  In this paper, the influence of binary stars on the measured kinematics of
dwarf galaxies is investigated. Using realistic distributions of the orbital
parameters (semi-major axis, eccentricity, ...), analytical expressions are
derived for the changes induced by the presence of binary stars in the measured
velocity moments of low-mass galaxies (such as the projected velocity
dispersion and the 4th order Gauss-Hermite coefficient h4). It is shown that
there is a noticeable change in the observed velocity dispersion if the
intrinsic velocity dispersion of a galaxy is of the same order as the binary
velocity dispersion. The kurtosis of the line-of-sight velocity distribution
(LOSVD) is affected even at higher values of the intrinsic velocity dispersion.
