Tunica language
Encyclopedia
The Tunica language was a language isolate
spoken in the Central and Lower Mississippi Valley by in the United States
by Native American
Tunica
peoples. There are no known speakers of the Tunica language remaining.
When the last known fluent speaker Sesostrie Youchigant
died, the language became extinct. Linguist Mary Haas
worked with Youchigant to describe what he remembered of the language, and the description was published in A Grammar of the Tunica Language in 1941. This was followed by Tunica Texts in 1950 and Tunica Dictionary in 1953.
By the 17th century, the reduced Tunica tribe lived close to the Ofo
and Avoyel
les tribes in present-day Louisiana. They communicated by the Mobilian Jargon
or French
. Due to this circumstance of small population and use of a jargon, the linguist Haas
noted that the eventual deterioration of the Tunica language was inevitable.
when in ultima, or occasionally penultima
, position. The melodies are high, low, rising, falling, and falling-rising.
Vowels may only appear in positions following or preceding consonants, but never adjacent to one another. Also, /i/, /a/, and /u/ appear in any position, but the others will only appear in syllables with stress. Vowels do not typically occur at the end of a phrase, and when any vowel appears precedes the letter n in the same syllable, it becomes nasalized.
style (represented in bolded symbols below) is based on Mary Haas' work Tunica Language. The IPA symbols are in brackets next to each consonant.
The consonants /p/, /t/, /k/, and /č/ are always fairly aspirated
unless they occur before a /ʔ/, in which case they are completely unaspirated. Meanwhile, /b/, /d/, and /g/ do not occur frequently, as is the case with /f/. The fricatives /s/ and /š/ are pronounced with a stronger hiss than they are in English, and /ʔ/ is said to have a very strong closure. The semi-vowels /y/ and /w/ are always voiced
, as is the nasal
/m/. On the other hand, /n/, /l/ and /r/ can be voiced or voiceless
. The /l/ and /r/ are voiced when they are intervocalic, preceding /ʔ/, or preceding continuants. However, they are voiceless before voiceless consonants, with the exception of /ʔ/, and they are voiceless when they are phrase-final. We see this in ši'lka "blackbird," or ši'hkal "stone." Similarly, /n/ is voiced intervocalically or before /ʔ/, and it is voiceless when it is phrase-final or before voiceless consonants except /ʔ/.
than other syllables might have. These certain circumstances depend on the position of the syllable in a phrase. The first stressed syllable of a phrase is typically spoken with a slightly higher pitch than the following syllables. The exception to this is when the syllable is the ultima when the high or falling melodies are used, or when the syllable is the last stressed to be stressed during the use of low or rising melodies. The phrase-final melody then determines much of the stress in the rest of the phrase.
When there is use of the high melody, the ultima is about a minor third higher pitch than the penultima. The first syllable with stress is usually a major second higher than the following syllables are, with the exception of the ultima. All other syllables may not be spoken with any kind of pitch, and other unstressed syllables will be the same. For example, ta'čiyak ʔura'pʔikʔahčá "You will kill the squirrel", shows this melody. ta'- is a major second higher than the syllables that follow it, except for -ča, which is a minor third higher than any syllable that comes before it besides ta'-.
The falling melody causes the ultima to start at a minor third higher than the penultima, and then it goes down quickly. The sentence ʔa'hkiš ma'rʔikî "Go back!" demonstrates this.
The low melody that occurs as the ultima is lower than the last stressed syllable, which is a little higher than the syllables that it immediately follows. All unstressed syllables in between the last stressed syllable and the ultima take on the same stress as the ultima. Unless it is also the last stressed syllable, the first stressed syllable is pitched higher than any following syllable except that last stressed syllable. For example, ʔu'riš ma'rʔuwa'nì "He went back home, they say" shows this occurrence.
When the riding melody occurs, the ultima starts lower than the last stressed syllable and goes upward quickly by about a minor third. Elsewhere in the phrase, the tone is like having a low melody. An example sentence for this is lɔ'ta wiwa'nǎn "Do you want to run?"
The falling-rising melody is a fast drop by a fourth, followed by a fast rise by a minor third. However, this melody is only heard in one word, hőn "Yes".
, but one can differentiate between a word and a phrase based on the observation of certain processes. Those that affect grammatical elements that merge to form words are vocalic contraction
, vocalic assimilation
, vocalic syncope, consonantic syncope, haplology
, and patterns in stress. Those that affect words that combine into phrases are vocalic apocope
, consonantic apocope, amalgamation, and stress losses. More specific information and basic examples are detailed below:
. The indeterminative nouns have a stem
without any affixes, while the determinative nouns are distinguished by either the articular prefix
or the pronominal prefix. The determinative nouns can also fall into one of three categories: definitive, non-definitive, and locative, which may be distinguished by different prefixes or suffixes.
