call the adjective cold. Mr. Zeisberger accordingly hesitated, whether, in his Grammar of the Delaware language, he should consider the adjectives as a distinct part of speech; and he ultimately arranged the greater number of them under the head of verbs adjective. There are however, in every Indian language, some adjectives, or words generally considered as such, which from their nature are not susceptible of a verbal form, or which by usage appear only in that of an adjective. Instances of that kind will be found in Mr. Zeisberger's Onondago Grammar.

I believe that it must appear sufficiently obvious, that this general if not universal character of the Indian languages, the conversion into verbs and the conjugation, through all the persons, tenses, and moods, of almost all the adjectives and of every noun which, without a palpable absurdity, is susceptible of it, is entirely due to the absence of the substantive verb; * the idea of which is nevertheless as clear in the mind of the Indian, when he says, I cold, and conjugates the word, as in that of the European, when he says, 'I am cold,' and conjugates the verb I am.

The adjective, whether considered as the root, or as one of the forms of the verb, appears nevertheless to have preserved some of the properties of the noun adjective. A few, in the Choctaw, have a distinct plural form. The feminine gender in the Onondago, the inanimate or animate in other languages, are distinguished by a varied inflection. The degrees of comparison are in almost every language expressed by words, corresponding to the English more and most, preceding or following the adjective.

It appears, that in the Onondago language, a distinction is made between the adjectives which may, and those which do not coalesce with the substantive, and that, when thus coales

*Father Febre says, that the passive voice, in the language of Chili, is formed by substituting for the termination of the active (in the first person of the present indicative) gen, which he asserts to be the substantive verb sum, es; and, in another place, that the same termination gen, meaning existence, added to an adjective, makes the noun substantive of abstract qualities, (corresponding to the English termination ness.) This makes an exception, as to the passive voice, for that language. But the adjectives, substantives, and even proper names are, in the Chilian, as in our Indian languages, converted into intransitive verbs and conjugated without the aid of gen, or of any other analogous auxiliary verb.

cing, the adjective invariably becomes a verb: eniage, 'hand'; ostwi, 'little'; eniastwi, 'a little hand'; wageniastwi,' my hand is little'; saniastwi, 'thy hand is little'; honiastwi, 'his hand is little.'

It will be perceived that, in this instance, the conjugation can he carried through all the tenses and moods, but only in the third person; the variations of hand and hands, and of my, thy, his, our, belonging properly, the first to the noun and the other to the pronoun.

The notions of time belong properly to the action and not to the object, to the verb and not to the nouns. Yet we find, contrary to the universal usage amongst our own languages, inflections, in those of the Indians, of nouns and adjectives denoting time, both in the past and future tenses. Mr. Schoolcraft has given instances of it in the Chippeway, where the termination, bun, added to a noun proper, indicates that the person has ceased to exist. But the most numerous examples, applying both to adjectives and to substantives, are found in Father Maynard's Notes on the Micmac. It may be, that this peculiarity is due to the verbal form, so easily assumed by nouns of every description.

This process of conversion is reciprocal. Verbs, in almost all the Indian languages, may by a small varied inflexion be converted into nouns. Both verbs and adjectives become substantives in the Chippeway, by adding to them the termination win. The same result is obtained in the Delaware by the termination gan, and in the language of Chili by that of gen. This termination appears, in the three languages, to be principally used for the purpose of forming abstract nouns expressive of qualities. Thus are derived, in the Chilian, cumegen, 'goodness,' from cume, 'good'; in the Delaware, wulissowagan, 'prettiness,' from wulisso, 'pretty'; in the Chippeway, minwaidumowin, 'happiness,' from minwaindum, 'he (is) happy.'

Of Pronouns.

Nouns substantive are often and the verbs are always embodied, the first with the possessive, the other with the personal pronouns, so as to form in each case respectively but a single word. And this union of the verb includes the pronoun not only in its nominative case, or as agent or subject of the

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 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 per

noun.

sonal pronoun in the nominative case is affixed, and in the objective case is prefixed to the verb. In the Choctaw the objective case is always clearly, and in the Muskogee and Sioux generally, distinguished by its inflection from the nominative. Its position is also always determined in the Choctaw and in the Eskimau.

In the Algonkin-Lenape languages, the two plurals of the pronouns are, as in others, distinguished from the singular and from each other by inflections; the nominative of the personal pronoun connected with the verb is not distinguished from the objective case by its position; and the particles or inflections. by which that object is effected, as well as the terminating inflections which denote the two plurals, both in the possessive and the personal pronouns, are separated from the characteristics which distinguish the several persons. These characteristics are prefixed, and the other inflections are affixed, to the verb or to the noun. Both are very similar in the several languages of that family.

Although Mr. Schoolcraft was, in his lectures on the Chippeway, treating specially of the noun and not of the pronoun, the examples he has given of their combination are the most satisfactory that can be selected in reference to the various languages of that family. The exclusive or special plural is that which excludes the person spoken to. The inclusive or indefinite includes that person; and although it has, for that reason, the same characteristic (k) as the second person, they are distinguished from each other by a different termination. It appears that the syllable oom, which is susceptible of the variations âm, aim, im, eem, ôm, and which Mr. Schoolcraft considers as the distinctive sign of the possessive pronoun, is

* Kenawun, kiluna, indefinite, or inclusive pronoun of first person,

occasionally dispensed with; but, whether at the option of the speaker, or according to some fixed rule, is not explained.

It is obvious, that the termination ug, or ig, which designates the plural of the noun, is the only inflection of that part of speech, and that all the other variations are the inflections of the pronoun and not of the noun. It could hardly at first have been otherwise in the formation of languages.

When we say, my house,' 'thy house,' his house,''our house,' &c., the object which we designate by the name, house, remains unchanged; and the variations refer only to the person, or to the number of persons, who own the house. The same observation applies to the combinations of the verb with the pronoun. The variations of number or of person (first, second, or third), either as agent, or as object of the action, belong also in reality to the pronoun and not to the verb. This is at once seen in those languages where the amalgamation has not taken place, or has been but partially adopted. When, in English, we say, 'my house,' 'our house,' or, 'I love,' 'we love,' it is evident that our and we, are the plural of my and I; no one will presume to say that they are inflections respectively of the noun house, and of the verb love.

In those languages where, from reasons or accidental causes unknown to us, the principle of combination has been adopted, it would seem, that an amalgamation of the entire pronoun with the noun or verb, so as to concentrate both in one single word, must have been the first process, at least so far as relates to the first and second persons of the pronoun. An abbreviation of the pronoun would afterwards be substituted. The last process must have been the substitution of an arbitrary letter, or syllable, in which there was no longer any trace of affinity with the original pronoun.

It might indeed be supposed, that, inasmuch as such nouns as father are relative and have no real existence without their correlative, and as the verbs, such as love, are also independent