1046 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [bull. 40 



These forms are inflected alike, following" the paiadigm of erneq 

 (§28); for instance, 



1st per. sin^. . . . kapinera my stab (stabbing, being stabbed) 



1st per. pi kapinerput our stab 



3d per. sing. . . . kap'inera his stab 



3d per. pi I'avinenit their stab, etc. 



Defective Inflection (§§ 45-48) 



^ 45. Prevalence of Possessive or Absolute Inflection in 



Certain Words 



Some words, or groups of words, can take only certain series of 

 the suffixes previously described. All true nouns may take any of 

 the inflectional suffixes of nouns, though of course in many cases the 

 meaning causes one series to be used more frequently than others, or 

 prevents their being inflected equally throug^i all the forms of declen- 

 sion. We have alread}' mentioned some words that are confined either 

 to the plural, oi- to tlie dual, or to the singular (§ 17). 



Likewise there are words that are nearly always possessive, while 

 others occur generally without possessive pronouns. To the first 

 group belong such words as signify parts of objects; as, for example, 



itsia the white of an Qgg isaa {<ise) the eye of a man 



siua the bow of a boat or animal; eye of a needle 



inua the inhabitant or owner 

 of a thing 



To the latter group belong, for example — 



tdseq a lake sila weather 



nu7ia land naminineq self 



uhioq winter naliyinnaq everybody 



Altogether incompatible with possessive inflection are the demon- 

 strative words (§ 50) and lina who, sima what, cillci other. 



§ 46. Interrofjative and Personal Pronouns 



The interrogative pronouns have irregular plurals. They form, 

 however, regular local cases from the stems Xv' (singular), I'llkut^ 

 (plural), 8(1 (singular and plural). 



Mna WHO, plural Hkhit (Al. l-inhut [Barnum 77]) ; I'imuf to wmom, 

 plural Mhhunnut 



iThe suffix -kut seems to mean society, family. 



§§ 45,46 