The articular prefix is similar to the definite article in English and appears as ta'- preceding all stems except the ones that begin with /ʔ/ or /t/. The prefix appears as t- before stems that start with /ʔ/, and it is omitted through haplology before stems that also start with /t/. The prefix can look like this: te'tiha'yihta "on the road"; te'ti "the road" < te'ti "road"
All proper nouns, unless their stems begin with /t/, must begin with the articular prefix. For instance, ta'wišmi'li, meaning "Red River", is ta'- + wi'š(i)mi'li "red water".
The pronominal prefixes signify possession when attached to a noun, and they preclude the need for articular prefixes with the same stem. Some stems, called inalienably possessed noun stems, cannot be used without a pronominal prefix. These kinds of stems include those of kinship, body parts, and miscellaneous terms. Kinship terms are those such as -e'si "father," or -gači "mother". Body part terms are those such as -e'sini "head," or -e'neri "horns." Finally, miscellaneous terms can be nouns like -e'htiwa'hkuni "breechcloth," or -e'tisa "name".
Gender-number suffixes can only be used in the definitive case of the determinative category, so whenever one is used, there must also be a determining prefix attached to the stem. Below is a table showing the gender-number suffixes:
Sometimes, gender-number suffixes are put on an inflected verb form to convert it to a relative clause. It could be that a noun has the appropriate suffix, and the verb of the clause will then take the same one. Other times, just the verb will take the suffix. Examples of the use of the gender-number suffixes follow:
Finally, there are three possible locative suffixes that are used to put nouns in the locative case. These nouns will also have a determining prefix attached. Gender-number suffixes and locative suffixes are mutually exclusive, although a locative noun may have a number. Also, locative suffixes can take stems and convert them into adverbs and postpositions. -ši is the most commonly used locative suffix, and its meaning is comparable to the English "in, into" or "on, over," although in Tunica it is used as "at, to." This can be seen in the sentence "He stayed at home", which breaks down into: ʔu'riš ʔunanì < "at his house" ʔu'riš(i) < ʔuhk- + ri- "house" + ši. -štihki "toward, in the direction of" is the second suffix.
Usually, it is used with the names of directions, as in: ta'sapʔaraštihk "to the west" < ta- +sa'pʔara "west" + -štihki. The final locative suffix is -hta "on, onto." It is typically only used with ta'hali "the ground." It can be seen in the sentence "He spat on the ground", as ta'haltǎn, ču'hʔuhkɛ'nì; ta'halta < ta'- + ha'l(i) "ground, land" + -hta.
There are three types of sentences that the Tunica language produces: simple, compound, and complex. Simple sentences must contain one and only one predicative word. Compound sentences have two or more main clauses, and complex sentences have a main clause and one or more of the different types of subordinate clauses mentioned above.
The following are brief descriptions of possible syntactic elements of a clause:
There are other special constructions that also take place in certain specific environments. For example, quantificatives and nouns can be in apposition to other nouns when those latter nouns are independent subjects or objects. This occurs in ʔuhkʔo'nisɛ'mǎn, ho't ʔaku'hpanʔuhkɛ'nì "He assembled all (of) his people, it is sad" < "he assembled, it is said, his people, all". Additionally, a possessive nexus can serve in the same syntactical functions that a noun can. For example, ta'čɔhak ʔu'rǐhč, hi'yuhɔ'nì "The chief's house was (made of) grass". (ta'čɔhaku "the chief", possessor noun, + ʔu'rihči "his house", alienably possessed noun, the combination serving as independent subject)
There are also certain rules that are observed when maintaining correct order of clauses:
Nouns in Tunica are also classified according to what position they take. There are three positions that are available and that encompass every noun in the Tunica language: horizontal, squatting, and vertical. Humans and four-legged non-humans can take any of these positions, while elongated non-human animates (like fish or snakes) will always take the horizontal position. Smaller non-human animates like frogs and birds always take the squatting position.
Inanimates are always either horizontal or vertical, abstract nouns are always horizontal, and inanimate objects that take an erect position (like trees) take the vertical position.
There are many postfixes, which express different meanings like certain tenses, negation, and other notions. Sometimes, more than one postfix may be attached to one word, and each postfix has its own governing rules. Below are the postfixes, along with their meanings.
