36 BUEEAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [bull. 40 



JS^ominal Catef/ories 



In the treatment of our noun we are accustomed to look for a 

 number of fundamental categories. In most Indo-European lan- 

 guages, nouns are classified according to gender, they are modified 

 by forms expressing singular and plural, and they also appear in 

 syntactic combinations as cases. None of these apparently funda- 

 mental aspects of the noun are necessary elements of articulate 

 speech. 



GENDER 



The history of the English language shows clearly that the gender 

 of a noun may practically be suppressed without interfering with the 

 clearness of expression. While we still find traces of gender in 

 English, practically all inanimate objects have come to belong to 

 one single gender. It is interesting to note that, in the languages 

 of the world, gender is not by any means a fundamental category, 

 and that nouns may not be divided into classes at all, or the point 

 of view of classification may be an entirely different one. Thus the 

 Bantu languages of Africa classify words into a great many distinct 

 groups the significance of most of which is not by any means clear. 

 The Algonquian of North America classify nouns as animate and 

 inanimate, without, however, adhering strictly to the natural classi- 

 fication implied in these terms. Thus the small animals may be 

 classified as inanimate, while certain plants may appear as animate. 

 Some of the Siouan languages classify nouns by means of articles, 

 and strict distinctions are made between animate moving and ani- 

 mate at rest, inanimate long, inanimate round, inanimate high, and 

 inanimate collective objects. The Iroquois distinguish strictly be- 

 tween nouns designating men and other nouns. The latter may 

 again be subdivided into a definite and indefinite group. The Uchee 

 distinguish between members of the tribe and other human beings. 

 In America, true gender is on the whole rare; it is found, perhaps, 

 among a few of the languages of the lower Mississippi; it occurs in 

 the same way as in most Indo-European languages in the Chinook 

 of Columbia river, and to a more limited extent among some of the 

 languages of the state of Washington and of British Columbia. 

 Among North American languages, the Eskimo and Athapascan 

 have no trace of a classification of nouns. The examples here given 



