origin.
The root en, et," to have," is used differently. It is always connected with an antecedent pronominal clause signifying the object: have I "—that is, " I have (it);" consequently, the language does not further designate the accusative, the case of the object, but leaves it indefinite. Therefore,' en 5 /, " I beg yon"—literally,"' beg ging "in 3 you 'have 'I," I address my request to yon, I beg you ; also, 'en et' ;et," we beg it "—literally, "in begging 'have 'we'it," or 'nil!' c, "'me 'have 'you," von beg, inc. There are some more artistic forms, but their construction is the same.
Where is there any incorporation in this process? There is but one subordinating, suffixing method, which is not essentially distinct front the manner of our language: what we group together the Euskara welds into one word. Mahn has very correctly compared Italian forms, such as for scud you it, send it to you." The abbre viations in the pronunciation of compound words are different from the elisions of the American languages, for the Basque abbreviations are principally euphonic and consist in the accordance of the The temptation is far greater to find a similarity to the construction of Semitic languages in this, that the root iz, the formative clement of the neuter verb, prefixes the subject and suffixes the object, while, on the contrary, the transitive cu prefixes the object and suffixes the subject. But this similarity is merely external, and is based on the rule governing the syntax of Basque words—namely, that the more important precede the less important. For instance, in describing a condition, the subject or the bearer of the condition is of greater importance than the object, the person or thing having part in the condition, and therefore precedes it; and, on the other hand, with a transitive verb the object precedes, as it is of greater importance than the subject, because it completes the action.