Personal pronouns are inflected depending on person, number, and gender, but they do not have special forms that indicate whether they fall into the determinative or indeterminative categories. They substitute for nouns, and they can be used in the way that nouns are, except in the locative case.
The interrogative-indefinite pronouns are ka'ku "who, someone, anyone" and ka'nahku "what, something, anything". They can substitute for nouns when they do not occur in the locative case. Also, ka'nahku does not appear as an independent subject.
Quantificatives include numerals and others like ho'tu "all, everything", na'mu "many, much", ka'šku "a few, a little bit", ka'škuto'hku "several, quite a few", and ʔa'mari "enough". These can be used as minimal clauses, substitutes for nouns, modifiers of nouns, and modifiers of active verbs.
Postpositions are used to modify locatives and predicates.
Adjectives can be used as predicate words, as noun modifiers used as predicative words, and as modifiers of the interrogative-indefinite pronoun ka'nahku.
Comparatives can be used as modifiers of adjectives, as modifiers of static verbs, as modifiers of adverbs, as modifiers of nouns, and as modifiers of the quantificative na'mu.
Adverbs can be used to modify auxiliary and active verbs.
Auxiliary verbs are always in a predicative word position. Active verbs are either finite or infinitive in form. Finite verbs take subjective pronominal referentials and are predicative words. Infinitives are taken as predicate complements. Sometimes they are inflected for an objective referential. Static verbs are always inflected for an objective referential and are always predicative words.
Sentence connectives connect or contrast two sentences. Sometimes they can also connect two words.
Exclamatives and imitatives always appear as minimal clauses. The most predominant exclamatives are hõn "yes", ʔahâ "no", and dâ "now; ready."
Language isolate
A language isolate, in the absolute sense, is a natural language with no demonstrable genealogical relationship with other languages; that is, one that has not been demonstrated to descend from an ancestor common with any other language. They are in effect language families consisting of a single...
spoken in the Central and Lower Mississippi Valley by in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
by Native American
Native Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
Tunica
Tunica people
The Tunica people were a group of linguistically and culturally related Native American tribes in the Mississippi River Valley, which include the Tunica ; the Yazoo; the Koroa ; and possibly the Tioux...
peoples. There are no known speakers of the Tunica language remaining.
When the last known fluent speaker Sesostrie Youchigant
Sesostrie Youchigant
Sesostrie Youchigant was the last native speaker of the Tunica language. He worked with linguist Mary Haas to describe what he remembered of the language, and the description was published in A Grammar of the Tunica Language in 1939.-External links:...
died, the language became extinct. Linguist Mary Haas
Mary Haas
Mary Rosamund Haas was an American linguist who specialized in North American Indian languages, Thai, and historical linguistics.-Early work in linguistics:...
worked with Youchigant to describe what he remembered of the language, and the description was published in A Grammar of the Tunica Language in 1941. This was followed by Tunica Texts in 1950 and Tunica Dictionary in 1953.
By the 17th century, the reduced Tunica tribe lived close to the Ofo
OFO
Ofo may refer to:*Orbiting Frog Otolith*Ofo Language an indigenous language of the lower Mississippi Valley....
and Avoyel
Avoyel
The Avoyel or Avoyelles was a small Natchez-speaking tribe who inhabited land near the mouth of the Red River in the area of present-day Marksville, Louisiana. The indigenous name for this tribe is Tamoucougoula. The word Avoyel is of French derivation and means either "Flint People" or "the...
les tribes in present-day Louisiana. They communicated by the Mobilian Jargon
Mobilian Jargon
Mobilian Jargon was a pidgin used as a lingua franca among Native American groups living along the Gulf of Mexico around the time of European settlement of the region...
or French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
. Due to this circumstance of small population and use of a jargon, the linguist Haas
Mary Haas
Mary Rosamund Haas was an American linguist who specialized in North American Indian languages, Thai, and historical linguistics.-Early work in linguistics:...
noted that the eventual deterioration of the Tunica language was inevitable.
Vowels
Tunica has seven vowels, all of which are usually short but may be lengthened in stressed syllables, and all of which are voiced completely - except in the situation that when a /u/ is at the end of a phrase in a word with penultimate stress, it is unvoiced after a /k/ or /hk/. The vowels of Tunica are paired with a certain melodyMelody
A melody , also tune, voice, or line, is a linear succession of musical tones which is perceived as a single entity...
when in ultima, or occasionally penultima
Penultima
Penultima is a game of inductive logic, played on a chess board. It was invented by Michael Greene and Adam Chalcraft in Cambridge in 1994. The game is derived from the chess variant Ultima , and played with a standard chess board and pieces, each piece having different movement and capture rules...
