Taos language
Encyclopedia
The Taos dialect of the Northern Tiwa language is spoken in Taos Pueblo
, New Mexico
.
Lynn Nichols of University of California, Berkeley
is involved in the development of an electronic corpus of Taos texts.
(1946) notes that Taos was spoken by all members of the Taos Pueblo community. Additionally, most speakers were bilingual in either Spanish or English: speakers over 50 years of age were fluent in Spanish, adult speakers younger than 50 spoke Spanish and English, children around 5 years old could speak English but not Spanish — generally a decrease in age correlated with a decrease in Spanish fluency and an increase in English fluency. Pre-school children and a few very old women were monolingual Taos speakers.
A more recent report by Gomez (2003) notes that the language "until a few years ago remained viable only in age groups of thirty and older", a sign that Taos is being affected by language endangerment
pressures. Nonetheless, it is one of 46 languages in North America that are being spoken by significant numbers of children as of 1995 (Goddard 1996). The most recent estimate is from 1980 with about 800 native speakers out of 1600 ethnic population (50% of the population).
Taos speakers have historically been reluctant to provide linguists with language data to work with and have preferred to keep their language secret from outsiders. G. Trager had to work with his consultants in private and keep their identities in confidence. The tendency for secrecy is a continuing general Pueblo reaction starting in the 17th century in large part due to the oppressive persecution (including public executions and torture) of Pueblo religious practices by the colonial Spanish. The Taos community has been particularly guarded about revealing their language (and culture) to outsiders when compared with other eastern pueblos in New Mexico. Due to secrecy practices, the details of language preservation are not known outside of the community.
(spoken at Picuris Pueblo). It is slightly more distantly related to Southern Tiwa
(spoken at Isleta Pueblo
and Sandia Pueblo
).
s:
The alveolar flap /ɾ/ is found in loanword
s from New Mexican Spanish
.
Taos has six vowel
s — five of these have an oral-nasal
contrast. Taos has five (native) vowel clusters (i.e. diphthong
s).
Taos has three degrees of stress
: primary, secondary, and unstressed, as well as three tones
: high, mid, and low.
. However, his transcription differs between his earlier work exemplified by Trager (1946) and his later work following and explained in Trager (1948). The following chart lists the symbolization of Taos phonemes in Trager (1946) and Trager (1948) and also a corresponding IPA symbolization. However, the chart only lists symbols that differ between the three—if Trager (1946), Trager (1948), and the IPA all use the same symbol it is not listed in the chart below.
Both Trager (1946) and Trager (1948) use the same vowel symbolization. This symbols have roughly approximate values of corresponding IPA symbols except that the vowel transcribed as by Trager is phonetically IPA [ɑ] and in Trager's phonemic categorizing a low back vowel (with rounding details irrelevant to the categorization).
More different is Trager's two ways of transcribing tone and stress. The table below shows the differences on the syllable ta.
The conflation between primary + high and secondary + high as well as primary + low and secondary + low in Trager (1946) was due to the belief that they were in complementary distribution
. Trager rescinded this view in Trager (1948) and onward. In Trager's terminology, primary stress is called "loud" stress, secondary stress is "normal", and unstressed is "weak".
The orthography used in this article is essentially that of Trager (1948) with one modification: Trager (1948: 158) mentioned that the glottal stop was not written when word-initial in the practical orthography he was teaching his informants
— this practice is followed here.
according to grammatical number
with the number suffix
es. Additionally, they may be inflected for possession
with prefix
es that indicate the number and grammatical person
of the possessor as well as agreeing
with the number of noun stem.
Two other number suffixes and can express either singular number or duoplural depending upon the grammatical class of noun. For example, the noun stem "judge" is duoplural with the addition of : "judges". On the other hand, the noun stem "wheel" is singular with the addition of : "wheel". Examples with include "mothers" (duoplural) and "eye" (singular). Following the terminology used for other Tanoan languages, these will be called here "inverse" number suffixes. These inverse suffixes effectively indicate the grammatical number opposite the other suffix that appears on a given noun. Thus, since the stem "mountain" requires the plural suffix in the duoplural form (namely, "mountains"), the inverse marks the singular in "mountain". And, likewise, since the stem "robin" requires the singular suffix in the singular form (namely, "robin"), the inverse marks the duoplural in "robins".
