Indeed, there is clear evidence to warrant such a reading in. An example

or two should make clear these all-important distinctions.[66] In Nootka

we have an unusually large number of derivational affixes (expressing

concepts of group II). Some of these are quite material in content

(e.g., "in the house," "to dream of"), others, like an element denoting

plurality and a diminutive affix, are far more abstract in content. The

former type are more closely welded with the radical element than the

latter, which can only be suffixed to formations that have the value of

complete words. If, therefore, I wish to say "the small fires in the

house"--and I can do this in one word--I must form the word

"fire-in-the-house," to which elements corresponding to "small," our

plural, and "the" are appended. The element indicating the definiteness

of reference that is implied in our "the" comes at the very end of the

word. So far, so good. "Fire-in-the-house-the" is an intelligible

correlate of our "the house-fire."[67] But is the Nootka correlate of

"the small fires in the house" the true equivalent of an English "_the

house-firelets_"?[68] By no means. First of all, the plural element

precedes the diminutive in Nootka: "fire-in-the-house-plural-small-the,"

in other words "the house-fires-let," which at once reveals the

important fact that the plural concept is not as abstractly, as

relationally, felt as in English. A more adequate rendering would be

"the house-fire-several-let," in which, however, "several" is too gross

a word, "-let" too choice an element ("small" again is too gross). In

truth we cannot carry over into English the inherent feeling of the

Nootka word, which seems to hover somewhere between "the house-firelets"

and "the house-fire-several-small." But what more than anything else

cuts off all possibility of comparison between the English _-s_ of

"house-firelets" and the "-several-small" of the Nootka word is this,

that in Nootka neither the plural nor the diminutive affix corresponds

or refers to anything else in the sentence. In English "the

house-firelets burn" (not "burns"), in Nootka neither verb, nor

adjective, nor anything else in the proposition is in the least

concerned with the plurality or the diminutiveness of the fire. Hence,

while Nootka recognizes a cleavage between concrete and less concrete

concepts within group II, the less concrete do not transcend the group

and lead us into that abstracter air into which our plural _-s_ carries

us. But at any rate, the reader may object, it is something that the

Nootka plural affix is set apart from the concreter group of affixes;

and may not the Nootka diminutive have a slenderer, a more elusive

content than our _-let_ or _-ling_ or the German _-chen_ or _-lein?_[69]

[Footnote 66: It is precisely the failure to feel the "value" or "tone,"

as distinct from the outer significance, of the concept expressed by a

given grammatical element that has so often led students to

misunderstand the nature of languages profoundly alien to their own. Not

everything that calls itself "tense" or "mode" or "number" or "gender"

or "person" is genuinely comparable to what we mean by these terms in

Latin or French.]

[Footnote 67: Suffixed articles occur also in Danish and Swedish and in

numerous other languages. The Nootka element for "in the house" differs

from our "house-" in that it is suffixed and cannot occur as an