Southern Athabaskan (also Apachean, Southern Athabascan) is a branch of the Athabaskan language family spoken in the North American Southwest.
Typological overview Typologically, Southern Athabaskan languages are mostly fusional, polysynthetic, nominative–accusative head-marking languages. These languages are argued to be non-configurational languages. The canonical word order is SOV, as can be seen in Lipan example below:
Kónitsąąhį́į́ dziłádałts’aa’híí áí daajiłdiił "The Lipan ate those wild grapes."
Subject = Kónitsąąhį́į́ "the Lipan" Object = dziłádałts’aa’híí áí "those wild grapes" (dziłádałts’aa’híí "wild grapes", áí "those") Verb = daajiłdiił "they ate them"
Southern Athabaskan words are modified primarily by prefixes, which is uncommon for SOV languages (suffixes are expected).
The Southern Athabaskan languages are "verb-heavy"—they have a great ponderance of verbs but relatively few nouns. In addition to verbs and nouns, these languages have other elements such as pronouns, clitics of various functions, demonstratives, numerals, adverbs, and conjunctions, among others. Harry Hoijer grouped most of the above into a word class which he called particle based on the type of inflection that occurs on the word class. This categorization provides three main lexical categories (i.e. parts of speech):
verbs nouns/postpositions particles
There is nothing that corresponds to what are called adjectives in English. Adjectival notions are provided by verbs; however, these adjectival verb stems do form a distinct sub-class of verb stems which co-occur with adjectival prefixes.
Nouns
SA nouns are essentially of the following types (with various subtypes):
simple nouns compound nouns nouns derived from verbs/verb phrases (deverbal noun)
The simple nouns can consist of only a noun stem (which are usually only a single syllable long), such as
Chiricahua: ku̧u̧ "fire", and Navajo: sǫ’ "star".
Other nouns may consist of a noun plus one or more prefixes, such as
Navajo: dibé "sheep" (< di- + -bé; stem: -bé)
or of a noun plus an enclitic or suffix, such as
Chiricahua: dlú̧í "prairie dog" (< dlú̧- + -í; stem: dlú̧-).
The added prefixes may be lexical or they may be inflectional prefixes (e.g. personal prefixes indicating possession). SA languages do not have many simple nouns, but these nouns are the most ancient part of the lexicon and thus are essential in making comparisons between Athabaskan languages.
Another noun type is a noun compound consisting of more than one noun stem, such as
Chiricahua: ku̧u̧ba̧a̧ "fireside" (< ku̧u̧ "fire" + ba̧a̧ "edge"), and Navajo: tsésǫ’ "glass" (< tsé "rock" + sǫ" star").
Other kinds of noun compounds are the following:
noun stem + postposition noun stem + verb stem noun stem + postposition + noun stem
Many other various combinations of elements are possible.
