682 BUREAU OF AMEKICAN ETHNOLOGY [bull.40 



Owing to the inadmissibility of extended consonantic clusters, and 

 to the avoidance of initial consonantic clusters, stems undergo im- 

 portant changes due to the insertion of auxiliary vowels, to elision 

 of consonants, or modification of consonants, according to the position 

 and connections of the stems in the word. 



Composition of stems is of extended use; and we find many types 

 of composition of denominative, predicative, and of denominative 

 with predicative stems, which form firm units. Owing to the signifi- 

 cance of some of these stems, they never appear outside of such com- 

 pounds, and therefore take on the aspects of elements that are no 

 longer free, although their phonetic character and general appearance 

 are such that they might appear as independent elements. Certain 

 particles are also incorporated in the word complex. The stems 

 which are united in such 83aithetic groups influence one another ac- 

 cording to the laws of vocalic harmony and b}' contact phenomena, 

 which often modify the terminal sound of the first member of a com- 

 pound, and the initial sound of the following member, or cause the 

 introduction of auxiliarj^ vowels. Although ordinarily these com- 

 pounds originate by a simple juxtaposition of stems, there are cases 

 in which certain formative elements ma}'^ be recognized. 



The function of a simple or compound nominal or verbal unit in 

 the sentence is further determined by reduplication, prefixes, and 

 sufiBxes. 



Reduplication is confined to denominating concepts, and is of pecu- 

 liar character, the first part of the stem being repeated at the close of 

 the stem as far as the first consonant following the first vowel. This 

 gives the impression of a partially suppressed repetition of the stem: 

 for instance, stem orgo sledge, reduplicated orgo-or. 



Both prefixes and sufiixes are numerous. The same phonetic laws 

 that cause a differentiation of the forms of the stem cause differentia- 

 tion in the manner of joining aflixes to the stems or to the compounds. 

 In some cases a distinction between compounds and words with aflixes 

 is diflicult to draw, neither is it possible to carry through a rigid dis- 

 tinction between nominal and verbal affixes. There is great freedom 

 in the use of stems for either predicative or denominative purposes. 



In the Chukchee language nominal concepts are classified as 

 common nouns and proper names. A nominal singular and plural 

 occur, but in Koryak we find besides these a dual. As in many 



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