THE POSSESSIVE CASE. 475 



locative, as may be inferred from its being related to the suffixes -ala and 

 -lamna, q. v., and from the syntactic use often made of it, which proves 

 that about it, around it was its original meaning. When the Indians speak 

 rapidly they often drop the -m of -am: washa weka the yomu/ of the coyote, 

 ko'lta weas the otter''s offsprinn, nli we'ksa the down of the mallard duck} 

 When words in -am become independent nouns, with -am in the subjective 

 case, this -am also drops the -m in some instances: s^iba a bird species, 

 widshiba lacustrine reed, for s^ipam, widshipam (in Modoc also widshipi). 



Among the substantives which show an elliptic form, besides the full 

 one, we mention: 



klipa mink, poss. klipalam, more frequently klipam, 177, 13. 

 ]s.o'\iix. fish-otter, poss. ko'ltalam and ko'ltam. 

 watchaga dog, poss. watchagalam and watchAgam. 



Cf also wavva-tutuksh ear-wax, instead of wawakasham tutiiksh. 



A curious fact worth noticing is that the M61ale language of northern 

 Oregon marks the possessive case by the same suffix, -am, and so does also 

 the Pit River language of northeastern California. The possessive suffix 

 -nmi, -mi of several Sahaptin dialects of the middle course of Columbia 

 River seems related to it. The Maidu dialects of the Sacramento Valley 

 mark this case by the suffix -ki. 



1. The possessive case in -am, -lam corresponds to several of our 

 English case-prepositions Usually it has to be rendered by our of oi the 

 genitive (or, hQiim; genetive) case \fi nrwaii yevihrj], and then forms a pos- 

 sessive case corresponding to the Saxon case, -'s, in the father's work, the 

 mother''s care, which is sometimes turned into an adjective. Examples : 



k6kelam piilkuish former bed of the river. 



maklaksam wakshna Indian moccasins. 



talalam wa/oksh iHoney-purse. 



Pampiam, Latsam pe-ip the daughter of Pdmpi, Ldlchash, 77, 1. 4. 



tchi-wam (or tche-uti) t6ke the antelope's horn 



From these examples it will be gathered that when a substantive in 

 the possessive case qualifies another substantive attributively, it is placed 



' See Note to Texts, 16d ; 41. 



