166 BUE^EAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [bcll. 40 



used after a, especially when a is accented: as, anqd'wu chief, 

 qolc^gwand'wu if there were going to be death, ducaxa'wu his hair. 

 A similar phenomenon exists in Kwakiutl, Chinook, and Dakota. 



The strengthening of ", as in duya'gu his canoe (from yak'^ canoe) 

 and daq d'lunago'qoawe when salmon were running up (from 

 d/lunagoq°) , must not be confused with this. 



Contraction of A-i to e occurs, and will be referred to on p. 172. 



§ 4. GRAMMATICAL PROCESSES 



Grammatical relations are indicated by affixes and by juxtaposi- 

 tion, reduplication being absolutely wanting. Suffixes are few com- 

 pared with prefixes, but the number of prefixes is not very great, the 

 categories of ideas expressed in this manner being limited. The 

 word-unit is, on the whole, very loose, so that many prefixes might 

 as well be considered as particles. Some of them seem to be essen- 

 tially of the character of modal adverbs. Others, whose connection 

 with the verb is even weaker, are pronouns and local adverbs. The 

 last group is apparently much more closely connected with the noun, 

 in regard to which particles of this class appear as post-positions, 

 while in relation to the verb they appear as prefixes. A number of 

 elements which appear as suffixes of both verbs and nouns are weak 

 in character and are very intimately connected with the word to 

 which they are attached. In some cases they cause or undergo 

 phonetic changes which result in a still closer amalgamation of the 

 two constituent elements. 



§ 5. IDEAS EXPRESSED BY GRAMMATICAL PROCESSES 



The distinction between noun and verb is fairl}^ clear, although a 

 number of stems appear both as verbs and nouns, and a few nominal 

 stems appear as incorporated adverbial elements. Plurality is not 

 expressed in the noun, but there is a suffix indicating the collective. 

 The plural of terms of relationship is formed by the same element 

 that expresses the third person plural of the personal pronoun. 

 Possessive pronouns are related to the personal pronouns, but the 

 idea of possession requires the addition of a suffix to the noun pos- 

 sessed. The possessive forms for terms of relationship differ from 

 those for other nouns. There are no true cases, although some post- 

 positions which express local relations are intimately connected with 

 the noun. The number of these is very large. 



§§4,5 



