round about,
here and there." The prefixed element _eh-_ is hardly more than an
adverbial particle indicating temporal subordination; it may be
conveniently rendered as "then." Of the seven suffixes included in this
highly-wrought word, _-n-_ seems to be merely a phonetic element serving
to connect the verb stem with the following _-a-_;[34] _-a-_ is a
"secondary stem"[35] denoting the idea of "flight, to flee"; _-m-_
denotes causality with reference to an animate object;[36] _-o(ht)-_
indicates activity done for the subject (the so-called "middle" or
"medio-passive" voice of Greek); _-(a)ti-_ is a reciprocal element, "one
another"; _-wa-ch(i)_ is the third person animate plural (_-wa-_,
plural; _-chi_, more properly personal) of so-called "conjunctive"
forms. The word may be translated more literally (and yet only
approximately as to grammatical feeling) as "then they (animate) caused
some animate being to wander about in flight from one another of
themselves." Eskimo, Nootka, Yana, and other languages have similarly
complex arrays of suffixed elements, though the functions performed by
them and their principles of combination differ widely.

[Footnote 34: This analysis is doubtful. It is likely that _-n-_
possesses a function that still remains to be ascertained. The Algonkin
languages are unusually complex and present many unsolved problems of
detail.]

[Footnote 35: "Secondary stems" are elements which are suffixes from a
formal point of view, never appearing without the support of a true
radical element, but whose function is as concrete, to all intents and
purposes, as that of the radical element itself. Secondary verb stems of
this type are characteristic of the Algonkin languages and of Yana.]

[Footnote 36: In the Algonkin languages all persons and things are
conceived of as either animate or inanimate, just as in Latin or German
they are conceived of as masculine, feminine, or neuter.]

We have reserved the very curious type of affixation known as "infixing"
for separate illustration. It is utterly unknown in English, unless we
consider the _-n-_ of _stand_ (contrast _stood_) as an infixed element.
The earlier Indo-European languages, such as Latin, Greek and Sanskrit,
made a fairly considerable use of infixed nasals to differentiate the
present tense of a certain class of verbs from other forms (contrast
Latin _vinc-o_ "I conquer" with _vic-i_ "I conquered"; Greek _lamb-an-o_
"I take" with _e-lab-on_ "I