took"). There are, however, more striking
examples of the process, examples in which it has assumed a more clearly
defined function than in these Latin and Greek cases. It is particularly
prevalent in many languages of southeastern Asia and of the Malay
archipelago. Good examples from Khmer (Cambodgian) are _tmeu_ "one who
walks" and _daneu_ "walking" (verbal noun), both derived from _deu_ "to
walk." Further examples may be quoted from Bontoc Igorot, a Filipino
language. Thus, an infixed _-in-_ conveys the idea of the product of an
accomplished action, e.g., _kayu_ "wood," _kinayu_ "gathered wood."
Infixes are also freely used in the Bontoc Igorot verb. Thus, an infixed
_-um-_ is characteristic of many intransitive verbs with personal
pronominal suffixes, e.g., _sad-_ "to wait," _sumid-ak_ "I wait";
_kineg_ "silent," _kuminek-ak_ "I am silent." In other verbs it
indicates futurity, e.g., _tengao-_ "to celebrate a holiday,"
_tumengao-ak_ "I shall have a holiday." The past tense is frequently
indicated by an infixed _-in-_; if there is already an infixed _-um-_,
the two elements combine to _-in-m-_, e.g., _kinminek-ak_ "I am silent."
Obviously the infixing process has in this (and related) languages the
same vitality that is possessed by the commoner prefixes and suffixes
of other languages. The process is also found in a number of aboriginal
American languages. The Yana plural is sometimes formed by an infixed
element, e.g., _k'uruwi_ "medicine-men," _k'uwi_ "medicine-man"; in
Chinook an infixed _-l-_ is used in certain verbs to indicate repeated
activity, e.g., _ksik'ludelk_ "she keeps looking at him," _iksik'lutk_
"she looked at him" (radical element _-tk_). A peculiarly interesting
type of infixation is found in the Siouan languages, in which certain
verbs insert the pronominal elements into the very body of the radical
element, e.g., Sioux _cheti_ "to build a fire," _chewati_ "I build a
fire"; _shuta_ "to miss," _shuunta-pi_ "we miss."

A subsidiary but by no means unimportant grammatical process is that of
internal vocalic or consonantal change. In some languages, as in English
(_sing_, _sang_, _sung_, _song_; _goose_, _geese_), the former of these
has become one of the major methods of indicating fundamental changes of
grammatical function. At any rate, the process is alive enough to lead
our children into untrodden ways. We all know of the growing youngster
who speaks of having _brung_ something, on the analogy of