Page:Archæologia Americana—volume 2, 1836.djvu/214

178 action, but also in its objective case, or as object of the action. Thus the various sentences "He loves me," "I love thee," &c, are always expressed by a single word. This feature is found universally in every American language, from Greenland to Cape Horn, which has been investigated.

John Eliot accordingly commences his Grammar with an examination of the pronoun; "because of the common and general use of the pronoun to be affixed with both nouns and verbs and other parts of speech, and that in the formation of them; therefore, that is the first part of speech to be handled." But although the principle is the same in all the Indian languages, it has been applied in a different manner in almost every one of them. Referring for further details to the Appendix, we will give here only some general notions on that part of speech.

In almost all the Indian languages, there is an intimate connexion between the separate personal pronouns, and the personal or possessive connected with the verb or the noun. An exception is found in the Cherokee, where the pronouns of the first and second person, when used in an absolute sense, in answer for instance to a question, (Who has done it? I.) differ from those united with the verb; but these are the same with the possessive united with the noun.

In conformity with what has already been said of the dual and plurals, the inflections which designate the number affect particularly, and in some languages exclusively, the pronouns; varying, for the dual and plural and for their subdivisions, according to the nature of each dialect. The only exceptions are found in the third person, for which there is no personal pronoun in the Choctaw, and no distinction between the singular and plural in some other languages. In the Sioux also, the general termination pee, designates alone the plural in many instances; and the plural sign te, prefixed, performs the same office in the Cherokee with respect to the objective case of the pronoun.

In the Eskimau and in the language of Chili, the personal pronouns are affixed to the verb, and the same rule applies, in the Eskimau, to the possessive pronoun connected with the noun. The possessive and also the personal pronoun, both in its nominative and objective case, are prefixed to the noun and to the verb respectively, in the Choctaw, the Sioux, the Cherokee, and apparently the Iroquois. In the Muskhogee, the {[hws|per|personal}}