Nuxalk language

Consonants

The consonants of Nuxalk are depicted below in IPA and the practical orthography of Hank Nater's The Bella Coola Language (1984) and Nuxalk-English Dictionary (1990).

According to Nater:

Nuxalk is a "vowelless" language, not only because it has voiceless words, phrases and entire sentences, but also because a can be considered a syllabic laryngal (which as such belongs in the same category as m̠, n̠, l̠, i and u).

[...] Other such "vowelless" languages are Heiltsuk and Oowekyala (Kortlandt 1973 and Lincoln & Rath 1980).

Orthographic ⟨k⟩ and ⟨kʼ⟩ are palatals, cognate with postalveolar sibilants in other Salishan languages. The pulmonic stops become aspirated before stops and word boundaries, and optionally before fricatives, but they are tenuis before vowels and other syllabic sonorants.^[10] ⟨h⟩ has a very low occurrence and is therefore considered marginal.^[11]

Vowels

Orthography

The orthography used in this article is a non-diacritical Bouchard-type practical orthography that originated in Hank Nater's The Bella Coola Language (1984), and was used in his 1990 Nuxalk-English Dictionary. It continues to be used today at Acwsalcta for Nuxalk language learning, as well as in Nuxalk documents and names.^[13] The Americanist orthography of Davis & Saunders (1997) is provided in addition. The orthographic variants are summarized below.

The trigraph lhh (APA łł) is used for /ɬː/, though not a part of the alphabet.

The occurrence of morpheme-initial /ʔ/ is limited: it is spelled only (I) after prefixes; (II) in enclitics with initial 7a-, 7i- and 7l-; and (III) in 7na 'determinative', two nouns (7lats 'sea cucumber', 7yanahu 'turnip'), and three verb roots (7na 'forgotten', 7nap 'to take', 7nayc 'to accompany').

As a rule, u cannot be preceded by w. Consequently, rounded velars and post-velars (cw, kw, kwʼ, xw, qw, qwʼ, and clusters thereof), too, are spelled without w before u: xuta [χʷo̞tæ] 'dipnet', squlh [sqʷo̞ɬ] 'bee, wasp', kʼutsci [kʷʼo̞tsçe̞] 'maggots', kʼcusis [kʷʼxʷo̞se̞s] 'he looked at his face', qʼxuusnm [qʷʼχʷɔːwsnəm] 'to be carving a face', etc.^[15]

Typology

Nuxalk is a polysynthetic language with polypersonal agreement. Affix order in transitive events is usually verb–object–subject but verb–subject–object with a 2nd person object.

Events

The first element in a sentence expresses the event of the proposition. It inflects for the person and number of one (in the intransitive paradigm) or two (in the transitive paradigm) participants.

The raised numbers refer to three sub-paradigms: stems belonging to sub-paradigm 1 end in a non-nasal sonorant (a, i, u, y, w, l); sub-paradigm 2 stems end in a nasal (m, n); all stems ending in an obstruent belong to sub-paradigm 3. Absence or presence of 3 sg. -s is determined by context (see below), and sub-paradigm 2 -nap/-ap are in free variation, as are sub-paradigm 2 -naw/-aw.

As a possessive suffix, nominal -s is compulsory (when the possessor is explicit, it follows the ...-s phrase):

• tsi˯cnas-s̠ 'his wife'
• ti˯tqʼlha-s̠ 'his knife'
• ti˯kwtmts-s̠ Mary 'Mary's husband'
• ti˯alhqulh-s̠ ti˯mants˯tc 'my father's book'

In subordinate clauses, verbal -s is compulsory:

• maaskanmaak˯7iks ska˯tsʼkt-s̠? 'at what time will he arrive?'
• wika˯ks wa˯amats s7apsulh-s̠? 'where does he live?'
• wic˯7itsʼik sklh-s̠ ti˯snx˯tʼayc 'and that's when the sun sets'
• wic txw stlʼap-s̠ 'that's when he went'
• s7aymis sksnm̠ak-s̠ 'he always works'
• kʼcim˯tsʼ stsic-s̠ ilh 'now they saw that it was her'
• anayk tʼayc ska˯tlʼap-s̠ 'he wants to go'
• tlʼiliwa s7mt-s̠ 'he got up fast'
• yalhkayc tʼayc sxs-s̠ 'this one is too fat'
• kaynucs˯ma ska˯putlʼ-s̠ 'maybe he will come tomorrow'

On the inter-sentential level, verbal -s and -Ø ("zero suffix") differ in that -Ø introduces a new topic, while -s links topics. -Ø can be rendered as 'he/she (...)', and -s as '(...), and he/she (...)':

• Smsmayamkits ti˯Qwaxw˯tc n ti˯Tʼuka˯tc. Alh7ay-Ø̠˯kwsu ta˯Tʼuka˯tx ala˯kulhuuts.
  • 'I will tell a story about Raven and Mink. Well, Mink was doing things on a beach.'
• Us7atsyanmaw swntsʼlhtaw. Numawii-Ø̠˯kwʼilutsʼik ta˯Tlʼupana˯tx sputlʼaylaycs c˯a˯pʼwi.
  • 'They boarded the canoe and went halibut-fishing. Eventually, only Cormorant managed to catch some halibut.'
• Lhkwʼmim ta˯qiqti˯tx c˯ta˯tlʼmsta˯tx. Alh7ay-s̠˯tuu ta˯qiqti˯tx slhkwʼmis ta˯tlʼmsta˯tx.
  • 'The young boy was loved by the man. And the young boy, too, loved the man.'
• "Tsqm˯na," tsut˯kwʼitsʼik tʼayc. Tsqm-s̠˯kwtutuu tx.
  • '"Now open your mouth," he then said. And, indeed, he did open his mouth.'

