Massimiliano - Montana Salish (Séliš) (Salish-Pend d'Oreille)

[Massimiliano B]

Montana Salish has also these sounds:
ʕ (pharingeal), ʕʷ (pharingeal with rounded lips), ʔʕ (glottalized pharingeal!!), ʔʕʷ (glottalized pharingeal with rounded lips ) and ə (the so called schwa). I've found these information in Phonetic structure of Montana Salish. Nevertheless, all these sounds do not appear in the Selish dictionary, which I usually use. For example, in Phonetic structure of Montana Salish I find these words: 1) ʕámt ("it is melted"), 2) ʕʷóʔl ("slippery, oily"), 3) jaʔʕəmim ("gathering"), 4) ʔʕʷoʔjəntsú ("laugh"). But in the Selish dictionary the same words are written in this way: 5) aámt, 6) oól̓, 7) y̓amim, 8) oy̓ncút. The ʕ has curiously disappeared! I think the reason is this: the double vowel of 5) and 6) and the spelling in 8) are clearly a mishearing of the pharingeal sound (ʕ), due to the fact that the author of the dictionary probably is not a native speaker of Montana Salish. In fact, "ʕá" may easily be heard as "aa", and "ʕʷó" as "oo", and sometimes it can be not heard at all (as the ʔʕʷ in 8), if the ears are not accustomed to hearing it. The word in 7) has a pharingeal followed by a schwa (ʕə), which is difficult to hear. But the reason could be also that the variety of Montana Salish spoken by the informants of the author of the dictionary lacks the pharingeal consonant and the schwa.

[Massimiliano B]

kʷ iespɫtem = "I (ies-) beat (or "strike") it/she/he for you" (the example is not so fair, but it's the only one I've found here, page 44).

Literally, the sentence means "You (kʷ) I (ies-) beat it (the pronoun "it" is the letter -ɫ- in the word iespɫtem). So, the ɫ indicates the first object, while the normal object transitive personal pronouns indicate the person who benefits from the action accomplished by the subject.

It's obviously possible to form all the combinations:

qʷo asspɫtem = "You beat it for me" (literally: me you beat -it)

etc...

[księżycowy]

Yay! A new post! I was beginning to wonder if you were still going with Montana Salish or not.

And, yes I'm still reading your thread.

[Massimiliano B]

Yay! A new post! I was beginning to wonder if you were still going with Montana Salish or not.

I missed Montana Salish

And, yes I'm still reading your thread.

Thanks

[Massimiliano B]

A noun may occur as a predicate with intransitive pronouns:

sqltmixʷ = man

čn sqltmixʷ = (literally: I man) I am a man
kʷ sqltmixʷ = (lit. you man) you are a man
sqltmixʷ = (lit. man) he is a man
qe sqltmixʷ = (lit. we man) we are men
p sqltmixʷ = (lit. you all man) you all are men
(There is not the third person plural in the book (A grammar of Spokane, page 126). I think the form is sqsqltmixʷ, which is obtained by the reduplication of the root.)

There are not third person intransitive pronouns in Montana Salish (like English she/he/it and they). Thus, if I want to say "He is a man" I have to say just sqltmixʷ. That is the reason why in Montana Salish (like in many American Indian languages) a noun doesn't refer primarily to an abstract thing - like in English or other European languages - but indicates a concrete and particular being which is somewhere around the speaker or in his mind.

[Lauren]

Awesome! I have just begun learning Lushootseed, so you have my support.

[Massimiliano B]

You could write what you are learning about Lushootseed!

Thanks for your support!

[Massimiliano B]

The last five days I've read the whole A grammar of Spokane, by Barry F. Carlson. The book was available in PDF by ERIC, and I hope it will be soon available. The differences between Spokane and Montana Salish are minimal. Now I have a global view of the grammatical structure of Montana Salish (it would be better to say of Montana Salish-Kalispel-Spokane).
The structure of the verb is extraordinarily rich. I memorized all the transitive conjugation, both simply and causative, then I studied the various forms of the imperative singular and plural, the reflexive, the reciprocal, the success and substitutive stems, and the conjugation of the verb with personal pronouns. Regarding this last point, there is to say that in Montana Salish-Kalispel-Spokane the conjugation of the present tense of a transitive verb is completely different from the conjugation of the past tense of a transitive verb. For example, If I want to say "I watched you" I have to say:

ácc̓x̣ncn.

