76 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [bull. 40 



On the other hand, there are certain traits that, although not com- 

 mon to all American languages, are at least frequent, and which are 

 not less characteristic than the tendency to objective incorporation 

 and to polysynthesis. The most important of these is the tendency 

 to divide the verb sharply into an active and a neutral class, one of 

 which is closely related to the possessive forms of the noun, while the 

 other is treated as a true verb. We might perhaps say that American 

 languages have a strong tendency to draw the dividing line between 

 denominating terms and predicative terms, not in the same way that 

 we are accustomed to do. In American languages many of our predi- 

 cative terms are closely related to nominal terms, most frequently 

 the neutral verbs expressing a state, like to sit, to stand. These, also, 

 often include a considerable number of adjectives. On the other hand, 

 terms expressing activities — like to sing, to eat, to IciU — are treated as 

 true predicative terms. The differentiation of these two classes is 

 generally expressed by the occurrence of an entirely or partially sep- 

 arated set of pronouns for the predicative terms. 



Beyond these extremely vague points, there are hardly any char- 

 acteristics that are common to many American languages. A number 

 of traits, however, may be enumerated which occur with considerable 

 frequency in many parts of America. 



The phonetic systems of American languages differ very consider- 

 ably, but we find with remarkable frequency a peculiar differentiation 

 of voiced and unvoiced stops, — corresponding to our h, ji; d, t; g, Ic, — 

 which differ in principle from the classification of the corresponding 

 sounds in most of the European languages. An examination of 

 American vocabularies and texts shows very clearly that all observers 

 have had more or less difficulty in differentiating these sounds. Al- 

 though there is not the slightest doubt that they differ in character, it 

 would seem that there is almost everywhere a tendency to pronounce 

 the voiced and unvoiced sounds with very nearly equal stress of artic- 

 ulation, not as in European languages, where the unvoiced sound is 

 generally pronounced with greater stress. This equality of stress of 

 the two sounds brings it about that their differences appear rather 

 slight. On the other hand, there are frequently sounds, particularly 

 in the languages of the Pacific coast, in which a stress of articulation 

 is used which is considerably greater than any stresses occurring in 

 the languages with which we are familiar. These sounds are generally 

 unvoiced ; but a high air-pressure in the oral cavity is secured by 



