16 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL 6s 
an affix. Cases of nominal incorporation occur in all three languages. 
but verbalization of nouns seems to be peculiar to Atakapa. In fact 
verbalization of all kinds of elements is accomplished with excep- 
tional freedom in that language. 
In Chitimacha certain nouns and demonstratives have a plural 
suffix, but when an adjective follows the noun and is closely asso- 
ciated with it the suffix is placed after the adjective. In Tunica the 
independent personal pronouns of the third person are placed 
directly after a noun to indicate plurality, and the feminine form 
seems to have been slowly evolving into a plural suffix independent 
of sex. The distributive particle is sometimes employed instead in 
the same situation. In Atakapa either hew, many, is placed directly 
after the noun or plurality is indicated by the context, frequently 
by an accompanying adjective with duplicated stem or the plural 
suffix employed in verbs and adjectives. Tunica makes use of certain 
nominal suffixes to mark gender, but they are not essential. Chitimacha 
and Atakapa, where such distinctions are desired or are not clear 
from the context, merely place the words for male and female after 
the noun to be defined. Each of the three languages also employs a 
small number of locative suffixes with the noun and the significance 
of these very nearly corresponds. They may be placed after locative 
adverbs, adjectives, demonstratives, and, in Chitimacha, after verbs. 
There are about three corresponding demonstratives in each lan- 
guage, but in Chitimacha the demonstrative system was much more 
developed, distinguishing plurality and gender, and apparently marking 
the position of an object as to whether it was erect, recumbent, etc. 
When employed with nouns adjectively they usually precede; other- 
wise they follow. In Tunica, however, only one precedes the noun 
and this has been developed into an article. 
In Tunica nearly all of the interrogative and indefinite pronouns 
and pronominal adverbs are formed by adding certain affixes to a 
syllable which is clearly to be classed with the demonstratives. In 
Chitimacha and Atakapa, however, there are several pronouns of 
this kind which must evidently be placed by themselves. 
In none of these languages is there a sharp distinction between verb 
and adjective, but in Atakapa we see the beginning of such a distinc- 
tion in the fact that the adjective is sometimes before the noun 
instead of after it. Unfortunately, the broken-down state of the 
language does not enable us to tell whether this was a truly aboriginal 
feature. In Chitimacha almost all adjectives take, or retain, certain 
verbal suffixes, particularly the noun-forming suffix —n or —ni; but 
in Tunica most adjectives are stripped of all affixes, and nm Atakapa 
this is frequently the case. All three numeral systems are decimal. 
There is more evidence of recent compounding to form these in 
Tunica than in Chitimacha, and more still in Atakapa, where, in fact, 
some of the terms are readily interpretable. Atakapa and Tunica 