The following are the possible person markers for transitive verbs, with empty cells indications non-occurring combinations and '--' identifying semantic combinations which require the reflexive suffix -tsut- followed by the appropriate intransitive suffix:

E.g. spʼ-is ti-7imlk-tc ti-stn-tc 'the man struck the tree'.

Whether a word can serve as an event is not determined lexically, e.g. 7immllkii-Ø ti-nus7uulx-tc 'the thief is a boy', nus7uulx-Ø ti-qʼs-tc 'the one who is ill is a thief'.

There is a further causative paradigm whose suffixes may be used instead:

This has a passive counterpart:

This may also have a benefactive gloss when used with events involving less activity of their participant (e.g. nuyamlh-tus ti-7imlk-tc ti-7immllkii-tc 'the man made/let the boy sing'/'the man sang for the boy'), while in events with more active participants only the causative gloss is possible. In the later group even more active verbs have a preference for the affix -lc- (implying passive experience) before the causative suffix.

The executor in a transitive sentence always precedes the experiencer. However, when an event is proceeded by a lone participant, the semantic content of the event determines whether the participant is an executor or an experiencer. This can only be determined syntactically if the participant is marked by the preposition 7ulh-, which marks the experience.

Some events are inherently transitive or intransitive, but some may accept multiple valencies (e.g. 7anayk 'to be needy'/'to want [something]').

Prepositions may mark experiencers, and must mark implements. Any participants which are not marked by prepositions are focussed. There are three voices, which allow either the executor, the experiencer, or both to have focus:

• Active voice – neither is marked with prepositions.
• Passive voice – the event may have different suffixes, and the executor may be omitted or marked with a preposition
• Antipassive voice – the event is marked with the affix -a- before personal markers, and the experiencer is marked with a preposition

The affix -amk- (-yamk- after the antipassive marker -a-) allows an implement to have its preposition removed and to be focused. For example:

• nuyamlh-Ø ti-man-tc 7ulh-ti-mna-s-tc c-ti-syut-tc 'the father sang the song to his son'
• nuyamlh-amk-is ti-man-tc ti-syut-tc 7ulh-ti-mna-s-tc 'the father sang the song to his son'

Prepositions

There are four prepositions which have broad usage in Nuxalk:

Deixis

Nuxalk has a set of deictic prefixes and suffixes which serve to identify items as instantiations of domains rather than domains themselves and to locate them in deictic space. Thus the sentences watsʼ-Ø ti-tlʼikm-tc and ti-watsʼ-Ø ti-tlʼikm-tc, both 'the one that's running is a dog', are slightly different – similar to the difference between the English sentences 'the visitor is Canadian' and 'the visitor is a Canadian' respectively.^[29]

The deixis system has a proximal/medial/distal and a non-demonstrative/demonstrative distinction. Demonstratives may be used when finger pointing would be appropriate (or in distal space when something previously mentioned is being referred to).

Proximal demonstrative space roughly corresponds to the area of conversation, and proximal non-demonstrative may be viewed as the area in which one could attract another's attention without raising one's voice. Visible space beyond this is middle demonstrative, space outside of this but within the invisible neighborhood is medial non-demonstrative. Everything else is distal, and non-demonstrative if not mentioned earlier.

The deictic prefixes and suffixes are as follows:

Female affixes are used only when the particular is singular and identified as female; if not, even if the particular is inanimate, masculine or plural is used.

The deictic prefixes only have a proximal vs. non-proximal distinction, and no demonstrative distinction:

tu- is used in earlier varieties and some types of narratives, except for middle non-demonstrative, and the variant 7ilh- may be used "in the same collection of deictic space".

While events are not explicitly marked for tense per se, deixis plays a strong role in determining when the proposition is being asserted to occur. So in a sentence like mus-is ti-7immllkii-tc ta-qʼlscw-tʼax 'the boy felt that rope', the sentence is perceived as having a near-past (same day) interpretation, as the boy cannot be touching the rope in middle space from proximal space. However this does not hold for some events, like kʼc 'to see'.^[32]

A distal suffix on any participant lends the event a distant past interpretation (before the past day), a medial suffix and no distal suffix lends a near past time, and if the participants are marked as proximal the time is present.

Not every distal participant occurs in past-tense sentences, and vice versa—rather, the deictic suffixes must either represent positions in space, time, or both.

Pronouns

Personal pronouns are reportedly nonexistent but the idea is expressed via verbs that translate as "to be me", etc.^[33]

Particles