OF LANGUAGES. 



99 



auxiliaries also under certain restrictions, and in this respect 

 they resemble the Malayan and Further-Indian terms, but 

 here the likeness ends. 



Abstract languages can include expressions of gender in 

 numeral suffixes, but sex and number remain two distinct and 

 separate categories. Both, if used as principles of classi- 

 fication, agree in so far as a modus of arranging is 

 inherent in both, but otherwise they have nothing in common. 

 I cannot therefore share the opinion of Professor Sayce, who 

 endeavours to prove a connection existing between these two 

 kinds of auxiliaries. 



" Indeed, 156 these numeral affixes can be shown to have the 

 same origin and intention as the pronominal suffixes of South 

 Africa, although the final result of creating classes of nouns 

 distinguished by what we call gender has not been so perfectly 

 attained. Thus, in Burmese, the numeral termination changes 

 according to the object numbered. . . .Farther advanced on the 

 road to gender is the phenomenon that meets us in the Tshetsh 

 language in the Caucasus, where adjectives and the substantive 

 verb change their initial letter after certain substantives, &c." 



From what has been said before, this question seems not 

 to require to be again discussed. 



Reduplication and numeral auxiliaries indicate thus 

 generally a concrete plurality, but numeral adjectives may 

 express, as we have mentioned before, an indefinite number 

 both in concrete and in abstract languages. Similar words 

 are found in all dialects. We need not therefore enlarge on 

 this topic, especially as no principle depends on it, and 

 shall content ourselves with alluding to the peculiar 

 Tahitian 157 mode of plurality. The words na, mau, tau, pue 

 and hui serve generally this purpose : na expresses a small 

 plurality, two or three, as na medua parents (father, mother) ; 

 mau an unlimited number, as mau medua parents (any, all) ; 



(156) See Sayce, I.e., pages 270 and 271. 



(157) A Grammar of the Tahitian Dialect, pages 9 and 10. 