, position. The melodies are high, low, rising, falling, and falling-rising.
| Unrounded | Rounded | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Front | Mid | Back | |
| High-close | i | u | |
| Mid-close | e | o | |
| ɛ | ɔ | ||
| Low | a | ||
Vowels may only appear in positions following or preceding consonants, but never adjacent to one another. Also, /i/, /a/, and /u/ appear in any position, but the others will only appear in syllables with stress. Vowels do not typically occur at the end of a phrase, and when any vowel appears precedes the letter n in the same syllable, it becomes nasalized.
Consonants
The transcriptionTranscription (linguistics)
Transcription in the linguistic sense is the systematic representation of language in written form. The source can either be utterances or preexisting text in another writing system, although some linguists only consider the former as transcription.Transcription should not be confused with...
style (represented in bolded symbols below) is based on Mary Haas' work Tunica Language. The IPA symbols are in brackets next to each consonant.
| Bilabial | Labiodental | 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 | Velar | 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... |
||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plosive | Voiceless consonant>voiceless | p [p] | t [t̻] | k [k] | ʔ [ʔ] | ||
| Voiced consonant>voiced | b [b] | d [d] | g [g] | ||||
| Affricate | Voiceless consonant>voiceless | č [t͡ʃ] | |||||
| Voiced consonant>voiced | |||||||
| Fricative | Voiceless consonant>voiceless | f [f] | s [s] | š [ʃ] | h [h] | ||
| Voiced consonant>voiced | |||||||
| 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 :... |
Voiceless consonant>voiceless | ||||||
| Voiced consonant>voiced | m [m] | n [n] | |||||
| Trill Trill consonant In phonetics, a trill is a consonantal sound produced by vibrations between the articulator and the place of articulation. Standard Spanish <rr> as in perro is an alveolar trill, while in Parisian French it is almost always uvular.... |
Voiceless consonant>voiceless | ||||||
| Voiced consonant>voiced | r [r] | ||||||
| Approximant | Voiceless consonant>voiceless | ||||||
| Voiced consonant>voiced | w [w] | l [l] | y [j] |
The consonants /p/, /t/, /k/, and /č/ are always fairly aspirated
Aspiration (phonetics)
In phonetics, aspiration is the strong burst of air that accompanies either the release or, in the case of preaspiration, the closure of some obstruents. To feel or see the difference between aspirated and unaspirated sounds, one can put a hand or a lit candle in front of one's mouth, and say pin ...
unless they occur before a /ʔ/, in which case they are completely unaspirated. Meanwhile, /b/, /d/, and /g/ do not occur frequently, as is the case with /f/. The fricatives /s/ and /š/ are pronounced with a stronger hiss than they are in English, and /ʔ/ is said to have a very strong closure. The semi-vowels /y/ and /w/ are always voiced
VOICED
Virtual Organization for Innovative Conceptual Engineering Design is a virtual organization that promotes innovation in engineering design. This project is the collaborative work of researchers at five universities across the United States, and is funded by the National Science Foundation...
, as is the 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/. On the other hand, /n/, /l/ and /r/ can be voiced or 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...
. The /l/ and /r/ are voiced when they are intervocalic, preceding /ʔ/, or preceding continuants. However, they are voiceless before voiceless consonants, with the exception of /ʔ/, and they are voiceless when they are phrase-final. We see this in ši'lka "blackbird," or ši'hkal "stone." Similarly, /n/ is voiced intervocalically or before /ʔ/, and it is voiceless when it is phrase-final or before voiceless consonants except /ʔ/.
Prosody
Tunica consists of both stressed and unstressed syllables, and the stressed syllables can have a higher pitchPitch (music)
Pitch is an auditory perceptual property that allows the ordering of sounds on a frequency-related scale.Pitches are compared as "higher" and "lower" in the sense associated with musical melodies,...
than other syllables might have. These certain circumstances depend on the position of the syllable in a phrase. The first stressed syllable of a phrase is typically spoken with a slightly higher pitch than the following syllables. The exception to this is when the syllable is the ultima when the high or falling melodies are used, or when the syllable is the last stressed to be stressed during the use of low or rising melodies. The phrase-final melody then determines much of the stress in the rest of the phrase.
