ical element forming a relatively dispensable class. The Hupa word
_te-s-e-ya-te_ "I will go," for example, consists of a radical element
_-ya-_ "to go," three essential prefixes and a formally subsidiary
suffix. The element _te-_ indicates that the act takes place here and
there in space or continuously over space; practically, it has no
clear-cut significance apart from such verb stems as it is customary to
connect it with. The second prefixed element, _-s-_, is even less easy
to define. All we can say is that it is used in verb forms of "definite"
time and that it marks action as in progress rather than as beginning or
coming to an end. The third prefix, _-e-_, is a pronominal element, "I,"
which can be used only in "definite" tenses. It is highly important to
understand that the use of _-e-_ is conditional on that of _-s-_ or of
certain alternative prefixes and that _te-_ also is in practice linked
with _-s-_. The group _te-s-e-ya_ is a firmly knit grammatical unit. The
suffix _-te_, which indicates the future, is no more necessary to its
formal balance than is the prefixed _re-_ of the Latin word; it is not
an element that is capable of standing alone but its function is
materially delimiting rather than strictly formal.[31]

[Footnote 30: Including such languages as Navaho, Apache, Hupa, Carrier,
Chipewyan, Loucheux.]

[Footnote 31: This may seem surprising to an English reader. We
generally think of time as a function that is appropriately expressed in
a purely formal manner. This notion is due to the bias that Latin
grammar has given us. As a matter of fact the English future (_I shall
go_) is not expressed by affixing at all; moreover, it may be expressed
by the present, as in _to-morrow I leave this place_, where the temporal
function is inherent in the independent adverb. Though in lesser degree,
the Hupa _-te_ is as irrelevant to the vital word as is _to-morrow_ to
the grammatical "feel" of _I leave_.]

It is not always, however, that we can clearly set off the suffixes of a
language as a group against its prefixes. In probably the majority of
languages that use both types of affixes each group has both delimiting
and formal or relational functions. The most that we can say is that a
language tends to express similar functions in either the one or the
other manner. If a certain verb expresses a certain tense by suffixing,
the probability is strong that it expresses its other tenses in an
analogous fashion