BOAS] HANDBOOK OF AMERICAN INDIAN LANGUAGES 1057 



guage. He set forth that the derivation a l'infini of this language 

 is due only to exaggeration of a method which is common to all poly- 

 syllabic languages, and that the Eskimo language differs from other 

 American languages, and from the Ural-Altaic language, merely by 

 the exaggeration of the derivative method. 



As regards the descriptive term polysynthetic, it would seem that 

 it very appropriately expresses the conglomeration or clustering of 

 ideas which occurs in Eskimo word-sentences. To use this term as 

 applying to the Eskimo language as a whole is an exaggeration, only 

 in so far as that not all ideas are expressed polysynthetically, but artic- 

 ulate sentences also occur. 



We are no doubt as fully justified in speaking of form-endings and 

 inflection in the Eskimo language as we are in speaking of them in 

 those languages that are specially regarded as inflectional. Thus in 

 the Eskimo language both nouns and verbs are inflected to indicate 

 number, case, person, etc., and, as mentioned above, the syntactic 

 relation may likewise be expressed by means of special endings. 



On the other hand, it can not well be denied that in the signification 

 and use of the forms certain logical and fundamental differences from 

 the grammatical system of our languages occur, which differences give 

 evidence of marked peculiarities in the psychic basis of the Eskimo 

 language. 



§ 59. Noun and Verb 



In the Eskimo mind the line of demarcation between the noun 

 and the verb seems to be extremeh^ vague, as appears from the whole 

 structure of the language, and from the fact that the inflectional end- 

 ings are, partially at any rate, the same for both nouns and verbs. 

 This is especiall}^ true of the possessive suflixes. 



The part played by the possessive suflixes in the Eskimo language 

 extends far beyond the use which our languages make of the '"posses- 

 sive pronouns." The person-sufiixes of the Eskimo verbs prove to be 

 identical with the possessive suffixes of the nouns (equivalent to my, 

 THY, HIS, OUR, etc.), which may be regarded as an evidence of the 

 noun-character of the verb. Even the verb-forming suffixes -%ooq and 

 -jpog: (third person singular, mode ii) appear to be inseparable from the 

 structure of the noun. Therefore these endings for the third person 

 indicative must be regarded as impersonal forms {Jcapiu^oq there is a 

 STAB, one is stabbed), or as marking the neutral form of the finite verb, 



§59 

 44877°— Bull. 40. pt 1—10 67 



