Note 157 — Chapter IV

I am aware that in this proposition I am following the German and French linguists, Steinthal, F. Müller, Adam, Henry, etc., and not our own distinguished authority on Algonkin grammar, Dr J Hammond Trumbull, who, in his essay "On the Algonkin Verb," has learnedly maintained another opinion (Transactions of the American Philological Association, 1876, p. 146). I have not been able, however, to convince myself that his position is correct. The formative elements of the Algonkin paradigms appear to me simply attached particles, and not true inflections Their real character is obscured by phonetic laws, just as in the Finnish when compared with the Hungarian.