188 TRANSACTIONS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. [VOL. 1. 



extensiveness or indefiniteness. Vce refers to a third completive person 

 as in this sentence Po/ yoe-pa i-kefa-hzuoftsi, Paul paid for him. By 

 changing y08-pa into u-pa, we would give to understand that /le paid for 

 Paul. The plural of this pronoun is he. Tee has relation to the person 

 whose action is expressed in the sentence. It is the exact equivalent of 

 the Latin suits, sua, suum. 



It will easily be understood that with such a convenient array of pro- 

 nominal terms, amphibology is a mere impossibility. 



In a late fasciculus of the " Proceedings " of the Canadian Institute, I 

 was struck by a quotation from Peschel to the effect that " in the 

 American languages the connected syllables (of composite words) are 

 always curtailed of some sound."* This is another of the many erro- 

 neous statements of philologists, who, because they have obtained some 

 knowledge of a few native tongues, are too prone to apply to those they 

 are unacquainted with the Latin axiom : ab uno disce omnes. Or shall 

 we exculpate them from the charge of temerity and lay the blame at the 

 door of those who being in position to acquaint the philological world 

 with new languages, did not take the trouble to do so ? Be it as it may, 

 Peschel could hardly find in the Carrier dialect one really composite 

 word to which to apply his own rule. Nay, I think his remark would be 

 more to the point in reference to such a highly inflected language as 

 Latin than with regard to the confessedly polysynthetical Dene idioms, 

 at least if we are to take such a word as cadaver as an abbreviated com- 

 pound formed from caro data uennibus. 



Still, the case might have been different in pristine times as the name 

 {Na-ka-stli) of the village where these lines are written would seem to 

 warrant us to infer. According to a local tradition, a powerful tribe of 

 dwarfs (atna) once attacked and well nigh swept it out of existence. 

 As it is situated close by the outlet of this (Stuart's) Lake, the enemy's 

 arrows, which were diminutive in proportions as the hands that used 

 them, floated down the river in immense numbers. Hence, to give a 

 graphic idea of the importance of the conflict, the ancients used to say to 

 their children : the river was covered with the floating arrows of the 

 enemy, Atna ka pceC tiztli, which by contraction has become Nakaztli. 



On the other hand, we find in connection with the pronouns remarkable 

 instances of contractions whereby two words, a pronoun and a postposi- 

 tion, primitively independent have combined to form, not a regular com- 

 posite word as those alluded to by Peschel, but a single monosyllable 



*rroc. Can. Inst. April, 1889, p. 291. 



