64 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 191 



Potential combinations of the 48 syllable margins witb the various 

 types of nuclei number several thousand. Only a fraction of these, 

 however, actually occur in the data. The lack of some combinations 

 may be attributed to incomplete data or to the extremely low proba- 

 bility of certain rare types of nuclei following the less common margins. 

 The absence of other kinds of combinations is apparently a relevant 

 feature of the phonological structure. The more important of these 

 are as follows: 



1. A bilabial semivowel, w or w, is never followed by the back rounded 

 vowel, u. 



2. An alveopalatal semivowel, y or y, is never followed by the high front 

 vowel, i. 



3. A retroflexed consonant, c, c, z, z, s, or s, is never followed by a front 

 vowel, i or e. 



4. An alveopalatal affricate or fricative, 6, c, s, or s, is never followed by the 

 high central unrounded vowel, a. 



5. The voiceless unaspirated stops and affricates, b, d, g, z, and z are never 

 followed by a voiceless vowel. 



WORD STRUCTURE 



The definition of a word is treated in a later section. Here the 

 general phonological structure of words is described. 



Words may be composed of a single syllable, za no, but are more 

 often dissyllabic or polysyllabic. Words of up to nine syllables have 

 been recorded: sgu-wakA6aniguyase-tE we are (not) looking at them. 



With few exceptions, each of the 48 margins may occur in any 

 syllable of the word. The margins sc, c and s show evidence of 

 special development and occur only word-initially as verb prefixes. 

 Although h is very common initially, its extremely low frequency of 

 occurrence in medial position is significant. In the present data it 

 occurs in this position only in giihayA bear and in verbs based on the 

 cores, -hmiA to believe and -he'i'e-zani to 'permit. 



Each of the single voiced vowels may occur in any syllable of the 

 word, while the voiceless vowels may occur in any except the initial 

 syllable. Of the vowel clusters, iu is found almost exclusively in the 

 initial syllable of verbs where it is divided by a morpheme boundary. 

 The distribution of eu is similar, although the particle ?eu is of very 

 frequent occurrence. The sequences ai, au, and ui are found in all 

 positions in the word, while the remaining clusters occur so infre- 

 quently that generalizations are impossible. 



Level accented syllables, both short and long, are found in aU 

 positions in the word. The glottal accent may occur on any syllable, 

 but only rarely on other than the first. Falling and breathy accents 

 may occur on an initial or medial, but never a final, syllable. Although 

 any syllable of the word may be unaccented, the initial syllable is 

 accented in an overwhelming majority of the words. 