When there is use of the high melody, the ultima is about a minor third higher pitch than the penultima. The first syllable with stress is usually a major second higher than the following syllables are, with the exception of the ultima. All other syllables may not be spoken with any kind of pitch, and other unstressed syllables will be the same. For example, ta'čiyak ʔura'pʔikʔahčá "You will kill the squirrel", shows this melody. ta'- is a major second higher than the syllables that follow it, except for -ča, which is a minor third higher than any syllable that comes before it besides ta'-.
The falling melody causes the ultima to start at a minor third higher than the penultima, and then it goes down quickly. The sentence ʔa'hkiš ma'rʔikî "Go back!" demonstrates this.
The low melody that occurs as the ultima is lower than the last stressed syllable, which is a little higher than the syllables that it immediately follows. All unstressed syllables in between the last stressed syllable and the ultima take on the same stress as the ultima. Unless it is also the last stressed syllable, the first stressed syllable is pitched higher than any following syllable except that last stressed syllable. For example, ʔu'riš ma'rʔuwa'nì "He went back home, they say" shows this occurrence.
When the riding melody occurs, the ultima starts lower than the last stressed syllable and goes upward quickly by about a minor third. Elsewhere in the phrase, the tone is like having a low melody. An example sentence for this is lɔ'ta wiwa'nǎn "Do you want to run?"
The falling-rising melody is a fast drop by a fourth, followed by a fast rise by a minor third. However, this melody is only heard in one word, hőn "Yes".
Phonological processes
Every syllable in Tunica begins with a single consonant. Sometimes double or triple consonants may occur in the middle of words or phrases, and no more than two consonants in a row occur in a phrase-final position. The smallest phonetic group in Tunica is a phrasePhrase
In everyday speech, a phrase may refer to any group of words. In linguistics, a phrase is a group of words which form a constituent and so function as a single unit in the syntax of a sentence. A phrase is lower on the grammatical hierarchy than a clause....
, but one can differentiate between a word and a phrase based on the observation of certain processes. Those that affect grammatical elements that merge to form words are vocalic contraction
Contraction (grammar)
A contraction is a shortened version of the written and spoken forms of a word, syllable, or word group, created by omission of internal letters....
, vocalic assimilation
Assimilation (linguistics)
Assimilation is a common phonological process by which the sound of the ending of one word blends into the sound of the beginning of the following word. This occurs when the parts of the mouth and vocal cords start to form the beginning sounds of the next word before the last sound has been...
, vocalic syncope, consonantic syncope, haplology
Haplology
Haplology is defined as the elimination of a syllable when two consecutive identical or similar syllables occur. The phenomenon was identified by American philologist Maurice Bloomfield in the 20th century...
, and patterns in stress. Those that affect words that combine into phrases are vocalic apocope
Apocope
In phonology, apocope is the loss of one or more sounds from the end of a word, and especially the loss of an unstressed vowel.-Historical sound change:...
, consonantic apocope, amalgamation, and stress losses. More specific information and basic examples are detailed below:
- /a/ assimilates after /i/ or /e/ > /ɛ/, and /a/ assimilates after /o/ or /u/ > /ɔ/: mi'lʔɛhɛ "not red" < mi'li "red" + -ʔaha "not"
- When the first vowel of aha or ehe contracts or assimilates with the preceding vowel, the second vowel takes on the same quality as the first: ka'šʔɛhɛ "not true" < ka'ši "true" + -ʔaha "not"
- When combining grammatical elements into words, a vowel preceding /ʔ/ is syncopated (lost) unless at the end of a monosyllabic stem or prefix: la'pʔɔhɔ "not good" < la'pu "good" + -ʔaha "not"
- /h/ between a continuant and a voiceless stop is dropped in consonantic syncope; /k/ between /h/ and a voiceless stop is dropped; /hk/ before a continuant aside from /h/ is dropped; /š/ before another/š/ makes one of them drop; the prefix ta'- becomes t- before the stems beginning with /ʔ/, and /ʔ/ is syncopated
- Haplology occurs when the last syllable of the preceding noun stem takes the form /k/ plus a vowel - in this case, this last syllable drops if the second noun member starts with /k/: ha'hkiri "cornmeal" < ha'hka "corn" + ki'ri "ground"
- All stems have an intrinsic stress, and some affixes have intrinsic stress on the first syllable. When possible during combination of elements to form words and phrases, the stresses are retained, but two stressed syllables do not occur consecutively, causing the need for certain accommodations. For example, monosyllabic or syncopated disyllabic stems followed by another element with intrinsic stress causes the latter to lose its stress. Also, a stem combined with a stressed monosyllabic prefix loses its stress.
