GRAMMATICAL COMMENTARY 



This commentary is based on the analysis published in Chafo 

 (1960-61). References to paragraphs in that work are made in 

 square brackets. 



Seneca has seven vowels: i, e, se, a, o, e, and o. The last two are 

 nasalized. There are nine consonants: n, w, y, t, k, s, j, h, and ^ 

 (glottal stop). The stops t and k are voiced before a vowel and before 

 n, w, and y. The affricate j is phonetically [dz]. Vowel length is 

 written with a colon, stress with an acute accent mark. There are 

 at most five distinctive pitches (see below), which are written, from 

 low to high, with the numbers 1 to 5 under the letters. The pitch 

 remains level until a new pitch is indicated. Juncture between phrases 

 is written with a comma, between sentences with a period. The two 

 are distinguished b}^ relative length of pause. Word space has no 

 phonological significance but is simply a guide to word boundaries, 

 except that after t, k, and s it indicates interword juncture, phoneti- 

 cally similar to plus juncture in English, 



Seneca words are classified as verbs, nouns, and particles. Except 

 for some elliptical forms, verbs {kihsa:s 'I'm looking for it') and 

 nouns (kahsi^ta? *my foot') contain a stem (-ihsa:s, -ahsi^ta?) pre- 

 ceded by a pronominal prefLx ik- 'first person'). The latter may be 

 subjective (as above), objective (?akihsa:s 'it sees me'), or transitive 

 (hakihsa:s 'he sees me'). The stem consists of at least a root (-ihsa[:k\- 

 'look for', -ahsi^ta- 'foot') followed by an aspect suffix (s 'iterative') 

 or noun suffix (-? 'simple noim suffix'). The root may be modified 

 by a root sufiix (kihsa:khoh 'I'm looldng for things'), an incorporated 

 noun root (kya^tihsa:s 'I'm looldng for the body'), a reflexive or 

 reciprocal morpheme, or any combination of these. A modified root 

 is called a base. The aspect suffix may also be modified in several 

 ways {kihsa : skwa^ 'I used to look for it'). Finally, this entire struc- 

 ture may be modified by a modal prefix {^ekihsa.'k 'I will look for it'), 

 a primary prefix {skihsa:s 'I'm looldng for it again'), a secondary 

 prefix (nikihsa:s 'how 1 look for it'), or several prefixes of unique 

 distribution {te^kihsa:s 'I don't look for it'). There are a few attrib- 

 utive suffixes which modify the entire structure that precedes them: 

 kihsdsko:wa:h 'I'm a great one at looking for things'. 



While no thorough syntactic analysis of Seneca has been made, 

 several factors relating to syntax can be discussed. These include 

 the morphophonemic variation found at the borders of juxtaposed 

 words, or external sandhi, and the two syntactic styles which are 

 represented in these texts. 



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