e, objective of the verb, “it.”
mak, root of maka “open.”
ba, a plural personal root to verbs (as cha a plural ending to some nouns).
re, a causitive ending to verbs. Hence, eyaikoemakbare, “to forsake” (lit. “they made him cast himself away (from) with reference to it”). E. g. Koro shinrit ekashi ki buri gusu eiyaikoemakbare nisa ruwa ne, “they made him forsake the customs of the ancients.” It would perhaps be superfluous to remark that the chief root of this long word is simply mak, “open,” the transitive of which is emaka, “to open.”
Thus do many roots cluster round the little verbs ki, “to do;” and mak, “open.” Every root always retains one or other of its meanings though of course modified in each as the subject and object require. This kind of—I was going to say vivisection, but substitute postmortem examination proves, I think, that the Ainu language has grown from a monosyllabic to an agglutinative or combinatory one; and shows that it was also capable of greater developement had the race survived, come into the arena of civilization, and cultivated it. Indeed, such words as the above show how the Ainu language has passed from the “Rhematic” into the “Dialectic” stage of developement.
In the above examples verbs only have been given; let us now take an adjective and adverb as further illustrations of this matter.
Thus:—
| (a) | Pirika, “good.”
Pirikap, “a good thing.” Pirika-hi, “goodness.” Pirikare, “to better.” Epirika, “to gain.” Epirikap, “something gained.” Epirikare, “to make another gain.” |