- Vocalic apocope occurs before another word starting with /ʔ/ as long as the prior word does not have a stressed penult: tu'wak(u) ʔu'wakɔ'ni "the owl hooted;" or, if it does, the following word does not contain a stressed first syllable: ʔu'w(i) ʔonɛni "he was a person."
- When a word is vocalically apocopated (sound lost at the end of the word) and ends in a consonant group of a continuant plus a voiceless stop, it then goes through consonantic apocope, so the word-final consonant is lost. A voiceless stop between /h/ and another voiceless stop is dropped; a voiceless stop after any continuant except /h/ is dropped; a consonant group of /h/ plus a voiceless stop is dropped when followed by a continuant.
- Amalgamations occur when words beginning with /h/ lose the /h/ when preceded by a word that is vocalically apocopated: ta'hala'yiht "on the ground" < ta'hal(i) "the ground" + (h)a'yihta
- If an irregularly apocopated word with a stressed penult is placed before a word with stress on the first syllable, the first word loses the penultimate stress. If the second word does not have stress on the first syllable, the first word keeps the stressed penult.
Inflection
Nouns can be divided into the categories of indeterminative and determinativeDeterminative
A determinative, also known as a taxogram or semagram, is an ideogram used to mark semantic categories of words in logographic scripts which helps to disambiguate interpretation. They have no direct counterpart in spoken language, though they may derive historically from glyphs for real words, and...
. The indeterminative nouns have a stem
Word stem
In linguistics, a stem is a part of a word. The term is used with slightly different meanings.In one usage, a stem is a form to which affixes can be attached. Thus, in this usage, the English word friendships contains the stem friend, to which the derivational suffix -ship is attached to form a new...
without any affixes, while the determinative nouns are distinguished by either the articular 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:...
or the pronominal prefix. The determinative nouns can also fall into one of three categories: definitive, non-definitive, and locative, which may be distinguished by different prefixes or suffixes.
The articular prefix is similar to the definite article in English and appears as ta'- preceding all stems except the ones that begin with /ʔ/ or /t/. The prefix appears as t- before stems that start with /ʔ/, and it is omitted through haplology before stems that also start with /t/. The prefix can look like this: te'tiha'yihta "on the road"; te'ti "the road" < te'ti "road"
All proper nouns, unless their stems begin with /t/, must begin with the articular prefix. For instance, ta'wišmi'li, meaning "Red River", is ta'- + wi'š(i)mi'li "red water".
The pronominal prefixes signify possession when attached to a noun, and they preclude the need for articular prefixes with the same stem. Some stems, called inalienably possessed noun stems, cannot be used without a pronominal prefix. These kinds of stems include those of kinship, body parts, and miscellaneous terms. Kinship terms are those such as -e'si "father," or -gači "mother". Body part terms are those such as -e'sini "head," or -e'neri "horns." Finally, miscellaneous terms can be nouns like -e'htiwa'hkuni "breechcloth," or -e'tisa "name".
Gender-number suffixes can only be used in the definitive case of the determinative category, so whenever one is used, there must also be a determining prefix attached to the stem. Below is a table showing the gender-number suffixes:
| Singular | Dual | Dual and Plural | Plural | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Masculine | -ku, -ku'hu | ʔu'nima | -sɛ'ma, -sɛm | |
| Feminine | -hči, -hči'hi | -si'nima, -sin |
Sometimes, gender-number suffixes are put on an inflected verb form to convert it to a relative clause. It could be that a noun has the appropriate suffix, and the verb of the clause will then take the same one. Other times, just the verb will take the suffix. Examples of the use of the gender-number suffixes follow:
- ta'čɔhǎku, "the chief" < ta'- + čɔ'hǎ + -ku
- ti'sasi'nimǎn, "her dogs" < tihk + sa + -si'nima
- to'nišisɛ'mǎn, "the men" < ta'- + ʔo'niši + sɛ'ma
Finally, there are three possible locative suffixes that are used to put nouns in the locative case. These nouns will also have a determining prefix attached. Gender-number suffixes and locative suffixes are mutually exclusive, although a locative noun may have a number. Also, locative suffixes can take stems and convert them into adverbs and postpositions. -ši is the most commonly used locative suffix, and its meaning is comparable to the English "in, into" or "on, over," although in Tunica it is used as "at, to." This can be seen in the sentence "He stayed at home", which breaks down into: ʔu'riš ʔunanì < "at his house" ʔu'riš(i) < ʔuhk- + ri- "house" + ši. -štihki "toward, in the direction of" is the second suffix.
