Krinlon.] 'J^^ [Februarj' 4, 



strength; Cliahta okla, the Choctaw nation, miko ibbak, king hand, the 

 king^s hand. 



I Where there is an acquired possession, the inseparable possessive pro- 

 nouns i, im, in, are inserted between two nouns; as, Chan in cliuka, John 

 ' Ms house. It is probable that the method of indicating possession by 

 position arose from an elision of this pronoun, as this method is most fre- 

 quent in names of the human body and its members, of near relatives, in 

 nominative and oblique independent nouns, and generally in such as are 

 obviously integral parts of each other, or by nature closely connected. 

 Examples: miko ibbak, the king (his) hand; miko ushe, the king (his) 

 son; iti vni, a tree (its) fruit; iti hakshup, a tree, its bark; wak pishuk- 

 chi, a cow (her) milk. 



Names of time take the possessive pronoun; as, i nitak, his day or days, 

 which might also be regarded as i dative, to him, for him, as in wak i 

 kanchi, he sells a cow to him or for him. 



§ 7. The objective (accusative and ablative) sense. 



This is made by article-pronouns subjoined to nouns; as, hatak a, man 

 him, man whom, man that. In forming the ablative of time, place, cause, 

 the verb, not the noun, takes the preposition ; as, hatak vt a hikiah, the 

 man stands in a place ; isht ikbih, he makes it with. The vocative can 

 be indicated by the particle mah; as, miko mah, O king.' 



§ 8. Classes of nouns. 



The nouns are either primitive or derived. The former cannot be traced 

 to any root; such are, oka, water; tvli, a stone; hatak, a man; ibbak, the 

 hand; the latter are derived from verbs, adjectives, other nouns, etc. 

 § 9. Derived nouns. 



The following examples will show the derivation of nouns : 

 From transitive verbs: 



chanli, to chop, chanli, a chopper, the act of chopping. 



bvshli, to saw, a sawyer, the act of sawing. 

 From intransitive verbs: 



nowa, to walk, a walk, the act of walking. 



pisa, to see, a seer, a sight. 

 From passive verbs: 



talakchi, to be bound, a bundle. 



holitopa, to be honored, honor. 



kvnia, to be lost, the loss, the act of losing. 



1 In one portion of his manuscript Mr. Byington propounds the following query; "Cannot all 

 Choctaw nouns he treated as verbs? The root maybe considered as in the infinitive mood; as, 

 hatak, to be a man: hatak', it is a man ; hatak okmvt, if a man." Prof. H. Steinthal, on the con- 

 trary, thinks that the peculiar formation of American tongues makes nouns, but no real verbs. He 

 says of the Aztec : " das Mexikanische in seinem Ansatze zur Wortbildung Nomina gebildet hat, 

 aberkeine wahrhaften Verba" (Charakterislikdes Sprachbaues, s. 218). The author of Etudes philolo- 

 giques sur quelques Langites Sauvages de V Amenque, p. 38, says : " Les noms algonquins ne se d6clinent 

 point, lis se conjuguent-" Prof. Steinthal, however, is right. The primitive expressions in these 

 languages are concrete, not abstract,— nouns, therefore, not verbs. 



