38 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [bull. 40 



form expressing this idea is made use of. A similar indifference to 

 the idea of singular and plural may be observed in the pronouns of 

 several languages, and will be noted later on. 



On the other hand, the idea of number may be much more strongly 

 emphasized than it is in the modern languages of Europe. The dual, 

 as in Greek, is of common occurrence the world over; but it happens 

 also that a trialis and paucalis — expressions for three and a few — are. 

 distinguished. 



CASE 



What is true of number is no less true of case. Psychologically, 

 the substitution of prepositional expressions for cases would hardly 

 represent a complete absence of the concept of cases. This is rather 

 found in thos§ languages in which the whole group of relations of the 

 nouns of a sentence is expressed in the verb. When, for instance, in 

 Chinook, we find expressions like Tie Tier it with cut, man, woman, 

 Jcnife, meaning The man cut the woman with the Jcnife, we may safely 

 say that the nouns themselves appear without any trace of case- 

 relationship, merely as appositions to a number of pronouns. It is 

 true that in this case a distinction is made in the pronoun between 

 subject and object, and that, in this sense, cases are found, although 

 not as nominal cases, but still as pronominal cases. The case- 

 relation, however, is confined to the two forms of subject and 

 object, since the oblique cases are expressed by pronominal objects, 

 while the characteristic of each particular oblique relation is 

 expressed by adverbial elements. In the same language, the genitive 

 relation is eliminated by substituting for it possessive expressions, 

 like, for instance, the man, his house, instead of the man's house. 

 While, therefore, case-expressions are not entirely eliminated, their 

 number, which in some European languages is considerable, may be 

 largely reduced. 



Thus we find that some of our nominal categories either do not 

 occur at all, or occur only in very much reduced forms. On the other 

 hand, we must recognize that other new categories may occur which 

 are entirely foreign to our European languages. Classifications like 

 those referred to before — such as animate and inanimate, or of nouns 

 designating men, and other nouns; and, further, of nouns according 

 to form — are rather foreign to us, although, in the connection of verb 