Taos nouns can be grouped into four grammatical classes based on which number prefixes are required for the singular and duoplural inflectional forms. Trager calls these noun classes "genders". One class requires the singular suffix in the singular form and an inverse suffix in the duoplural. Another class requires an inverse suffix in the singular and the duoplural suffix in the duoplural. A third class requires the singular and duoplural suffixes for the singular and duoplural forms, respectively. A fourth class only occurs with the duoplural suffix . The first two classes, which use an inverse suffix, can be separated into two subclasses based on whether inverse or is used. These are summarized in the following table.
Noun class I is composed of primarily animate
nouns. The animate nouns include persons, animals, and kinship terms. Two non-animate nouns in the class are "doll" and "egg". The class includes both native words and loanword
s from Spanish (such as "mare" < yegua, "cousin" < primo, etc.). Membership of this class is represented by the following list of nouns (cited in the singular form). The first list uses the inverse suffix in the duoplural.
The following belong to noun class I with the inverse suffix.
Nouns in classes II and III are opposed to class I in that they are inanimates. However, there is no apparent semantic motivation for distinguishing the types of nouns with membership in class II and class III. Both classes include body parts, plants, natural phenomena, and man-made materials. Loanwords are incorporated into both classes. Examples of nouns in class II follow. Those with the inverse suffix are below.
Examples of nouns in class II with the inverse suffix are below.
Examples of noun in class III are the following:
The final class IV consists of mostly abstract and deverbal nouns. All nouns in this class only are inflected with the duoplural. They may be semantically either singular or collective. Examples follow.
Trager treats class III and IV as sub-classes of a larger single class.
The noun class system also applies to some other word types besides nouns. Demonstratives and some numerals are also inflected for number with different suffixes that agree with the noun that they modify.
When some stems are followed by the number suffixes, they are followed by a connecting vowel. For example, the word "flower" consists of a stem and in the inflected forms the intervening vowel appears: "flower". Other examples include "chin, jaw", "bitch", "woman". However, not all instances of vowels occurring directly before number suffixes are this intervening vowel as there also some stems which end in a vowel, such as "coyote" which has the stem .
Several noun stem have reduplicated
stem material appearing between the stem and the number suffix. For example, "washing" consists of the stem and the duoplural number suffix . Between the stem and the suffix is the duplifix . This duplifix consists of the consonant and a copy of the final vowel of the stem . The duplifix may be symbolized as where V represents the reduplication of any vowel that occurs at the end of the preceding noun stem.
Thus "washing" is , which after copying is . Other examples include
Further details about the phonology of the reduplication are found in Taos phonology: Reduplicative vowel patterning.
The reduplication occurs in all four noun classes before the all number suffixes except inverse (in both class I duoplural and class II singular). The following examples show the patterning of reduplication and number suffixes found by Trager.
Taos Pueblo
Taos Pueblo is an ancient pueblo belonging to a Taos speaking Native American tribe of Pueblo people. It is approximately 1000 years old and lies about north of the modern city of Taos, New Mexico, USA...
, New Mexico
New Mexico
New Mexico is a state located in the southwest and western regions of the United States. New Mexico is also usually considered one of the Mountain States. With a population density of 16 per square mile, New Mexico is the sixth-most sparsely inhabited U.S...
.
Lynn Nichols of University of California, Berkeley
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...
is involved in the development of an electronic corpus of Taos texts.
Demographics and ethnography
In data collected in 1935 and 1937, George L. TragerGeorge L. Trager
George Leonard Trager was an American linguist. He was born March 22, 1906, in Newark, New Jersey; he died on August 31, 1992, in Pasadena, California...
