ABSTRACT
In Spanish we have the rule that the object takes the preposition It before it if it denotes a living being: he visto al ministro , I have seen the minister,' but he visto Madrid. In Russian and the other Slav languages the rule prevails that with names of living beings the genitive is used instead of the accusative. In some of the modern languages of India, such as Hindustani, the object form with living beings is marked by the ending -ko, while in names of inanimate things the object has the same form as the nominative (S. Konow in Festskrift til A. Torp, 99). In various languages, therefore, a distinction between these two classes is seen reflected in their manner of indicating the object, but as the means by which this is achieved are entirely different, we seem here to have a trait that has its root in the psychological sameness of men all over the world. {Of. also the Aryan nominative ending -8 if that was originally characteristic of the names of living beings -which, however, is more than doubtful, as on the one hand -8 is found in inanimates like Lit. naMis, L. nox, and on the other
