BOAS] HANDBOOK OF AMERICAN INDIAN LANGUAGES. 37 



show clearly that the sex principle, which underlies the classification 

 of nouns in European languages, is merely one of a great many pos- 

 sible classifications of this kind. 



PLURAL 



Of a somewhat different character is the plural of Indo-European 

 nouns. Because, for the purpose of clear expression, each noun 

 must be expressed either as a singular or as a plural, it might seem 

 that this classification is almost indispensable; but it is not difficult 

 to show, by means of sentences, that, even in English, the distinction 

 is not always made. For instance^ in the sentence The wolf has 

 devoured the sheep, it is not clear whether a single sheep is meant 

 or a plurality of sheep are referred to. Nevertheless, this would not 

 on the whole, be felt as an inconvenience, since either the context 

 would show whether singular or plural is meant, or an added adjec- 

 tive would give the desired information. 



While, according to the structure of our European languao-es, we 

 always tend to look for the expression of singularity or plurality for 

 the sake of clearness of expression, there are other languages that 

 are entirely indifferent towards this distinction. A good example 

 of this kind is the Kwakiutl. It is entirely immaterial to the 

 Kwakiutl whether he says. There is a house or There are houses. 

 The same form is used for expressing both ideas, and the idea of 

 singularity and plurality must be understood either by the context 

 or by the addition of a special adjective. Similar conditions prevail 

 in the Athapascan languages and in Haida. In Siouan, also, a dis- 

 tinction between singularity and plurality is made only in the case 

 of animate objects. It would seem that, on the whole, American 

 languages are rather indifferent in regard to the clear expression of 

 plurality, but that they tend to express much more rigidly the ideas 

 of collectivity or distribution. Thus the Kwakiutl, who are rather 

 indifferent to the expression of plurality, are very particular in 

 denoting whether the objects spoken of are distributed here or 

 there. When this is the case, the distribution is carefully expressed. 

 In the same way, when speaking of fish, they express by the same 

 term a single fish and a quantity of fish. Wlien, however, they 

 desire to say that these fish belong to different species, a distributive 



