56 SYNTAX. 



Number. 



§ 167. Adjectives, whether quaUficative or predicative, indicate the number of 

 the nouns or pronouns to which they belong; as, iqyaq sapa waq, a black stone; 

 inyar) sapsapa, black stones : tataqka kiq was'aka, the ox is stro7ig ; tataqka kiq 

 was'akapi, tke oxen are strong. 



2. Adjectives do not take the plural form when that can be pointed out by the 

 verb of which the noun is either the subject or object (see §§ 163, 164); as, 

 wi6asta waste he kagapi, (man good that they-made) good men made that ; 

 Wakaqtaqka wi6asta waste nom wi6akaga, {Great-Spirit men good two them- 

 made) God made two good men. 



3. As the numeral adjectives after waqzi, denote plurality by virtue of their 

 meaning, they may be used either with or without the plural termination; as, 

 widasta yamni, or wicasta yamnipi, three men. 



NUMERAL ADJECTIVES. 



§ 168. 1. Numeral adjectives used distributivcly take the reduplicated form ; as, 

 yamni, three, yamnimni, three and three, yamnimni idupi, they each took three, or they 

 took three of each. 



2. Numeral adjectives are used alone, to express the number of times an event 

 occurs ; as, yamni yahi, thou earnest three tbaes. When a succession of acts is 

 spoken of, the word ' akihde ' is often used ; as, topa akihde yakutepi, you shot four 

 times successively. 



§ 169. To supply the want of words like place and ways in English, the adver- 

 bial termination ' kiya ' is added to the numeral ; as, noqpakiya yakoqpi, they are in 

 two different places ; he topakiya oyakapi, thrt is told in four different ways. 



§ 170. The Dakotas use the term haqke, one half ; but when a thing is divided 

 into more than two aliquot parts, they have no names for them ; that is, they have 

 no expressions corresponding to one third, one fourth, one fifth, etc. By those who 

 have made some progress in arithmetic, this want is supplied by the use of 'oq^pa' 

 and the ordinal numbers; as, oqspa iyamni, {piece third) one third ; oq^pa itopa, 

 {piece fourth) one fourth. 



PRONOMINAL ADJECTIVES. 



§ 171. Owasii) and iynlipa, all, sakim and napin, both, apa and huqli, some or a 

 pari, tonana and wanistiqna, few, a small quantity, uqma, the other, one of two, ota, 

 many, much, and some others, are sometimes used as adjectives qualifying nouns, 

 and sometimes stand in the place of nouns. 



§ 172. 1. As the adjective 'ota,' many, much, conveys a plural idea, its redupli- 

 cated form 'onota' or ' odota,' is not used when speaking of inanimate objects, 

 except when different quantities or parcels are referred to ; as, ota awahdi, / have 

 brought home many or much ; odota awahdi, I have brought home much of different 

 kinds. 



