The Othomi distinguishes certain past tenses, which, however, are separated by other characteristics, by a prefixed _xa_, which is called the third person singular of a substantive verb. As these tenses are precisely those in which the action must be completed, the perfect, pluperfect and future perfect, not, however, the imperfect and past aorist, such a connection is very suitable. Of this verb we have only _xa_, and there is another substantive verb _gui_, which itself takes _oca_ in its conjugation.
The Totonaca language unites the perfect, in the person spoken of, with the third person singular of the future of the substantive verb, to form a future perfect. This is no completed form, but only an awkward sequence of two verbs; _yc-paxquilh-na-huan_, literally, "I have loved, it will be,"="I shall have loved."
In similar manner the substantive verb is used to form a tense of the subjunctive.
The sign of both the perfects in this tongue is the syllable _nit_, and _niy_ means "to die." It is not improbable that this affix is derived from this verb. Death and destruction are suitable ideas to express the past, and some languages employ negative particles as signs of the preterit. In the Tamanaca this is not exactly the case, but the negative particle _puni_ added to a word which signifies an animate thing, intimates that it has died; _papa puni_, the deceased father, literally, "father not." In the Omagua tongue the same word signifies old, dead, and not present.
In the Maipure and Carib tongues the negative particles _ma_ and _spa_ are also the signs of the preterit. Bopp's suggestion that the Sanscrit augment was originally _a_ privative finds support in this analogy. Yet I would not speak conclusively on this point, as probably that, the Greek augment ~e~, and the Mexican _o_, are only lengthened sounds, intended to represent concretely the length of the past time. At any rate one must regard the negation as an actual destruction, a "been, and no longer being," not as simply a negation of the present.
THE NOTION OF BEING IS PRESENT IN THE VERBAL FORM ONLY IN IDEA.
In this case the verb consists only of the stem, and the person, tense, and mode signs. The former are originally pronouns, the latter particles. Before they are worn down by use to mere affixes, the three following cases may arise: