haracteristic of the Dakotan languages generally are the following:

I. Three pronominal prefixes to verbs, i, o and wa. I, this, forms nouns
of instrument. O forms nomen actionis, etc. Some Crow and Minnetaree
words seem to indicate that its original form was a. Wa, meaning some or
something, prefixed to transitive verbs makes them intransitive or
general in their application. Wa is in Min. ma (ba, wa), in Crow, ba.
Scantiness of material prevents me from more than inferring the
existence of these and other prefixes in the other allied languages,
from a few words apparently containing them.

II. A system of verbal prefixes used to form verbs from certain stems,
regularly varied in signification, according to the prefix used. The
Dakota has seven of these prefixes. The Min. has three of these almost
identical in force. I should suppose that I would, with as much
material, find greater similarity in the other languages, but the only
one I have been able to trace at all generally is Dak yu. This merely
converts the stem into a verb without changing its meaning. Dak y is
nearly always represented in the allied languages so far as I have
observed by r, d, l or n; so that I find it in Min. du (ru, lu, nu),
Iowa, Mandan, and Crow ru, Omaha ra.

III. A reflexive pronoun tawa, Min. tama (tawa, taba), Iowa tawe, Osage
tabe, forming from possessive pronouns double possessives, related to
their primitives somewhat as mine to my. In some features of structure
the Dakotan languages present an amazing diversity.

According to Powell (Int. to stud. Am. Lang.) a Ponka in order to say "a
man killed a rabbit," would have to say "the man, he, one, animate,
standing, in the nominative case, purposely, killed, by shooting an
arrow, he, the one animate, sitting, in the objective case." "For the
form of the verb to kill would have to be selected, and the verb changes
its form by inflection, and by incorporated particles, to denote person,
number and gender, as animate or inanimate, as standing, sitting or
lying."

On the other hand the Dakota could not vary the form of the verb to
denote any of these things except number, with reference to either
subject or object. He would probably say: "Wichasta-wan mastincha-wan
kte,"--"man-a, rabbit-a, kill,"--in which each word is about synonymous
with its English equivalent, and case as in English denoted by position.
If he wished to show that the action was done by shooting, he would
probably not