The most common type of noun is the deverbal noun (i.e., a noun derived from a verb). Most of these nouns are formed by adding a nominalizing enclitic, such as Mescalero -ń or -í, Western Apache -í and Navajo -í, to the end of the verb phrase. For example, in Mescalero the verb ’ént’į́į́ "he/she bewitches him/her" may become a noun by adding either the enclitic -ń (for people) or -í (for things):
’ént’į́į́ "he or she bewitches him or her" ’ént’į́į́ń "witch" ’ént’į́į́’í "witchcraft"
Thus, the word ’ént’į́į́ń "witch" literally means "the one who bewitches him or her". Another example is from Navajo:
ná’oolkiłí "clock" (lit. "one that is moved slowly in a circle")
Many of these nouns may be quite complex, as in Navajo
chidí naa’na’í bee’eldǫǫhtsoh bikáá’ dah naaznilígíí "army tank" (lit. "a car that they sit up on top of that crawls around with a big thing with which an explosion is made")
Other deverbal nouns do not appear with a nominalizing enclitic, as in Navajo
Hoozdo "Phoenix, Arizona" (lit. "the place is hot") ch’é’étiin "doorway" (lit. "something has a path horizontally out")
For a comparison with nouns in a Northern Athabaskan language, see Carrier: Nouns
Noun inflection
Possession
Prefixes Most nouns can be inflected to show possession. Simple nouns, compound nouns, and some deverbal nouns are inflected by adding a pronominal prefix to the noun base, as in the following Chiricahua possessed noun paradigm (i.e. noun declension):
+ Chiricahua nouns with pronominal prefixes shibán "my bread" (shi- 1st person singular + bán "bread") nahibán "our/your bread" (nahi- 1st/2nd person dual) nibán "your bread" (ni- 2nd person singular) bibán "her/his/its/their bread" (bi- 3rd person) gobán "her/his/their bread" (polite) (go- 4th/3a. person) ’ibán "someone's bread" (’i- indefinite)
As seen above, Chiricahua nouns are inflected for number (singular and dual) and person (first, second, third, fourth, and indefinite). In the third and indefinite persons, there is only one pronominal prefix bi- and ’i- (that is, Chiricahua does not have two different prefixes for the third person singular and the third person dual). Additionally, although there is a first person singular shi- and a second person singular ni-, in the plural Chiricahua only has one prefix nahi- for both the first and second persons (that is, nahi- means both first and second person plural). A distributive plural prefix daa- may also be added to possessed nouns in front of the pronominal prefixes:
+ Chiricahua nouns with distributive plural daanahibán "our/your bread" (daa- + nahi- + bán) daabibán "their bread" (daa- + bi- + bán) daagobán "their bread" (daa- + go- + bán) daa’ibán "some persons' bread" (daa- + ’i- + bán)
The prefix table below shows these relationships:
+ Chiricahua pronominal prefixes Person Singular Dual Plural(distrib.) 1st shi- nahi- daa-nahi- 2nd ni- 3rd bi- daa-bi- 4th go- daa-go- indef. ’i- daa-’i-
A Navajo pronominal prefix paradigm may be compared with the Chiricahua above:
+ Navajo pronominal prefixes Person Singular Dual Plural(distrib.) 1st shi- nihi- da-nihi- 2nd ni- 3rd bi- da-bi- 4th ho-/ha- da-ha- indef. (’)a- – –
Two other pronominal prefixes include the reciprocal prefix as in Mescalero ’ił- and Navajo ał- "each other's" and the reflexive prefix as in Mescalero ’ádi- and Navajo ádi- "one's own".
Phrase formation
Larger possessive phrases can be formed like the following Navajo phrases:
+ Navajo possessive phrases John bibááh "John's bread" (bi- 3rd person singular, bááh "bread") shimá bibááh "my mother's bread" (shi- 1st person singular, -má "mother") bimá bibááh "his mother's bread" John bimá bibááh "John's mother's bread"
As seen above, the possessor occurs before the possessed noun(s). Thus, in order to say "John's bread", the 3rd person prefix bi- is added to the possessed noun bááh "bread" and the possessor noun John is placed before bibááh "his bread". Usually, in the first and second persons only a pronominal prefix (shi-, ni-, and nihi-) is added to possessed nouns. However, if focusing on the possessor (i.e. a type of emphasis) is needed, an independent personal pronoun may be added to the possessive phrase. Thus, we have the following
+ Navajo possessive phrases shimá bibááh "my mother's bread" shí shimá bibááh "MY mother's bread" (shí 1st person singular pronoun) nihitaa’ bibááh "our father's bread" (nihi- 1st/2nd person dual prefix, -taa’ "father") nihí nihitaa’ bibááh "OUR father's bread" (nihí 1st/2nd person dual pronoun)
By observing these Navajo possessive phrases, it is evident here that Southern Athabaskan languages are head-marking in that the possessive prefix is added to the possessed noun, which is the head of the noun phrase (this is unlike the dependent-marking languages of Europe where possessive affixes are added to the possessor).
