BOAS] HANDBOOK OF AMERICAN INDIAN LANGUAGES 43 



Interpretation of Grammatical Categories 



When we consider for a moment what this imphes, it will be recog- 

 nized that in each language only a part of the complete concept that 

 we have in mind is expressed, and that each language has a peculiar 

 tendency to select this or that aspect of the mental image which is 

 conveyed by the expression of the thought. To use again the example 

 which I mentioned before, The man is sick. We express by this 

 sentence, in English, the idea, a definite single man at present sick. 

 In Kwakiutl this sentence would have to be rendered by an expres- 

 sion which would mean, in the vaguest possible form that could be 

 given to it, definite man near him invisible sicTc near him invisible. 

 Visibility and nearness to the first or second person might, of course, 

 have been selected in our example in place of invisibility and nearness 

 to the third person. An idiomatic expression of the sentence in 

 this language would, however, be much more definite, and would 

 require an expression somewhat like the following, That invisible 

 man lies sicJc on his bacTc on the fioor of the absent house. In 

 Eskimo, on the other hand, the same idea would be expressed by a 

 form like {single) man sicJc, leaving place and time entirely indefi- 

 nite. In Ponca, one of the Siouan dialects, the same idea would 

 require a decision of the question whether the man is at rest or mov- 

 ing, and we might have a form like the moving single man side. 

 If we take into consideration further traits of idiomatic expression, 

 this example might be further expanded by adding modalities of the 

 verb; thus the Kwakiutl, whose language I have used several times 

 as an example, would require a form indicating whether this is a new 

 subject introduced. in conversation or not; and, in case the speaker 

 had not seen the sick person himself, he would have to express whether 

 he knows by hearsay or by evidence that the person is sick, or 

 whether he has dreamed it. It seems, however, better not to com- 

 plicate our present discussion by taking into consideration the pos- 

 sibilities of exact expression that may be required in idiomatic forms 

 of speech, but rather to consider only those parts of the sentence 

 which, according to the morphology of the language, mus^ be expressed. 



We conclude from the examples here given that in a discussion of 

 the characteristics of various languages different fundamental cate- 

 gories will be found, and that in a comparison of different languages 

 it will be necessary to compare as well the phonetic characteristics 

 as the characteristics of the vocabulary and those of the grammatical 

 concepts in order to give each language its proper place. 



