246 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [bull. 40 



6. JPost-noininal Ele^nents (§§ 97 '102) 



§ 97. GENERAL REMARKS 



Under the head of post-nominal elements are included a small 

 group of suffixes which, though altogether without the distinct indi- 

 viduality characteristic of local postpositions, are appended to the 

 fully formed noun, pronoun, or adjective, in some cases also adverb, 

 serving m one way or another to limit or extend the range of appli- 

 cation of one of these denominating or qualifying terms. The line 

 of demarcation between these post-nominal elements and the more 

 freely movable modal particles discussed below (§ 114) is not very 

 easy to draw; the most convenient criterion of classification is the 

 inability of what we have termed post-nominal elements to attach 

 themselves to verb-forms. 



§ 98. EXCLUSIVE -fa 



The suflEix -t'a is freely appended to nouns and adjectives, less fre- 

 quently to pronouns, in order to specify which one out of a number 

 is meant; the implication is always that the particular person, object, 

 or quality mentioned is selected out of a number of alternative and 

 mutually exclusive possibilities. When used with adjectives -fa has 

 sometimes the appearance of forming the comparative or superlative; 

 e. g., aga (1) t!os-d'Ha (2) this (l)'is smaller (2), but such an inter- 

 pretation hardly hits the truth of the matter. The sentence just 

 quoted really signifies this is small (not large like that) . As a 

 matter of fact, -Va is rather idiomatic in its use, and not susceptible 

 of adequate translation into English, the closest rendering being 

 generally a dwelling of the voice on the corresponding English word. 

 The following examples illustrate its range of usage : 



Tiapxitn'H'a, child male (not female) (i. e., boy) 14.1; 156.8 



wa-iwl'^Vsi ga^al yewe''^^ the-woman to he-turned (i. e., he now 

 proceeded to look at the woman, after having examined her 

 husband) 15.14 



maJia'ii'a, a'nl^ gwl na^naga'^^ the-big (brother) not in-any-way 

 he-did (i. e., the older brother did nothing at all, while his 

 younger brother got into trouble) 23.6; (58.3) 



aga wdxaVa, xebe'^n this his-younger-brother did-it (not he him- 

 self) 



Ic.'wa'lVsi younger one 24.1; 58.6 

 §§ 97-98 