(1946) notes that Taos was spoken by all members of the Taos Pueblo community. Additionally, most speakers were bilingual in either Spanish or English: speakers over 50 years of age were fluent in Spanish, adult speakers younger than 50 spoke Spanish and English, children around 5 years old could speak English but not Spanish — generally a decrease in age correlated with a decrease in Spanish fluency and an increase in English fluency. Pre-school children and a few very old women were monolingual Taos speakers.
A more recent report by Gomez (2003) notes that the language "until a few years ago remained viable only in age groups of thirty and older", a sign that Taos is being affected by language endangerment
Endangered language
An endangered language is a language that is at risk of falling out of use. If it loses all its native speakers, it becomes a dead language. If eventually no one speaks the language at all it becomes an "extinct language"....
pressures. Nonetheless, it is one of 46 languages in North America that are being spoken by significant numbers of children as of 1995 (Goddard 1996). The most recent estimate is from 1980 with about 800 native speakers out of 1600 ethnic population (50% of the population).
Taos speakers have historically been reluctant to provide linguists with language data to work with and have preferred to keep their language secret from outsiders. G. Trager had to work with his consultants in private and keep their identities in confidence. The tendency for secrecy is a continuing general Pueblo reaction starting in the 17th century in large part due to the oppressive persecution (including public executions and torture) of Pueblo religious practices by the colonial Spanish. The Taos community has been particularly guarded about revealing their language (and culture) to outsiders when compared with other eastern pueblos in New Mexico. Due to secrecy practices, the details of language preservation are not known outside of the community.
Genealogical relations
Taos belongs to a northern sub-grouping on the Tiwa branch of the Tanoan language family. It is closely related to and still mutually intelligible with PicurísPicuris language
The endangered Picuris dialect of the Northern Tiwa language is spoken in Picuris Pueblo, New Mexico.-Genealogical relations:Picuris mutually intelligible with Taos dialect, spoken at Taos Pueblo...
(spoken at Picuris Pueblo). It is slightly more distantly related to Southern Tiwa
Southern Tiwa language
The Southern Tiwa language is a Kiowa–Tanoan language spoken at Sandia Pueblo and Isleta Pueblo in New Mexico and Ysleta del Sur in Texas.-Genealogical relations:...
(spoken at Isleta Pueblo
Isleta Pueblo
Isleta Pueblo is an unincorporated Tanoan pueblo in Bernalillo County, New Mexico, United States, originally established around the 14th century.-Overview:...
and Sandia Pueblo
Sandia Pueblo
Sandia Pueblo is a tribe of Native American Pueblo people inhabiting a 101.114 km² reservation of the same name in the eastern Rio Grande Valley of central New Mexico, located three miles south of Bernalillo off Highway 85 in southern Sandoval County and northern Bernalillo County, at...
).
Sounds
According to one analysis, Taos has 18 consonantConsonant
In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are , pronounced with the lips; , pronounced with the front of the tongue; , pronounced with the back of the tongue; , pronounced in the throat; and ,...
