For instance, in some American languages, things are either animate or inanimate, and must be distinguished accordingly by accompanying particles.

Or, again, they are classed by similar means as rational or irrational; women, by the bye, being designated amongst the Chiquitos by the irrational sign.
Reverential particles, again, are used to distinguish what is high or low in the tribal estimation; and we get in this connection such oddities as the Tamil practice of restricting the privilege of having a plural to high-caste names, such as those applied to gods and human beings, as distinguished from the beasts, which are mere casteless "things." Or, once more, my transferable belongings, "my-spear," or "my-canoe," undergo verbal modifications which are denied to non-transferable possessions such as "my-hand"; "my-child," be it observed, falling within the latter class.
Most interesting of all are distinctions of person.

These cannot but bite into the forms of speech, since the native mind is taken up mostly with the personal aspect of things, attaining to the conception of a bloodless system of "its" with the greatest difficulty, if at all.
Even the third person, which is naturally the most colourless, because excluded from a direct part of the conversational game, undergoes multitudinous leavening in the light of conditions which the primitive mind regards as highly important, whereas we should banish them from our thoughts as so much irrelevant "accident." Thus the Abipones in the first place distinguished "he-present," _eneha_, and "she-present," _anaha_, from "he-absent" and "she-absent." But presence by itself gave too little of the speaker's impression.

So, if "he" or "she" were sitting, it was necessary to say _hiniha_ and _haneha_; if they were walking and in sight _ehaha_ and _ahaha_, but, if walking and out of sight, _ekaha_ and _akaha_; if they were lying down, _hiriha_ and _haraha_, and so on.

Moreover, these were all "collective" forms, implying that there were others involved as well.
If "he" or "she" were alone in the matter, an entirely different set of words was needed, "he-sitting (alone)" becoming _ynitara_, and so forth.