This verb can be analyzed in this way: ácc̓x̣(root) - nte (simple transitive) - si (you - object) - n (I - subject).

If I want to say "I'm watching you" we have a completely different conjugation. In fact I have to say:

kʷ ies ácc̓x̣m

which at first sight can be analyzed in this way: kʷ (you-object) ies (I-subject) ácc̓x̣ (watch)- m ("middle form", which indicates that the subject is in a deeper sense involved and affected in the action). But the pronoun kʷ is subject and intransitive. In a previous post I didn't notice that, so I didn't try to find an explanation of it. This is the question: why kʷ is used here as object? The answer follows.

Actually, this form uses the possessive pronouns: the word ies, which now means "I-subject", comes from in-es, which means "my" (in) - "actual" (es). Thus, the form kʷ ies ácc̓x̣m literally means: "you (kʷ) are (which in Montana Salish is understood) my-now (ies) watching (ácc̓x̣m)". Now the word kʷ has its original meaning!! Notice that the literal meaning has no real object, so the action is intransitive. That's why kʷ is used here!

So, "you (kʷ!) are my watching" is the original way these languages express the action of watching someone. "You are my watching" = "My watching (subject) is you (object)" = "I am watching you" !!
Thus, the present tense of the transitive conjugation is actually an action which is "possessed" by a subject and addresses to an object.

[księżycowy]

That's pretty interesting.
And you're not helping me choose my language for this year's NAILC/Powwow.

And I guess ERIC has quite a few of their pdfs down now, as they had some issue with sensitive information contained in them. Though from what I understand you can request any to be put back up, you just have to email them or something.

[Massimiliano B]

Do you think I should post my notes in a new thread, instead of using the NAILC 2011 thread?

[księżycowy]

If you're sticking with Montana Salish, I'd say there is no point opening a new thread. Just change the name to 2011-2012 NAILC if you want.

(Or better yet, considering you'll probably still post occasional notes after the NAILC, just take out the "NAILC 2011 part." That's what I'll do with whatever thread I use, be it Lakota or Lushootseed)

[Massimiliano B]

I edited the title and added NAILC 2012. The adventure continues!
I will post some notes in a few days. I will focus on vocabulary and fraseology, so that the final composition of a short text will be easier. I can not even write properly in English...

I also opened a new thread for the second language I'll do during this NAILC, which is Ojibwe.

[Massimiliano B]

tmilq̓ ʷ means "always, repeatedly".Examples taken from Selish dictionary:

tmilq̓ʷ čn sust t kapi = I always drink coffee (tmilq̓ʷ = always; čn = I (intransitive); sust = drank-intransitive;t = it introduces the object of a morphological intransitive verb; kapi = coffee). Literally it means "I always drank coffee". The past tense indicates an habitual action.

tmilq̓ʷ čnes susti t kapi = I'm repeatedly drinking coffee (tmilq̓ʷ = repeatedly; čnes = I-now (intransitive); susti = drink-intransitive (the -i indicates the present tense); t = it introduces the object of a morphological intransitive verb; kapi= coffee). Here, the present tense indicates that the action is repeated in a short spell of time and that it is accomplished now.


Why in this sentence is the verb morphologically intransitive? From a logical point of view it should be in its transitive form, due to the fact that the action of drinking refers to an object. But in Montana Salish (as in Kalispel and in Spokane) I choose the transitive form when I want to communicate that I'm deeply involved in the action and, above all, that I have a complete control over it. On the contrary, I use the intransitive verb if I don't want to emphasize the control of the subject over the object (see (A grammar of Spokane, pages 74 and 78).