s:
| Bilabial Bilabial consonant In phonetics, a bilabial consonant is a consonant articulated with both lips. The bilabial consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:... |
Dental | Alveolar Alveolar consonant Alveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli of the superior teeth... |
Palatal Palatal consonant Palatal consonants are consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the hard palate... |
Velar Velar consonant Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum).... |
Glottal Glottal consonant Glottal consonants, also called laryngeal consonants, are consonants articulated with the glottis. Many phoneticians consider them, or at least the so-called fricative, to be transitional states of the glottis without a point of articulation as other consonants have; in fact, some do not consider... |
|||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| central Central consonant A central or medial consonant is a consonant sound that is produced when air flows across the center of the mouth over the tongue. The class contrasts with lateral consonants, in which air flows over the sides of the tongue rather than down its center.... |
lateral Lateral consonant A lateral is an el-like consonant, in which airstream proceeds along the sides of the tongue, but is blocked by the tongue from going through the middle of the mouth.... |
|||||||
| Plosive | voiced Voice (phonetics) Voice or voicing is a term used in phonetics and phonology to characterize speech sounds, with sounds described as either voiceless or voiced. The term, however, is used to refer to two separate concepts. Voicing can refer to the articulatory process in which the vocal cords vibrate... |
b | d | ɡ | ||||
| voiceless Voiceless In linguistics, voicelessness is the property of sounds being pronounced without the larynx vibrating. Phonologically, this is a type of phonation, which contrasts with other states of the larynx, but some object that the word "phonation" implies voicing, and that voicelessness is the lack of... |
p | t | k | [ʔ] | ||||
| Affricate | [tʃ] | |||||||
| Fricative Fricative consonant Fricatives are consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate, in the case of German , the final consonant of Bach; or... |
[ɬ] | s | x | h | ||||
| Nasal Nasal consonant A nasal consonant is a type of consonant produced with a lowered velum in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. Examples of nasal consonants in English are and , in words such as nose and mouth.- Definition :... |
m | n | ||||||
| Approximant Approximant consonant Approximants are speech sounds that involve the articulators approaching each other but not narrowly enough or with enough articulatory precision to create turbulent airflow. Therefore, approximants fall between fricatives, which do produce a turbulent airstream, and vowels, which produce no... |
w | l | [j] | |||||
| Flap Flap consonant In phonetics, a flap or tap is a type of consonantal sound, which is produced with a single contraction of the muscles so that one articulator is thrown against another.-Contrast with stops and trills:... |
( [ɾ]) | |||||||
The alveolar flap /ɾ/ is found in loanword
Loanword
A loanword is a word borrowed from a donor language and incorporated into a recipient language. By contrast, a calque or loan translation is a related concept where the meaning or idiom is borrowed rather than the lexical item itself. The word loanword is itself a calque of the German Lehnwort,...
s from New Mexican Spanish
New Mexican Spanish
New Mexican Spanish is a variant or dialect of Spanish spoken in the United States, primarily in the northern part of the state of New Mexico and the southern part of the state of Colorado...
.
Taos has six vowel
Vowel
In phonetics, a vowel is a sound in spoken language, such as English ah! or oh! , pronounced with an open vocal tract so that there is no build-up of air pressure at any point above the glottis. This contrasts with consonants, such as English sh! , where there is a constriction or closure at some...
s — five of these have an oral-nasal
Nasalization
In phonetics, nasalization is the production of a sound while the velum is lowered, so that some air escapes through the nose during the production of the sound by the mouth...
contrast. Taos has five (native) vowel clusters (i.e. diphthong
Diphthong
A diphthong , also known as a gliding vowel, refers to two adjacent vowel sounds occurring within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: That is, the tongue moves during the pronunciation of the vowel...
s).
| Front Front vowel A front vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a front vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far in front as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Front vowels are sometimes also... |
Back Back vowel A back vowel is a type of vowel sound used in spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a back vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far back as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Back vowels are sometimes also called dark... |
|||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| oral | nasal | oral | nasal | |
| High Close vowel A close vowel is a type of vowel sound used in many spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a close vowel is that the tongue is positioned as close as possible to the roof of the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant.This term is prescribed by the... |
i | [ĩ] | u | [ũ] |
| Mid Open-mid vowel An open-mid vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of an open-mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned two-thirds of the way from an open vowel to a mid vowel... |
[ɛ] | [æ̃] | [ɤ] | |
| Low Open vowel An open vowel is defined as a vowel sound in which the tongue is positioned as far as possible from the roof of the mouth. Open vowels are sometimes also called low vowels in reference to the low position of the tongue... |
[æ] | [ã] | [ɑ] | [ɔ̃] |
| Final component | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Initial component |
||||
| [iɛ] | – | [iæ] | – | |
| – | [ĩæ̃] | – | – | |
| – | – | – | [uɒ] | |
| – | – | – | [ɤɜ] | |
Taos has three degrees of stress
Stress (linguistics)
In linguistics, stress is the relative emphasis that may be given to certain syllables in a word, or to certain words in a phrase or sentence. The term is also used for similar patterns of phonetic prominence inside syllables. The word accent is sometimes also used with this sense.The stress placed...
