1870.] "'^^ [Brinton. 



They are prominent, generally standing at the beginning of a sentence 

 without an antecedent, and are repeated by the inseparable pronouns 

 which follow in the same clavise or sentence. They are nasalized with 

 some of the article-pronouns; as, vno vto, vnonto, as for me; vno ak osh, 

 I the one who, but vn^k osh, I being the one who. 



Note,. — The first person plural has two forais. The first is the definite 

 or exclusive plural, and does not include all who are present, but only a 

 fixed number. The second is the distinctive or inclusive plural, and em- 

 braces the speaker and all who are present, but ignores all others. All 

 personal and possessive pronouns have this double plural.' 



3. The definite Personal. 

 Simple form. With h predicative. 



sia, I, me. siah, I am. 



chia, thou, thee, chiah, thou art. 



pia, we, (def.) us. piah, we are. 



hvpia, we, (dis.) us. hvpiah, we are. 



hvchia, you. hvchiah, you are. 



These pronouns generally have an antecedent, either a noun, or the dis- 

 tinctive personal pronoun, or both. They may be in the nominative or 

 oblique case, which is denoted by the article-pronoun which follows them. 



§ 4. The personal pronouns in the thii'd person, singular and plural, are 

 wanting. They are supplied by a gesture, or by other pronouns; as, 

 ilvppa, this; yvmma, that; ilap, he, she, it, his, her, its; mill, he, she, it, 

 they, the same, the said; okla, people. When no pronoun is expressed, 

 the third person is understood. 



§ 5. Examples of the use of the definite and distinctive personal pro- 

 nouns : Acts X. 26, vno ak kia hatak sia akinli hoke, I am also a man; 

 Mat. XIV. 27, vno ash sia hoke, it is I ; Luke XVIII. 13, nan ashvchi sia 

 hoka, for I am a sinner; Exodus XX. 2, vno ak osh Chin Chitokaka Chi- 



howali sia hosh Echip yakni a chi kokchi li tuk oke, I am the Lord 



thy God which have brought the out of the land of Egypt, vno I distinc- 

 tive, sia I definite. 



' I have here retained Mr. Byington's definition, but I have no doubt the Choctaw double pUiral 

 is similar to that of other American tongues. The first plural, definite or exclusive, excludes the 

 second person ; the second, distinctive or inclusive plural, includes the second person, and may or 

 may not, include the third person. Thus the Indians in speaking to the whites, would say pishno, 

 we (excluding the hearers), but to those of their own nation, hvpishno (including the hearers). 

 The terms exclusive and inclusive to designate this distinction were, I think, first introduced by 

 Father Holguin, in his Grammatica y Arte Nveva de la Lengva Qquichua (Ciudad de los Reyes, 1607), 

 and he calls attention to the fact that when used with verbs, the distinction refers to the action 

 of the verb: "mas no se toma con verbos, por razon del pronombre, como aqui [where the pro- 

 nouns are independent] , sino por la signiflcacion del verbo, si es en todos o no ygual, o si se excluyen 

 de laaccion del verbo, o de su signiflcacion, aquellos con quien se habla" (fol. 12 recto). In the 

 Grammar of the Dakota Language p. 9, the Eev. Mr. Riggs defines the inclusive as a dual (I and 

 thou), the correctness of which I doubt, as it may also mean / and you, or We and you. Equally 

 erroneous is Mr. Du Ponceau's comparison of the exclusive plural with nous autres, in French 

 (Langues Sauvages de VAmerique duNord,i>. 155), because nous auires does not necessarily exclude the 

 hearers. 



