boas] 



HANDBOOK OF AMERICAN INDIAN LANGUAGES 



605 



(3) There are a few cases in which the article o- is used for express- 

 ing the plural, as: 



Singular Plural 



coat b'Lqekc o'-Lqekc 



canoe ikam'm o-Jcunl'm 



eagle u-tclaktda'h w-tdaktda'kciniks 



(only used in tale) 



(4) A number of words whose plural was originally a distributive 

 retain the masculine pronoun, as: 



Singular 



ab alone * i-kte'luwa-itk 



bone arrow-point i-gd'ma{tk) 



short baton 



black bear 



buck-skin straps 



cedar 



elk 



female 



i-c[!d'lqal 

 i-i'tsxut 



e'-cgan 



i-mo'laJc 



e'-nemcJcc 



Plural 



i-Jcteluwd'itgEma 



i-gomd'tgEma 



i-q!alq!ald'm,a 



i-i'tsxut ETYia 



i-t'.d'lEgETYia 



e'-cgFMEma 



i-mo'lahuma 



e-nemclccd'ma 



Not all words of this type, however, retain the masculine pro 

 noun, as: 



bay 



small bluff 

 creek 



disease 



Singular. 



e'-maL 



i-kak!d'lat 



e'-qeL 



e'-tc!a 



Plural. 



LE-md' LE-ma 

 L-kak !d'latE-ma 

 tld'LEma (fortis for 



elided q, see § 6.3) 

 t-tc!d'ma 



Feminine distributives do not seem to retain their gender, as: 



Plural 



t-kalai' tans-ma 

 t-pd'wil^-ma 



arrow 



bunch of grass 



Singular 



d'kulaitan 



dip-net 



o-pa'wiV 

 o'-nuxcin 



L-nuxci JiE-ma 



§ 38. PLURAL SUFFIXES 



(1) Besides the use of pronominal gender for designating plurality, 

 Chinook seems to have distinguished human beings from other nouns 

 also by the use of a separate plural suffix -ike, -ulcs the use of which for 

 human beings is illustrated by the examples given in § 37.1. At 

 present the ending -uks is used for forming the plural of many words, 

 including names of animals and of inanimate objects. 



On the whole, this suffix is accompanied by a shift of the accent to 

 the penultima. When the last vowel is the obscure e followed by an 

 I, m, or n, it is lengthened to d under the stress of the accent (see § 5) ; 

 -e changes in these cases to -dy. 



§38 



