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xiv (c) Plural forms are, masculine ira, feminine iraro; but these not with personal names.

(d) Personal names being taken from names of things, the words gene, thing, sava, what, stand in the place of names not remembered or not, for some reason, to be mentioned. Thus i gene, iro gene, i sava, iro sava means the person, male or female, whose name is such and such a thing.

IV. .

Common Nouns fall into two groups, according as, 1, they take, or do not take, a suffixed pronoun with possessive sense; and, 2, as they have or have not a termination shewing them to be Nouns.

1. This division of nouns is properly exhaustive, and is most important to observe.

(a) One class of nouns takes the pronoun of the possessor in the suffixed form, k, ma, na; see Personal Pronouns (b); being the names of parts, members, equipments, possessions, which stand in close and constant relation to the possessor. It is not always easy to perceive the ground of the distinction; na usuna his bow, non o wose his paddle.

When the pronoun is suffixed the Article na is used. These Nouns are marked in the Dictionary with (k).

(b) The remaining Nouns are used with the Possessives, no, mo, ga, ma; see Possessives.

2. Nouns which have a termination shewing them to be Nouns substantive are, (a) Verbal Nouns, or (b) Independent Nouns. Those which have no special form as Nouns require no notice.

(a) Verbal Nouns are formed from Verbs by the terminations a, ia, ga, ra, va; mate, to die, matea, death; nonom, to think, nonomia, thought; vano, to go, vanoga, going; toga, to abide, togara, way of life; mule, to go, muleva, going. These different forms of termination have no difference of signification in themselves; though there are examples where a verb takes two terminations and the nouns differ in meaning; see toga.

(b) Independent Nouns. The terminations i, iu or ui, and in a few cases e, shew the nouns to which they are suffixed to be without dependence, in thought or grammar, upon things or persons, or upon the names, to which they may otherwise belong or stand in relation. Thus in namatana, his eye, (na article, na suffixed pronoun), mata, eye, is thought and spoken of in relation to a person; but an eye, independent of such relation, is matai, mata-i; so na-pane-na, his hand, panei; a pig's head, qat qoe; a head generally, qatui.

These independent forms, naturally, do not appear in a noun which forms the first part of a compound.

Nouns which appear in independent form, with these terminations, generally belong to the class 1 (a), which take a suffixed pronoun.

3. Construct form of Nouns. Two Nouns are often coupled together with a possessive relation. In the cases in which the first