plural of the future participle of a compound verb "to sit and cut
up"--A + B. The elements (g)--which denotes futurity--, (h)--a
participial suffix--, and (i)--indicating the animate plural--are
grammatical elements which convey nothing when detached. The formula (0)
is intended to imply that the finished word conveys, in addition to what
is definitely expressed, a further relational idea, that of
subjectivity; in other words, the form can only be used as the subject
of a sentence, not in an objective or other syntactic relation. The
radical element A ("to cut up"), before entering into combination with
the coördinate element B ("to sit"), is itself compounded with two
nominal elements or element-groups--an instrumentally used stem (F)
("knife"), which may be freely used as the radical element of noun
forms but cannot be employed as an absolute noun in its given form, and
an objectively used group--(E) + C + d ("black cow _or_ bull"). This
group in turn consists of an adjectival radical element (E) ("black"),
which cannot be independently employed (the absolute notion of "black"
can be rendered only as the participle of a verb: "black-be-ing"), and
the compound noun C + d ("buffalo-pet"). The radical element C properly
means "buffalo," but the element d, properly an independently occurring
noun meaning "horse" (originally "dog" or "domesticated animal" in
general), is regularly used as a quasi-subordinate element indicating
that the animal denoted by the stem to which it is affixed is owned by a
human being. It will be observed that the whole complex
(F) + (E) + C + d + A + B is functionally no more than a verbal base,
corresponding to the _sing-_ of an English form like _singing_; that
this complex remains verbal in force on the addition of the temporal
element (g)--this (g), by the way, must not be understood as appended to
B alone, but to the whole basic complex as a unit--; and that the
elements (h) + (i) + (0) transform the verbal expression into a formally
well-defined noun.