The word nittâ, on the contrary, prefixed to those expressions, renders them complimentary. For instance, nittâ naigumood, is a fine singer, nittâ kâgidood, a ready speaker, &c.
Flexible as the substantive has been shown to be, there are other forms of combination that have not been adverted to—forms, by which it is made to coalesce with the verb, the adjective, and the preposition, producing a numerous class of compound expressions. But it is deemed most proper to defer the discussion of these forms to their several appropriate heads.
Enough has been exhibited to demonstrate its prominent grammatical rules. It is not only apparent that the substantive possesses number and gender, but it also undergoes peculiar modifications to express locality and diminution, to denote adjective qualities and to indicate tense. It exhibits some curious traits connected with the mode of denoting the masculine and feminine. It is modified to express person and to distinguish living from inanimate masses. It is rendered possessive by a peculiar inflection, and provides particles, under the shape either of prefixes or suffixes, separable or inseparable, by which the actor is distinguished from the object—and all this, without changing its proper substantive character, without putting on the aspect of a pseudo adjective, or a pseudo verb. Its changes to produce compounds are, however, its most interesting, its most characteristic trait. Syllable is heaped upon syllable, word upon word, and derivative upon derivative, until its vocabulary is crowded with long and pompous phrases, most formidable to the eye.
So completely transpositive do the words appear, that like chessmen on a board, their elementary syllables can be changed at the will of the player, to form new combinations to meet new contingencies, so long as they are changed in accordance with certain general principles and conventional rules; in the application of which, however, much depends upon the will or the skill of the player. What is most surprising, all these changes and combinations, all these qualifications of the object, and distinctions of the person, the time, and the place, do not supersede the use of adjectives, and pronouns, and verbs, and other parts of speech woven into the texture of the noun, in their elementary and conjunctive forms.
III.
Principles Governing the Use of the Odjibwa Noun-Adjective.
Inquiry 3.
Observations on the adjective—Its distinction into two classes denoted by the presence or absence of vitality—Examples of the animates and inanimates—Mode of their conversion into substantives—How pronouns are applied to these derivatives, and the manner of forming compound terms from adjective bases to describe the various natural phenomena—The application of these principles in common conversation, and in the description of natural and artificial objects—Adjectives always preserve the distinction of number—Numerals—Arithmetical capacity of the language—The unit exists in duplicate.
1. It has been remarked that the distinction of words into animates and inanimates, is a principle intimately interwoven throughout the structure of the language. It is, in fact, so deeply imprinted upon its grammatical forms, and is so perpetually recurring, that it may be looked upon, not only as forming a striking peculiarity of the language, but as constituting the fundamental principle of its structure, from which all other rules have derived their limits, and to which they have been made to conform. No class of words appears to have escaped its impress. Whatever concords other laws impose, they all agree, and are made subservient in the establishment of this.
It might appear to be a useless distinction in the adjective, when the substantive is thus marked; but it will be recollected that it is in the plural of the substantive only that the distinction is marked; and we shall, presently have occasion to show that redundancy of forms is, to considerable extent, obviated in practice.
For the origin of the principle itself, we need look only to nature, which endows animate bodies with animate properties and qualities, and vice versâ. But it is due to the tribes who speak this language, to have invented one set of adjective symbols to express the ideas peculiarly appropriate to the former, and another set applicable exclusively to the latter; and to have given the words good and bad, black and white, great and small, handsome and ugly, such modifications as are practically competent to indicate the general nature of the objects referred to, whether provided with, or destitute of, the vital principle. And not only so, but, by the figurative use of these forms, to exalt inanimate masses into the class of living beings, or to strip the latter of its properties of life—a principle of much importance to their public speakers.