: primary, secondary, and unstressed, as well as three tones
Tone (linguistics)
Tone is the use of pitch in language to distinguish lexical or grammatical meaning—that is, to distinguish or inflect words. All verbal languages use pitch to express emotional and other paralinguistic information, and to convey emphasis, contrast, and other such features in what is called...
: high, mid, and low.
Transcription
Taos has been transcribed by Trager in Americanist phonetic notationAmericanist phonetic notation
Americanist phonetic notation is a system of phonetic notation originally developed by European and American anthropologists and language scientists for the phonetic and phonemic transcription of Native American and European languages...
. However, his transcription differs between his earlier work exemplified by Trager (1946) and his later work following and explained in Trager (1948). The following chart lists the symbolization of Taos phonemes in Trager (1946) and Trager (1948) and also a corresponding IPA symbolization. However, the chart only lists symbols that differ between the three—if Trager (1946), Trager (1948), and the IPA all use the same symbol it is not listed in the chart below.
| Trager 1946 | Trager 1948 | IPA |
|---|---|---|
| ʔ | ||
| tʃ ~ ts | ||
| tʃʼ ~ tsʼ (1946), tʃʔ ~ tsʔ (1948) | ||
| fɾ ~ ɸɾ | ||
| ɡ | ||
| kʼ (1946), kʔ | ||
| kʷ (1946), kw (1948) | ||
| kʷʼ (1946), kwʔ (1948) | ||
| ɬ | ||
| pʼ (1946), pʔ (1948) | ||
| pʰ (1946), ph (1948) | ||
| ɾ | ||
| s ~ ʃ | ||
| tʼ (1946), tʔ (1948) | ||
| tʰ (1946), th (1948) | ||
| xʷ (1946), xw (1948) | ||
| j |
Both Trager (1946) and Trager (1948) use the same vowel symbolization. This symbols have roughly approximate values of corresponding IPA symbols except that the vowel transcribed as by Trager is phonetically IPA [ɑ] and in Trager's phonemic categorizing a low back vowel (with rounding details irrelevant to the categorization).
More different is Trager's two ways of transcribing tone and stress. The table below shows the differences on the syllable ta.
| Stress + Tone combination | Trager 1946 | Trager 1948 | IPA |
|---|---|---|---|
| primary stress + mid tone | ˈtā | ||
| secondary stress + mid tone | ˌtā | ||
| primary stress + high tone | ˈtá | ||
| secondary stress + high tone | ˌtá | ||
| primary stress + low tone | ˈtà | ||
| secondary stress + low tone | ˌtà | ||
| unstressed | ta |
The conflation between primary + high and secondary + high as well as primary + low and secondary + low in Trager (1946) was due to the belief that they were in complementary distribution
Complementary distribution
Complementary distribution in linguistics is the relationship between two different elements, where one element is found in a particular environment and the other element is found in the opposite environment...
. Trager rescinded this view in Trager (1948) and onward. In Trager's terminology, primary stress is called "loud" stress, secondary stress is "normal", and unstressed is "weak".
The orthography used in this article is essentially that of Trager (1948) with one modification: Trager (1948: 158) mentioned that the glottal stop was not written when word-initial in the practical orthography he was teaching his informants
Informant (linguistics)
An informant or consultant in linguistics is a native speaker who acts as a linguistic reference for a language being studied. The informant's role is that of a senior interpreter, who demonstrates native pronunciation, provides grammaticality judgments regarding linguistic well-formedness, and may...
— this practice is followed here.
