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Show HINTS AND EXPLANATIONS. 65 2. Particles which serve as prepositions and post- positions, coiyunctions and, occasionally,' adverbs. Nearly all of these appear to be remnants of verbs and for the most part are susceptible of conjugation as verbs. Their verbal origin may be matter of subsequent investigation, but a careful study of them in their present forms is essential, at the very outset, to thorough knowledge of a language; for they have much to do with the construction of syntheses and exert great influence in the modification of verbal roots. 3. The Numerals, cardinal, ordinal, and distributive. For the collection and analysis of these, some suggestions are given in " Instructions for research relative to the Ethnology and Philology of America," prepared for the Smithsonian Institution by Col. George Gibbs.# As the numerals are always significant, it should be a special aim of the collector to ascertain the precise meaning of each. Does the word used for one signify " a small thing," " a beginning," " the little one" ( i. e. finger), " undivided," or " that which is left behind or passed by " I Does three mean " the middle finger"! Is five " the hand," " the closed fist," or " all" the fingers! Is six " five- one," " one more," or " one held up " ( i. e. one of the fingers which had been doubled down)! Is nine " one left," or " one less than," or " one wanting"! Is eleven " one again" or " ten more one"! Is twenty, as in the Eskimo, " one man" ( t. e. all the fingers and toes)? Every such question that is answered throws some light on the structure and method of synthesis and may helj) establish the relationship of the language. 4. Primary Verbs. Of these and of the tendency to the concentration of complex ideas in a single word, which is characteristic of the American languages, I have already spoken. Kecollect that the Indian verb is almost always Itolophraslic. It affirms- not action or existence generally, but- some special and limited act or conditioned existence; consequently, it can seldom, if ever, be adequately translated by an English verb without adverbial qualification. 5. Concrete Nouns. We have seen that these are not, as iu the inflectional Ian-. guages so many names have come to be, mere unmeaning marks. They are descriptive and definitive; specific, not general; and each retains rite verb form or embodies a verb. Every synthesis is so framed as to differentiate the object it serves to name from every other object known to the speaker, and this so explicitly as to be intelligible to every hearer. The English word horse tells us nothing about the animal it names. Etymologists who can establish its connection with the Sanskrit hrSsh may find a reason for its appropriation to " the neigher," but we use it without having a consciousness of any such intrinsic significance, recognizing it, only because we have been taught to do so, as the distinguishing mark which has been set upon a species, just as- regardless of etymological suggestions- we recognize " Charles" or " William" as the distinguishing mark of an individual. The American languages permit the use of no such names without meaning. The native of Massachusetts who saw a horse for the first time distinguished it from all animals he had previously known, as " the beast that carries on his back a living burden," and this name once heard enabld every Indian of the tribe, or who understood the language, to identify the animal whenever it came in his way. So the Chippeway could recognize by its name alone the creature " whoso hoofs are all solid," and so the Dakota knew at sight the " wonderful domestic animal" introduced by the white man. * Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, 100 ( vol. vii, art. xi). 5 S I L |