BOAS] HANDBOOK OF AMERICAN INDIAN LANGUAGES 7 61 



and so pAgd''Jcw- is to strike against a resistance. The 

 stem -tun- is a mobile secondary stem denoting the special 

 notion of place about a cavity, and has become a special 

 term indicating the place about the mouth; and so 

 pAgd''kwitu'nd- is to strike against a resistance at a 

 point on the mouth. 

 Again, -cin- is a secondary co-ordinative stem, and refers to 

 change from motion to rest, but leaves the character and 

 the duration of the change to be inferred from the implica- 

 tions of the steins that precede; furthermore, it indicates that 

 the performer is animate, and serves as a link between the 

 terminal pronoun and what precedes; and so pAga/'lcwit- 

 u'ndci'nw'^ is a definite statement meaning that one strikes 

 against a resistance and is brought for a time at least to a 

 condition of rest. He bumps himself on the mouth and he 

 bumps his mouth would be two ways of putting the same 

 thing in English. 



A rigid classification of the objective world into things animate and 

 things inanimate underlies the whole structure of the language. 

 Thus the terminal -a indicates an object possessing the combined 

 qualities of life and motion, and the terminal -i designates an object 

 without those attributes. Thus : 



pyd'wa, he comes; pyd'migAHwi it comes 



i'nenVwa. man, he is a man; i'neni^wi bravery, it has the quality 



of manhood 

 A'nemo^'sb dog; a"H earth 



Every verb and noun must fall in one or the other class. Forms 

 ending in -a are termed animate, and those ending in -i inanimate. 

 The distinction between the two opposing groups is not rigidly main- 

 tained, for often an object regularly inanimate is personified as hav- 

 ing life, and so takes on an animate form. But permanent forms of 

 lifeless objects having an animate ending can not always be explained 

 by personification. The breaking-down of the contrast is best seen 

 in the names of plants; logically they fall into the inanimate class, 

 but many are used as animate forms, like A'ddmi'n^ corn, A'sdrnd'^vf- 

 TOBACCO, me'cimi'iv^ apple. 



The idea of plurality is expressed both in the noun and in the verb. 

 Subjective and objective relation of the noun are distinguished by 

 separate endings. A vocative and a locative case are also expressed. 



In the pronoun the three persons of speaker, person addressed, and 

 person spoken of, are distinguished, the last of these being divided into 

 an animate and an inanimate form. Exclusive and inclusive plural 



§ 14 



