184 TRANSACTIONS OF TUE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. [VoL. I. 



changed into scc-llik when in contact with the possessive pronoun of the 

 first person singular, '^e means " grease " the possessive of which is 

 u-rzve at third person singular.* Were there no other cases of conso- 

 nantal inflection in the languages under study, I think these might suffice 

 to confirm the truth of Horatio Hale's assertion that " the opinion which 

 prevails widely among scholars . . . that the languages of the Aryan 

 and Semitic families are the only tongues in which genuine inflections 

 are to be found ... is utterly erroneous. "f 



In common with the Mongolian idioms, the D<^ne has no genuine plu- 

 ral. When absolutely necessary, that number is expressed, not by the 

 adjunction of a pluralizing consonant as the s of many modern Aryan 

 languages, or by a vocalic inflection as in Latin and Italian, but by the 

 adjunction of such adjectives as Cai, "many," or tsiyauJi, "all." This rule 

 applies to all the nouns (except Ci, dog) expressive of non-human beings. 

 Personal names form their plural by suffixing the particles kJie^ feet 

 (which is also applied to /z), or more frequently ne, root of tcene, man. 

 Only two nouns of the Carrier dialect tsekh^, woman, and tekJi^, relation, 

 undergo a vocalic mutation when in the plural number, becoming respec- 

 tively tsek/io and tekho. 



As in Hebrew — but minus any suffix corresponding to the Semitic 

 dualic increment — the names of those objects which are twofold by 

 nature, as the eyes, the hands, etc., are intrinsically dual in meaning 

 though singular in form. To obtain the grammatical singular, one must 

 add to the D^ne vocable the participle kces, contraction of CEkoez, " half." 

 Therefore ne-Ua refers to both (human) hands, and to get the singular we 

 must say ne-lla-k(ez, " (human)-hands-half." 



Grammatical gender is likewise unknown in D^ne, and this is again a 

 link of affinity with the Turanian languages. When necessity requires a 

 generic distinction, it is obtained as in Japanese, by the use of the words 

 " man " and " woman " which, for the purpose become adjectives and 

 mean " male " and " female." Here I cannot resist the temptation to 

 point out the remarkable terminological analogy existing between the 

 Japanese word for " male " and that used by the Chippewayans, one of 

 the most important of the Ddnd tribes. This term is yii in both 

 languages. The Chifxohtins replace it by yoss which also reminds the 

 linguist of the Japanese oss which has the same signification. 



* To fully appreciate the inflectiveness of these and similar words one should bear in mind 

 that there is in Dene as much difference between / and /^and a and r as between any two non- 

 transmutable consonants of the English alphabet. 



+ The Develop7nent of Language, Proc. Can. Inst. Oct. l888, p. 114. 



