THE NUMERAL SERIES, 523 



The particle -la, -Id expresses our superlative, but only in adjectives 

 referring to certain objects extending in length, as plants, trees etc. : 

 kitchganla the smallest (of them). 



THE NUMERAL. 



The numeral is either a numeral adjective or a numeral adverb. 

 While in the Klamath language the latter is of two kinds, one in -ni and 

 the other in -ash, the numeral adjective, when in its complete form, shows 

 but the ending -ni, though an apocopated form exists for all the numerals. 

 A distributive form exists for all the four forms just described. The nu- 

 meral adjective answers to our cardinal numeral; an ordinal numeral cor- 

 responding to our numeral in -th, as fifth, ninth, does not exist in Klamath, 

 but has to be rendered in a circumlocutory manner by some term of the 

 four numei'al series existing. An ordinal series is represented in the Mas- 

 koki, Algonkin,* Iroquois, and Dakota dialects, but in the Pacific coast 

 languages it is not universally met with. A distributive series, as we find 

 it in Latin, is rarely mat with in the languages of the Eastern hemisphere, 

 but in America is not infrequent; and we find it also among the languages 

 which make an extensive use of syllabic reduplication. As an appendix to 

 the numerals we may consider the classifiers, which consist of verbal forms 

 or particles, and are appended to the numeral to indicate the shape or exte- 

 rior of the objects counted. They seem to belong almost exclusi.vely to 

 illiterate languages, and according to what G. Gibbs and H. de Charencey 

 have written upon the subject, occur in the Polynesian languages, in the 

 Selish and Nahua dialects, and attain their most extensive development in 

 the Maya dialects. Multiplicative numerals generally coincide with the 

 adverbial numei'al expressing times, and so do they in the Khimath lan- 

 guage; other modes of expressing them to be described below. 



I. THE NUMERAL SERIES. 



The first table contains tlie series of the first ten numerals in their 

 complete form ending in -ni, which expresses the cardinals when inflected 



* The Shawiiiio lani^iuige, Also'iki" family, forms its orilinals liy pi-efixiii;; tnawi- .and suffixing 

 ■ sene, -thene to the canliii.il numeral. Thus nisatliui seven forms mawiiiisiiatb<Sne sevenlli. The sulHs 

 can also be dropped, and then we have mawiuisuathni sereitth. 