Nouns
Taos nouns are inflectedInflection
In grammar, inflection or inflexion is the modification of a word to express different grammatical categories such as tense, grammatical mood, grammatical voice, aspect, person, number, gender and case...
according to grammatical number
Grammatical number
In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions ....
with the number suffix
Suffix
In linguistics, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns or adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs...
es. Additionally, they may be inflected for possession
Possession (linguistics)
Possession, in the context of linguistics, is an asymmetric relationship between two constituents, the referent of one of which possesses the referent of the other ....
with prefix
Prefix
A prefix is an affix which is placed before the root of a word. Particularly in the study of languages,a prefix is also called a preformative, because it alters the form of the words to which it is affixed.Examples of prefixes:...
es that indicate the number and grammatical person
Grammatical person
Grammatical person, in linguistics, is deictic reference to a participant in an event; such as the speaker, the addressee, or others. Grammatical person typically defines a language's set of personal pronouns...
of the possessor as well as agreeing
Agreement (linguistics)
In languages, agreement or concord is a form of cross-reference between different parts of a sentence or phrase. Agreement happens when a word changes form depending on the other words to which it relates....
with the number of noun stem.
Number inflection
Nouns are generally composed of a noun stem with a following number suffix. The number suffixes distinguish between singular and plural. However, in verbs, three numbers are distinguished — singular, dual, and plural — because of this distinction in verbs the plural suffixes on nouns are more appropriately duoplural (Trager uses the term "nonsingular"). The singular suffix is and the duoplural suffix is .Two other number suffixes and can express either singular number or duoplural depending upon the grammatical class of noun. For example, the noun stem "judge" is duoplural with the addition of : "judges". On the other hand, the noun stem "wheel" is singular with the addition of : "wheel". Examples with include "mothers" (duoplural) and "eye" (singular). Following the terminology used for other Tanoan languages, these will be called here "inverse" number suffixes. These inverse suffixes effectively indicate the grammatical number opposite the other suffix that appears on a given noun. Thus, since the stem "mountain" requires the plural suffix in the duoplural form (namely, "mountains"), the inverse marks the singular in "mountain". And, likewise, since the stem "robin" requires the singular suffix in the singular form (namely, "robin"), the inverse marks the duoplural in "robins".
Number classes
Taos nouns can be grouped into four grammatical classes based on which number prefixes are required for the singular and duoplural inflectional forms. Trager calls these noun classes "genders". One class requires the singular suffix in the singular form and an inverse suffix in the duoplural. Another class requires an inverse suffix in the singular and the duoplural suffix in the duoplural. A third class requires the singular and duoplural suffixes for the singular and duoplural forms, respectively. A fourth class only occurs with the duoplural suffix . The first two classes, which use an inverse suffix, can be separated into two subclasses based on whether inverse or is used. These are summarized in the following table.
| Class | Singular | Duoplural | Examples |
|---|---|---|---|
| I | () "judge", "judges" () "maternal aunt", "maternal aunts" |
||
| () "mother", "mothers" () "person", "persons" |
|||
| II | () "wheel", "wheels" () "legging", "leggings" |
||
| () "eye", "eyes" () "arm", "arms" |
|||
| III | () "plum", "plums" () "axe", "axes" |
||
| IV | () "liver" () "coffee" |
||
Noun class I is composed of primarily animate
Animacy
Animacy is a grammatical and/or semantic category of nouns based on how sentient or alive the referent of the noun in a given taxonomic scheme is...
nouns. The animate nouns include persons, animals, and kinship terms. Two non-animate nouns in the class are "doll" and "egg". The class includes both native words and loanword
Loanword
A loanword is a word borrowed from a donor language and incorporated into a recipient language. By contrast, a calque or loan translation is a related concept where the meaning or idiom is borrowed rather than the lexical item itself. The word loanword is itself a calque of the German Lehnwort,...
s from Spanish (such as "mare" < yegua, "cousin" < primo, etc.). Membership of this class is represented by the following list of nouns (cited in the singular form). The first list uses the inverse suffix in the duoplural.
