574 . BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [bull. 40 



plural are related to the second person singular. The third person 

 singular has three genders — masculine, feminine, and neuter — and a 

 single form each for dual and plural. These forms are not only true 

 sex and number forms, but agree also with a generic classification of 

 nouns which is based on sex and number. 



The nominal stem itself has no characteristic of gender, which is 

 expressed solely in the pronoun. The sex and number origin of the 

 genders is clear, but in the present status of the language the genders 

 are as irregularly distributed as those of Indo-European languages. 

 These genders are expressed in the incorporated pronominal repre- 

 sentative of the noun, and since there is generally sufficient variety 

 in the genders of the nouns of the sentences, clearness is preserved 

 even when the order of the nouns in apposition is quite free. 



Besides the sex and number classes we find a classification in 

 human beings on the one hand and other beings and objects on the 

 other. These are expressed in the numeral, the demonstrative, and 

 in plural forms of nouns. 



It was stated before, that, in the pronoun, duality and plurality 

 are distinguished. In the noun, a true plural, not pronominal in 

 character, is found only in some w^ords. These were evidently origi- 

 nally the class of human beings, although at present the use of this 

 nominal plural is also irregular. Furthermore, a true distributive 

 is found, which, how^ever, has also become irregular in many cases. 

 Its original significance is discernible in numeral adverbs (§ 38). A 

 distributive is also found in a small number of verbal stems. 



There are few nominal affixes of clear meaning, and very few that 

 serve to derive nouns from verbal stems. There are only two 

 important classes of verbal nouns which correspond to the relative 

 sentence the one who — and to the past-passive relative sentence 

 WHAT IS — ed; of these two the latter coincides with ordinary nouns, 

 while the former constitutes a separate class. Still another class 

 contains local nouns, where — (§ 40). 



Demonstrative pronouns form a class by themselves. They con- 

 tain the personal pronouns of the third person, but also purely 

 demonstrative elements which indicate position in relation to the 

 three persons, and, in Lower Chinook, present and past tense, or 

 visibility and invisibility. 



Only a few modifications of the verb are expressed by incorporated 

 elements. These are the temporal ideas — in Lower Chinook those of 



§15 