Usually, it is used with the names of directions, as in: ta'sapʔaraštihk "to the west" < ta- +sa'pʔara "west" + -štihki. The final locative suffix is -hta "on, onto." It is typically only used with ta'hali "the ground." It can be seen in the sentence "He spat on the ground", as ta'haltǎn, ču'hʔuhkɛ'nì; ta'halta < ta'- + ha'l(i) "ground, land" + -hta.
Parts of a Sentence
The possible word classes that are found in Tunica include independent personal pronouns, nouns, interrogative-indefinite pronouns, quantificatives, postpositions, adjectives, comparatives, adverbs, auxiliary verbs, active verbs, static verbs, sentence connectives, and exclamatives and imitatives. Syntactic elements of a sentence are made up of words, phrases, or clauses acting in one of the following: predicative words, independent subjects, independent objects, subject or object modifiers, predicate modifiers, predicate complements, or sentence connectives. The syntactic elements can all be made into clauses that are either main or subordinate, and subordinate clauses can be dependent, complementary, relative, or adverbial.There are three types of sentences that the Tunica language produces: simple, compound, and complex. Simple sentences must contain one and only one predicative word. Compound sentences have two or more main clauses, and complex sentences have a main clause and one or more of the different types of subordinate clauses mentioned above.
The following are brief descriptions of possible syntactic elements of a clause:
- The predicative word: may be an independent personal pronoun, a noun, an interrogative-indefinite pronoun, and quantificative, an adjective, or a verb.
- The independent subject: may be an independent personal pronoun, a noun, an interrogative-indefinite pronoun, or a quantificative.
- The independent object: may be an independent personal pronoun, a noun, an interrogative-indefinite pronoun, or a quantificative.
- The subject or object modifiers: may be quantificatives or relative clauses.
- The predicate modifier: may be words when used as adjectives, comparatives, adverbs, and locatives, and may be phrases and clauses when adverbial.
- The predicate complement: may be either words or clauses.
- The sentence connective: make a basic conjunctive or contrastive relation between a sentence and the one that comes before it.
There are other special constructions that also take place in certain specific environments. For example, quantificatives and nouns can be in apposition to other nouns when those latter nouns are independent subjects or objects. This occurs in ʔuhkʔo'nisɛ'mǎn, ho't ʔaku'hpanʔuhkɛ'nì "He assembled all (of) his people, it is sad" < "he assembled, it is said, his people, all". Additionally, a possessive nexus can serve in the same syntactical functions that a noun can. For example, ta'čɔhak ʔu'rǐhč, hi'yuhɔ'nì "The chief's house was (made of) grass". (ta'čɔhaku "the chief", possessor noun, + ʔu'rihči "his house", alienably possessed noun, the combination serving as independent subject)
Syntactic Order
There are certain rules that are observed when forming sentences and maintaining the correct order:- When a sentence connective is in a sentence, it precedes the other elements in that sentence.
- The predicative word of any type of clause is in the clause-final position.
- An independent subject precedes the other syntactic elements except the sentence connective.
- An independent object comes right before the predicative word
- An adjective always comes right after the noun that it modifies without any kind of separation between them.
- Comparatives always come right after the word that they modify without any kind of separation between them.
- A postposition always comes right after the substantive that it controls without any kind of separation between them.
- Predicate modifiers that describe spatial location come either right before or right after the verb that they modify.
- Non-locative predicate modifiers have freedom as to where they are placed.
- A predicate complementComplement (linguistics)In grammar the term complement is used with different meanings. The primary meaning is a word, phrase or clause that is necessary in a sentence to complete its meaning. We find complements that function as an argument and complements that exist within arguments.Both complements and modifiers add...
comes right before the predicative word that it complements.
There are also certain rules that are observed when maintaining correct order of clauses:
- Main clauses always fall in the sentence-final position. An exception occurs when the clause is complementary or adverbial and that clause complements or modifies the predicative word of the main clause.
- Dependent clauses must come before the main clause.
- Complementary clauses take the form of a clause within a clause, and the larger clause is either a main or dependent clause.
- Relative clauses always come after the substantive that they modify.
- Adverbial clauses may either come directly before or after the verb that they modify.
Noun Classification
A noun can belong to one of the following gender-number classes: masculine singular, feminine singular, masculine dual, feminine dual, masculine plural, or feminine plural. Every noun belongs to one of these classes. There are rules that help to determine classification of nouns:- Nouns that refer to human or non-human male animate objects/people in any number are masculine in gender, while those that refer to human or non-human female animate objects/people in any number are feminine in gender.