Stem modification
absolute vs. possessed vs. compound (combining) forms voicing vocalic suffixes
Alienable vs. inalienable
Alienability: Alienable and inalienable possession Possession (linguistics)#Inherent and non-inherent (constantly possessed) associated semantic changes
Clitics
proclitics enclitics postpositional enclitics
Verbs The key element in Southern Athabaskan languages is the verb, and it is notoriously complex. Verbs are composed of a stem to which inflectional and/or derivational prefixes are added. Every verb must have at least one prefix. The prefixes are affixed to the verb in a specified order.
The Southern Athabaskan verb can be sectioned into different morphological components. The verb stem is composed of an abstract root and an often fused suffix. The stem together with a classifier prefix (and sometimes other thematic prefixes) make up the verb theme. The theme is then combined with derivational prefixes which in turn make up the verb base. Finally, inflectional prefixes (which Young & Morgan call "paradigmatic prefixes") are affixed to the base—producing a complete verb. This is represented schematically in the table below:
root stem = root + suffix theme = stem + classifier (+ thematic prefix(es)) base = theme + derivational prefix(es) verb = base + inflectional prefix(es)
Verb template The prefixes that occur on a verb are added in specified order according to prefix type. This type of morphology is called a position class template (or slot-and-filler template). Below is a table of one proposal of the Navajo verb template (Young & Morgan 1987). Edward Sapir and Harry Hoijer were the first to propose an analysis of this type. A given verb will not have a prefix for every position, in fact most Navajo verbs are not as complex as the template would seem to suggest.
The Navajo verb has 3 main parts:
disjunct prefixes conjunct prefixes STEM
These parts can be subdivided into 11 positions with some of the positions having even further subdivisions:
Disjunct 0 1a 1b 1c 1d 1e 2 3 object null postposition derivational-thematic reflexive reversionary semeliterative iterative distributive plural Conjunct STEM 4 5 6a 6b 6c 7 8 9 10 direct object deictic subject thematic-derivational-aspect thematic-derivational-aspect transitional-semelfactive modal-aspectual subject "classifier" stem
Although prefixes are generally found in a specific position, some prefixes change order by the process of metathesis. For example, in Navajo prefix ’a- (3i object pronoun) usually occurs before di-, as in
adisbąąs 'I'm starting to drive some kind of wheeled vehicle along' [ < ’a- + di- + sh- + ł- + -bąąs].
However, when ’a- occurs with the prefixes di- and ni-, the ’a- metathesizes with di-, leading to an order of di- + ’a- + ni-, as in
di’nisbąąs 'I'm in the act of driving some vehicle (into something) & getting stuck' [ < di-’a-ni-sh-ł-bąąs < ’a- + di- + ni- + sh- + ł- + -bąąs]
instead of the expected *adinisbąąs (’a-di-ni-sh-ł-bąąs) (’a- is reduced to ’-). Metathesis is conditioned by phonological environment (Young & Morgan 1987:39).
Verb stems and mode and aspect Verb stems have different forms that alternate according to aspect and tense. The alternation (ablaut) mostly involves vowels (change in vowel, vowel length, or nasality) and tone, but sometimes includes the suffixation of a final consonant. The Chiricahua verb stems below have five different forms that correspond to mode:
stem form mode stem form mode -k’áásh imperfective ('to sharpen') -ghee imperfective ('to move quickly') -k’aazh perfective -ghu perfective -k’ash progressive -ghuł progressive -k’ash iterative -ghu iterative -k’áásh optative -ghee optative
Each mode can also occur with different aspects, such as momentaneous, continuative, repetitive, semelfactive, etc. For example, a stem can be momentaneous imperfective, momentaneous perfective, momentaneous optative, etc. The (partial) Navajo verb stem conjugation below illustrates the verb stem -’aah/-’ą́ "to handle a solid roundish object" with the same mode in different aspects: