APPENDIX. 



459 



Animate Plural. 



"Where a noun terminates witli a vowel in the singular, the 

 addition of the ^, or n, shows at once, both the plural and the 

 gender. In other instances, as in peenai^ a partridge — seebi^ a river 

 — it requires a consonant to precede the plural vowel, in con- 

 formity with a rule previously stated. Thus, peenai, is rendered 

 peenai-wug — and seebi^ seehi-wun. "Where the noun singular ter- 

 minates in the broad, instead of the long sound of a, as in 6gimd, 

 a chief, ishpatind^ a hill, the plural is ogim-ag, ishpatindn. But 

 these are mere modifications of two of the above forms, and are 

 by no means entitled to be considered as additional plurals. 



Comparatively few substances are without number. The fol- 

 lowing may be enumerated : — 



Others may be found, and indeed, a few others arc known. 

 But it is less an object, in this lecture, to pursue exceptions into 

 their minutest ramifications, than to sketch broad rules, applicable, 

 if not to every word, to at least a majority of words in the lan- 

 guage. 



There is, however, one exception from the general use of num- 

 ber, so peculiar in itself, that not to point it out would be an 

 unpardonable remissness in giving the outlines of a language, in 

 which it is an object neither to extenuate faults nor to overrate 



