Abnaki names ending in _-ka[n]tti_, or _-kontee_ (Mass. _-kontu_; Etchemin or Maliseet, _-kodiah_, _-quoddy_; Micmac, _-ka[n]di_, or _-aikadee_;) may be placed with those of the first class, though this termination, representing a substantival component, is really only the locative affix of nouns in the indefinite plural.  Exact location was denoted by affixing, to inanimate nouns-singular, _-et_, _-it_ or _-ut_; proximity, or something less than exact location, by _-set_, (interposing s, the characteristic of diminutives and derogatives) between the noun and affix. Plural nouns, representing a definite number of individuals, or a number which might be regarded as definite, received _-ettu_, _-ittu_, or _-uttu_, in the locative:  but if the number was indefinite, or many individuals were spoken of collectively, the affix was _-kontu_, denoting ‘where many are,’ or ‘place of abundance.’  For example, wadchu, mountain; wadchu-ut, to, on, or at the mountain; wadchu-set, near the mountain; wadchuuttu (or _-ehtu_), in or among certain mountains, known or indicated (as in Eliot’s version of Numbers xxxiii. 47, 48); wadchue-kontu, among mountains, where there are a great many mountains, for ‘in the hill country,’ Joshua xiii. 6.  So, nippe-kontu, ‘in the waters,’ i.e. in many waters, or ’where there is much water,’ Deut. iv. 18; v. 8.  In Deuteronomy xi. 11, the conversion to a verb of a noun which had previously received this affix, shows that the idea of abundance or of multitude is associated with it:  “ohke wadchuuhkontu[oo],” i.e. wadechue-kontu-[oo], “the land is a land of hills,” that is, where are many hills, or where hills are plenty.

This form of verb was rarely used by Eliot and is not alluded to in his Grammar.  It appears to have been less common in the Massachusetts than in most of the other Algonkin languages.  In the Chippewa, an ‘abundance verb,’ as Baraga[47] calls it, may be formed from any noun, by adding _-ka_ or _-[)i]ka_ for the indicative present:  in the Cree, by adding _-skow_ or _-ooskow_.  In the Abnaki, _-ka_ or _-k[oo]_, or _-ik[oo]_, forms similar verbs, and verbals.  The final ’tti of ka[n]tti, represents the impersonal a’tte, eto, ’there belongs to it,’ ‘there is there,’ il y a. (Abn. meskik[oo]i’ka[n]tti, ‘where there is abundance of grass,’ is the equivalent of the Micmac “m’skeegoo-aicadee, a meadow."[48])

[Footnote 47:  Otchipwe Grammar, pp. 87, 412.]

[Footnote 48:  Mr. Rand’s Micmac Vocabulary, in Schoolcraft’s Collections, vol. v. p. 579.]

Among Abnaki place-names having this form, the following deserve notice:—­