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Prepositions and postpositions
Prepositions: preposition – noun. English: count for me prep noun Postpositions: noun – postposition. Witsuwit’en: [s pe c’ot«w] me for you (sg.) count noun postposition ‘count for me’ direction, location, relation
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Affixation to postpositions
[spe] ‘for me’ [mpe] ‘for you (sg.)’ [n«xwpe] ‘for us, you (pl.)’ [p«pe] ‘for him, her, it’ [h«p«pe] ‘for them’
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Morphological analysis
-pe ‘for’ s- ‘me’ m- ‘you (sg.)’ n«xw- ‘us, you (pl.)’ p«- ‘him, her, it’ h«p«- ‘them’
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Morphological analysis (revised)
Prefixes to nouns/postpositions: sg pl 1 person s- n«xw- 2 person n/m- 3 person p«- h«p«-
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Affixation to verbs Unusual features
Position class morphology: (prefix order restrictions) prefix-prefix-prefix-...-verb root-suffix Discontinuous morphemes
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Some verbs (dictionary entry)
-jin 'sg./du. stand' -tseq ‘be lightweight’ -/as ‘du./group goes, walks O-u-jin ‘pick O (berries) while stationary’
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Some verbs (actual words)
Minimally: dictionary form of verb+‘tense’ [sa n«/a] ‘the sun/moon is going’ sa ‘sun, moon’ -a 'sun, moon goes' n«- continuative (‘round-trip’) [sa ia] ‘the sun/moon is moving' i-...- progressive
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Position class morphology
Verb prefix positions: postposition/adverbial – iterative – multiple plural – negative – incorporated root – inceptive – distributive plural – pronominal object/subject – qualifier – tense/neg – subject – valence Root Suffix positions: negative - tense [sa ia] ‘the sun/moon is moving' i- tense + -a root + - tense
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Some more verb words 1. [tci ujin] 'he/she is picking huckleberries'
O-u-jin 'pick O (berries) while stationary‘ O u jin (object required) qualifier –root - imperfective (tense position) 0 / u ___ Prefix positions: postposition/adverbial – iterative – multiple plural – negative – incorporated root – inceptive – distributive plural – pronominal object/subject – qualifier – tense/neg – subject – valence Root Suffix positions: negative - tense
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2. [c'ojin] 'he/she is picking'
c'- unspecified object (pronominal object/subject position) (c’ + u c’o) Prefix positions: postposition/adverbial – iterative – multiple plural – negative – incorporated root – inceptive – distributive plural – pronominal object/subject – qualifier – tense/neg – subject – valence Root Suffix positions: negative - tense
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6. [wec'onthzisjit] 'I won't pick (round things)‘
th future (qualifier position) i (tense position) - (tense position) // + / t /n/ 0 / ___ C]syllable Prefix positions: postposition/adverbial – iterative – multiple plural – negative – incorporated root – inceptive – distributive plural – pronominal object/subject – qualifier – tense/neg – subject – valence Root Suffix positions: negative - tense
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Morphological structure
'I'm not going to pick (round) things' negative round 1 sg. subject [we- c‘- o- n- th- [] z- i- s- ji -t -] unspecified object future ‘pick (berries) while stationary’
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