| "paternal grandmother" | "doll" | "coyote" |
| "squirrel" | "robin" | "bird" |
| "mouse" | "dog" | "judge" |
| "boy" | "quail" | "rooster" (loan) |
| "paternal aunt" | "relative" | "lamb" |
| "maternal aunt" | "nephew, niece" | "badger" |
| "cow" | "colt" | "Kiowa Indian" (loan) |
| "pig" (loan) | "godmother" (loan) | "godfather" (loan) |
| "skunk" | "magpie" | "king" (loan) |
| "chicken" | "maternal grandmother" | "grandchild" |
| "teacher" (loan) | "maternal uncle" | "mule" (loan) |
| "donkey" (loan) | "ox" (loan) | "cat" |
| "Navajo Indian" (loan) | "soldier" (loan) | "agent" (loan) |
| "younger sister" | "spider" | "worm" |
| "egg" | "beaver" | "younger brother" |
| "orphan" | "rattlesnake" | "louse, flea" |
| "white man" (loan) | "fly" | "older brother" |
| "cousin" (loan) | "Cheyenne Indian" (loan) | "daughter-in-law" |
| "giant" | "son-in-law" | "grandfather" |
| "governor of pueblo" | "tramp" (loan) | "hummingbird" |
| "bull" (loan) | "paternal uncle" | "older sister" |
| "fox" | "youth" | "girl" |
| "mare" (loan) |
The following belong to noun class I with the inverse suffix.
| "bluejay" | "eagle" | "mother" |
| "bear" | "wolf" | "buffalo" |
| "owl" | "Mexican" | "maiden" |
| "bitch" | "woman" | "old man" |
| "sparrow" | "deer" | "fish" |
| "daughter" | "rabbit" | "policeman" (loan) |
| "friend" | "man" | "bluebird" |
| "person" | "father" | "baby" |
| "son" |
Nouns in classes II and III are opposed to class I in that they are inanimates. However, there is no apparent semantic motivation for distinguishing the types of nouns with membership in class II and class III. Both classes include body parts, plants, natural phenomena, and man-made materials. Loanwords are incorporated into both classes. Examples of nouns in class II follow. Those with the inverse suffix are below.
| "glass tumbler" (loan) | "bottle" (loan) | "boot" (loan) |
| "legging" | "rug" (loan) | "lung" |
| "weapon" | "juniper" | "willow" |
| "ladder" | "oak" | "quilt" (loan) |
| "mouth" | "chief's cane" | "window" |
| "glove" | "stocking" (loan) | "table" (loan) |
| "fir" | "blanket" (loan) | "frying pan" (loan) |
| "silk" (loan) | "wheel" | "tree" |
| "birch" | "towel" (loan) | "rubber (object)" (loan) |
| "knee" | "skirt" |
Examples of nouns in class II with the inverse suffix are below.
| "eye" | "shoulder" | "cedar" |
| "foot" | "neck" | "door" |
| "cradle" | "shoe" | "blanket" |
| "hand" | "chin" | "mountain" |
| "head" | "yucca" | "chest" |
| "flower" | "fork" (loan) | "pine" |
| "wind" | "ham" (loan) | "arm" |
| "leg" | "song" |
Examples of noun in class III are the following:
| "valley" (loan) | "suitcase" (loan) | "button" (loan) |
| "deerhide strip" | "ankle" | "yeast" |
| "anus" | "question" | "shirt" |
| "cherry" | "cheese" (loan) | "street" (loan) |
| "canyon" (loan) | "cake" (loan) | "vulva" |
| "bed frame" (loan) | "camp" (loan) | "hoof" |
| "cabbage" (loan) | "coat" (loan) | "bracelet" |
| "racetrack" | "axe" | "carpenter's apron" |
| "law" (loan) | "belt" | "lemon" (loan) |
| "lip" | "buckskin" | "fingernail" |
| "machine" (loan) | "garter" | "(Catholic) mass" (loan) |
| "church" (loan) | "mile" (loan) | "hammer" (loan) |
| "appletree" (loan) | "pocket" (loan) | "button" (loan) |
| "adobe brick" | "bread" | "moon" |
| "sky" | "mint" | "star" |
| "underwear" | "pear" (loan) | "cloud" |
| "nose" | "peach" (loan) | "hair" |
| "heart" | "bed" | "road" |
| "city" (loan) | "trousers" | "pumpkin" |
| "land, country" | "plum" | "ball" |
| "cigar" (loan) | "ranch" (loan) | "orange" (loan) |
| "bedspring" (loan) | "cheek" | "ear" |
| "bean" | "stomach" | "sun" |
| "store" (loan) | "ticket" (loan) | "tamale" (loan) |
| "truck" (loan) | "tomato" (loan) | "grape" (loan) |
| "charcoal" (loan) | "burning coal" | "penis" |
| "bow" |
The final class IV consists of mostly abstract and deverbal nouns. All nouns in this class only are inflected with the duoplural. They may be semantically either singular or collective. Examples follow.