- Nouns that refer specifically to human male and female animates in any number take the masculine.
- Nouns that refer to non-human male and female animates are masculine when dual in number but feminine in collective and plural numbers.
- Nouns that refer to human animates with an unknown sex seem to always take the masculine gender.
Nouns in Tunica are also classified according to what position they take. There are three positions that are available and that encompass every noun in the Tunica language: horizontal, squatting, and vertical. Humans and four-legged non-humans can take any of these positions, while elongated non-human animates (like fish or snakes) will always take the horizontal position. Smaller non-human animates like frogs and birds always take the squatting position.
Inanimates are always either horizontal or vertical, abstract nouns are always horizontal, and inanimate objects that take an erect position (like trees) take the vertical position.
Preverbs and Postfixes
Preverbs are often used with active verb predicative words. Below are the preverbs with their meanings.- te- "about, all about"
- ki- "in, into"
- ho- "out, out of"
- ha- "up, down"
There are many postfixes, which express different meanings like certain tenses, negation, and other notions. Sometimes, more than one postfix may be attached to one word, and each postfix has its own governing rules. Below are the postfixes, along with their meanings.
- -man "and"; coordinates clauses
- -ʔama "and, together with"; coordinates nouns
- -škan "although"; similar to the English conjunction "but"
- -hč "when, after, as, while"
- -hčika'ši: similar to the English "so...that" but may be more like "because so..."
- -a'ni: quotative
- -n: interrogative, imperative, or exhortative
- -ki: imperative
- -hčan: imperative, but with force; similar to "must..."
- -tan: imperative
- -kʔahča: indicates the future
- -kʔi: sometimes seen as -ʔi; can be defined as "if"
- -pan "even if, even though, though"
- -k: future subjunctive
- -aha "not"
- -kʔaha "not," but builds habitual negation
- -ʔaha "not," but used with non-inchoative forms of static verbs and also with independent personal pronouns, nouns, and adjectives when they are predicative
- -pʔaha "no, not any"
- -štukʔɔhɔ "can't"
- -hat "on...-'s part"
- -pa "too, also, even"
- -nahku "like, resembling..."
- -tahki "only, nothing but.."; can also be "...alone; by...-self"
- -štahahki "only..."; used with numbers
- -tɛ'pan "every..."; used with nouns that imply a length of time
- -ša "...-ish; almost, not quite, somewhat"
- -štʔɛ "very much"
- -što'hku "fairly, quite, a little bit"
- -le'he "right, precisely"
Other Word Classes
There are two possible noun categories, the determinative and the indeterminative. The determinative category can be divided among definitive, non-definitive, and locative. Indeterminative nouns can be predicative words, subjects of predications, objects of transitive and transimpersonal active verbs and of static verbs, and complements of impersonal and transimpersonal active verbs and of static verbs.Personal pronouns are inflected depending on person, number, and gender, but they do not have special forms that indicate whether they fall into the determinative or indeterminative categories. They substitute for nouns, and they can be used in the way that nouns are, except in the locative case.
The interrogative-indefinite pronouns are ka'ku "who, someone, anyone" and ka'nahku "what, something, anything". They can substitute for nouns when they do not occur in the locative case. Also, ka'nahku does not appear as an independent subject.
Quantificatives include numerals and others like ho'tu "all, everything", na'mu "many, much", ka'šku "a few, a little bit", ka'škuto'hku "several, quite a few", and ʔa'mari "enough". These can be used as minimal clauses, substitutes for nouns, modifiers of nouns, and modifiers of active verbs.
Postpositions are used to modify locatives and predicates.
Adjectives can be used as predicate words, as noun modifiers used as predicative words, and as modifiers of the interrogative-indefinite pronoun ka'nahku.
Comparatives can be used as modifiers of adjectives, as modifiers of static verbs, as modifiers of adverbs, as modifiers of nouns, and as modifiers of the quantificative na'mu.
Adverbs can be used to modify auxiliary and active verbs.
Auxiliary verbs are always in a predicative word position. Active verbs are either finite or infinitive in form. Finite verbs take subjective pronominal referentials and are predicative words. Infinitives are taken as predicate complements. Sometimes they are inflected for an objective referential. Static verbs are always inflected for an objective referential and are always predicative words.
Sentence connectives connect or contrast two sentences. Sometimes they can also connect two words.
Exclamatives and imitatives always appear as minimal clauses. The most predominant exclamatives are hõn "yes", ʔahâ "no", and dâ "now; ready."