44 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



not. The student may at first find some difficulty with these 

 article pronouns. Singular, dual, and plural forms will be 

 found. Sometimes distinct incorporated particles will be 

 used for subject and object, but often this will not be the 

 case. If the subject only is expressed, one particle may be 

 used ; if the object only is expressed, another particle ; but 

 if subject and object are expressed an entirely different par- 

 ticle may stand for both. 



But it is in the genders of these article pronouns that the 

 greatest difficult may be found. The student must entirely 

 free his mind of the idea that gender is simply a distinction 

 of sex. In Indian tongues, genders are usually methods 

 of classification primarily into animate and inanimate. The 

 animate may be again divided into male and female, but this 

 is rarely the case. Often by these genders all objects are 

 classified characteristics found in their attitudes or supposed 

 constitution. Thus we may have the animate and inani- 

 mate, one or both, divided into the standing, the sitting, and 

 the lying ; or they may be divided into the watery, the mushy, 

 the earthy, the stony, the woody, and the fleshy. The gender 

 of these article pronouns has rarely been worked out in any 

 language. The extent to which these classifications enter 

 into the article pronouns is not well known. The subject 

 requires more thorough study. These incorporated particles 

 are here called article pronouns. In the conjugation of the 

 verb they take an important part, and have by some writers 

 been called transitions. Beside pointing out with particu- 

 larity the person, number, and gender, or the subject and 

 object, they perform the same offices that are usually per- 

 formed by those inflections of the verb that occur to make 

 them agree in gender, number, and person with the subject. 

 In those Indian languages where the article pronouns are 

 not found, and the personal pronouns only are- used, the 

 verb is usually inflected to agree with the subject or object, 

 or both, in the same particulars. 



The article pronouns as they point out person, number, 

 gender, and case of the subject and object, are not simple 



