758 



LANGUAGES 



[b. a. e. 



are generally developed in three forms, 

 indicating respectively the thing near me, 

 near thee, near him. Their development 

 is sometimes even more exuberant, visi- 

 bility and invisibility, present and past, 

 or location to the right, left, front and 

 back of, and above and below the speaker, 

 being distinguished. 



The subordination of the pronoun to 

 the verb is often carried to extremes. In 

 many languages the pronominal subject, 

 the object, and the indirect object are in- 

 corporated in the verb, for which reason 

 American languages have often been 

 called ' ' incorporating languages. ' ' There 

 are, however, numerous languages in 

 which this pronominal subordination 

 does not occur. In some the process of 

 incorporation does not cease with the 

 pronoun; but the noun, particularly the 

 nominal object, is treated in the same 

 manner. Where such incorporation is 

 found the development of nominal cases 

 is slight, since the incorporation renders 

 this unnecessary. 



The occurrence of other classes of words 

 depends largely on the development of 

 another feature of American languages, 

 which is probably common to them all, 

 namely, the expression of a great number 

 of special ideas by means of either affixes 

 or stem modification. On account of the 

 exuberance of such elements American 

 languages have been called "polysyn- 

 thetic." The character of the subordi- 

 nated elements shows great variations. 

 In some languages most of the ideas that 

 are subordinated are instrumental (with 

 the hand, the foot, or the like; with the 

 point or the edge of something, etc.); in 

 others they include all kinds of qualify- 

 ing ideas, such as are generally expressed 

 by auxiliary verbs, verbal compounds, 

 and adverbs. The Eskimo, for instance, 

 by composition of other elements with 

 the stem "to see," may express "he 

 only orders him to go and see"; a Chim- 

 mesyan composition with the verb to go 

 is, "he went with him upward in the 

 dark and came against an obstacle. " The 

 existence of numerous subordinate ele- 

 ments of this kind has a strong effect in 

 determining the series of stem words in 

 a language. Whenever this method of 

 composition is highly developed many 

 special ideas are expressed by stems of 

 very general significance, combined with 

 qualifying elements. Their occurrence 

 is also the cause of the obviousness of In- 

 dian etymologies. These elements also 

 occur sometimes independently, so that 

 the process is rather one of coordinate 

 composition than of subordination. The 

 forms of words that enter composition of 

 this kind sometimes undergo considerable 

 phonetic modification by losing affixes or 

 by other processes. In such cases com- 

 position apparently is brought about by 



apocope, or decapitation of words; but 

 most of these seem to be reducible to regu- 

 lar processes. In many languages poly- 

 synthesis is so highly developed that it 

 almost entirely suppresses adverbs, prepo- 

 sitions, and conjunctions. 



The categories of Indo-European lan- 

 guages do not correspond strictly to those 

 of Indian languages. This is true par- 

 ticularly of the ideas of gender and plu- 

 rality. Grammatical gender based on 

 sex distinction is very rare in America. . 

 It is l)ased on other qualities, as animate 

 and inanimate, or noble and ignoble, and 

 often relates only to shape, as round, 

 long, or fiat. Complete absence of such 

 classification is frequent. Plurality is 

 seldom clearly developed; it is often 

 absent even in the pronoun; its place is 

 taken by the ideas of collectivity and dis- 

 tril)uti()n, which are expressed more often 

 than jilurality. Tense is also weakly de- 

 veloped in many languages, although 

 others have a complex system of tenses. 

 Like other adverbial ideas tense is often 

 expressed by affixes. Moods and voice of 

 the verb are also sometimes undeveloped 

 and are expressed by adverbial elements. 



In the use of grammatical processes 

 there is great diversity. Suffixes occur 

 almost everywhere; prefixes are not quite 

 so frequent. Infixes seem to be confined 

 to the Siouan languages, although infixa- 

 tion by metathesis occurs in other lan- 

 guages also. Reduplication is frequent, 

 sometimes extending to triplication; but 

 in some groups of languages it does not 

 occur at all. Other forms of modification 

 of stem also occur. 



Indian languages tend to express ideas 

 with much graphic detail in regard to 

 localization and form, although other 

 determining elements which Indo-Euro- 

 pean languages require may be absent. 

 Those languages are, therefore, not so 

 well adapted to generalized statements as 

 to lively description. The power to form 

 abstract ideas is nevertheless not lacking, 

 and the development of abstract thought 

 would find in every one of the languages 

 a ready means of expression. Yet, since 

 the Indian is not given to purely abstract 

 speculation, his abstract terms always 

 appear in close connection with concrete 

 thought; for instance, qualities are often 

 expressed by nominal terms, but are 

 never used without possessive pronouns. 



According to the types of culture served 

 by the languages we find holophrastic 

 terms, expressing complex groupsof ideas. 

 These, however, are not due to a lack of 

 power to classify, but are rather expres- 

 sions of form of culture, single terms 

 being intended for those ideas that are of 

 prime inqjortance to the people. 



The differentiation of stocks into dia- 

 lects shows great variation, some stocks 

 comprising onl-y one dialect, while others 