| "adobe" (loan) | "poison" (loan) | "vinegar" (loan) |
| "liver" | "knot" | "chili" (loan) |
| "chili soup" | "chili powder" | "gasoline" (loan) |
| "sickness" | "corn" | "hail" |
| "coffee" (loan) | "cocoa" (loan) | "lettuce" (loan) |
| "tobacco" | "grass" | "wheat" |
| "wood" | "rain" | "return" |
| "soil" | "oats" (loan) | "ice" |
| "steam" | "water" | "clothing" |
| "fire" | "baking powder" (loan) | "baking soda" (loan) |
| "tea" (loan) |
Trager treats class III and IV as sub-classes of a larger single class.
The noun class system also applies to some other word types besides nouns. Demonstratives and some numerals are also inflected for number with different suffixes that agree with the noun that they modify.
Connecting -e-
When some stems are followed by the number suffixes, they are followed by a connecting vowel. For example, the word "flower" consists of a stem and in the inflected forms the intervening vowel appears: "flower". Other examples include "chin, jaw", "bitch", "woman". However, not all instances of vowels occurring directly before number suffixes are this intervening vowel as there also some stems which end in a vowel, such as "coyote" which has the stem .
Reduplication
Several noun stem have reduplicated
Reduplication
Reduplication in linguistics is a morphological process in which the root or stem of a word is repeated exactly or with a slight change....
stem material appearing between the stem and the number suffix. For example, "washing" consists of the stem and the duoplural number suffix . Between the stem and the suffix is the duplifix . This duplifix consists of the consonant and a copy of the final vowel of the stem . The duplifix may be symbolized as where V represents the reduplication of any vowel that occurs at the end of the preceding noun stem.
Thus "washing" is , which after copying is . Other examples include
| "knot" | |
| "bird" | |
| "corn" |
Further details about the phonology of the reduplication are found in Taos phonology: Reduplicative vowel patterning.
The reduplication occurs in all four noun classes before the all number suffixes except inverse (in both class I duoplural and class II singular). The following examples show the patterning of reduplication and number suffixes found by Trager.
| Singular | Duoplural | Noun class | Gloss | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| reduplication | no reduplication | Class I | "bat" | ||
| reduplication | reduplication | Class I | "son" | ||
| no reduplication | reduplication | Class II | "skirt" | ||
| reduplication | reduplication | Class II | "song" | ||
| reduplication | reduplication | Class III | "bracelet" | ||
| reduplication | no reduplication | Class III | "church" |
Vocatives
Noun stems of the nouns in class I can standalone as free words when they are used to refer to persons as proper nouns.Pronominal inflection
| Objects | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| First | Second | Third | ||||||||
| Singular | Dual | Plural | Singular | Dual | Plural | Singular | Plural | Inverse | ||
| First | Singular | |||||||||
| Dual | ||||||||||
| Plural | ||||||||||
| Second | Singular | |||||||||
| Dual | ||||||||||
| Plural | ||||||||||
| Third | Singular | – | ||||||||
| Dual | ||||||||||
| Plural | ||||||||||