890 BUKEAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [bull. 40 



consonants, which in the unduplicated wm-d are followed by terminal 

 «, are modified as in other types of composition (see § 4). 



The syntactic relation of words is often expressed by position. On 

 the whole, there is a strong tendency to place particles indicating the 

 function and relationships of groups of words following those groups. 



§ 6. IDEAS EXPRESSED BY GRAMMATICAL PROCESSES 



The categories of noun and verV) are clearly distinct, although in 

 some cases the same word may be used both as a noun and as a verb. 

 In other cases there is at least a slight modification of form, which 

 consists in a change of suffixes. In the Dakota dialects there is no 

 classification of nouns, except in so far as verbs of existence imply 

 form; but in Ponca the classification, which is expressed by particles, 

 is elaborate. Animate and inanimate — the former at rest and mov- 

 ing; the latter as round, upright, horizontal, etc. — are distinguished. 

 Plurality of the noun is expressed, not by means of a nominal 

 plural, but rather by a device which expresses the plural idea of the 

 whole sentence. In the possessive pronoun the ideas of inalienable 

 and alienable possession are distinguished. Distributive forms of 

 verbs expressing states or conditions are often expressed by redupli- 

 cation. 



The subjective and objective personal pronouns are clearly distin- 

 guished. The former are the subjects of all verbs expressing activi- 

 ties; the latter are the objects of transitive verbs, and the subjects of 

 verbs expressing conditions. The Siouan languages have the tendency 

 to include in the former class all declarative terms, even those that 

 imply only a slight amount of action. 



The pronouns are not well developed. There are only three funda- 

 mental forms,— I, THOU, thou and i. Forms with incorporated 

 object are generally composed of the subjective and objective forms 

 of these elements, but a few cases occur of combinations that can 

 not now be explained as compounds of subjective and objective pro- 

 nouns. The pronominal forms give rise to new combinations, owing 

 to the marked exactness with which the action directed toward an 

 object possessed by the subject is differentiated from other actions 

 directed toward objects not so possessed. 



In the verbal stem a few instrumentalities and locatives are ex- 

 pressed. Complex ideas are expressed very frequently by means of 

 composition. Some of the elements entering into such composition 



§6 