That sentence, with the transitive verb, is:

tmilq̓ʷ ies sustm ɫu kapi [I'm not very sure, because I don't find it in a book, but I have to build it from what I know ] = I'm repeatedly drinking coffe (tmilq̓ʷ= repeatedly; ies = I-transitive-present;sustm = drink-it; ɫu = this particle introduces the object of a morphological transitive verb; kapi= coffee).

[Massimiliano B]

Today I've studied some 'adjunct particles'. These are words which add informations relating to the main clause:

1) x̣ʷl̓ (note that this word contains no vowels!!) = for. [The letter x̣ or x̣ʷ should have the dot under the x. My browser can't show it correctly] [EDIT” Thanks to the following post of księżycowy I can now write this letter properly ]

Example:
ƛ̓lip x̣ʷl̓ x̣steyeʔ ɫu stipn = Stephen stopped for the skunk


Here is a word by word translation:

ƛ̓lip = stopped - third person singular
x̣ʷl̓ = for
x̣steyeʔ = skunk
ɫu = secondary in importance
stipn = Stephen

2) t = it has three meanings. i) It introduces the object of a morphological intransitive verb, ii) it introduces the subject of a morphological transitive verb, or iii) it indicates the tool or items used in the action of an transitive verb. I have already talked about the first two meanings in old posts, so I'm going to give a sentence containing the third meaning:

iii) t ɫek̓ʷpci u iɫis ɫu pataq t stipn = "Stephen ate potatoes with a fork" (literally: "It is with a fork that (u) ate potatoes Stephen")

A word by word translation

t = with
ɫek̓ʷpci = fork.
u = that
iɫis = ate-he-it
ɫu= secondary in importance
pataq = potato
t = subject of a morphological transitive verb
stipn = Stephen


3) še = indicates that the preceding sentence is a condition of the following (like 'therefore'):

iɫn t pataq še nmq̓enč = She/he ate potatoes and then got full (literally: "Ate-he/she potatoes therefore got full.

Will I be able to compose a sentence by myself in one or two months? I can now build short and simple sentences. I think this is enough for the moment.

[księżycowy]

1) x̣ʷl̓ (note that this words contains no vowels!!) = for. [The letter x̣ or x̣ʷ should have the dot under the x. My browser can't show it correctly]

Try it in the IPA tags:

Code: Select all

[ipa][/ipa]

So it'd look like this:

Code: Select all

[ipa]x̣ʷl̓[/ipa]

And it should hopefully show the dot under (and the comma above):
x̣ʷl̓

[Massimiliano B]

Thanks a lot!!! It works!!

Now I have to edit my old posts.

[księżycowy]

Thanks a lot!!! It works!!

Now I have to edit my old posts.

Don't thank me, thank ILuvEire: viewtopic.php?f=9&t=38978

[Massimiliano B]

I saw his post, but I hadn't understood I had to use the IPA tags with the Salish keyboard.

Only the letter č̓ is better without the IPA tags, otherwise you obtain this sign: č̓

[księżycowy]

I saw his post, but I hadn't understood I had to use the IPA tags with the Salish keyboard.

Only the letter č̓ is better without the IPA tags, otherwise you obtain this sign: č̓

Yeah, some texts I've seen for Salish languages also use the convention of typing the ' (apostrophe) after the letter too. Whatever looks the best.

And I just happen to be fiddling with some Lushootseed after the discussion on Navajo and I tried it in the tags. I guess I could take credit.

[Massimiliano B]

Today I've studied the word k̓ʷis. It means "to go". It is used in conjunction with another verb and translates the English "to go and...". For example:

Without k̓ʷis
t stem̓ u kʷ iɫn: "What did you eat?" [literally: What is (=t stem̓) that (= u) you (= kʷ) ate (= iɫn)]

With k̓ʷis
t stem̓ u kʷ k̓ʷis iɫn: "What did you go and eat?" [literally: "What is that you went (= k̓ʷis) eat?"]

If I want to say that I go and do something, I have to use the "future/hypothetical" marker qs:
čiqs k̓ʷis iɫni = "I go and eat". The first word is composed by the subject čn (I) and the marker qs, which expresses a hypothetical and irreal (that is "future") action. The final verb iɫni (eat) ends with -i in the present and "future/hypothetical" tenses.