98 ■ BUREAU OF AMEEIGAN ETHNOLOGY [bdll. 40 



to the succeeding syllable. Two consonants may stand together in the 

 middle of a word, provided they belong to different syllables. 



§ 4. Assimilation of Sounds 



Assimilation of consonants, mostly retrogressive, takes place in some 

 cases when two consonants are brought together morphologically or 

 syntacticall3^ The most important are these: 



(1) Retrogressive. 



t before fi becomes 7i, 



tcuhwlLkinneen he nearly caught me (for tcuhwiLkitneeii) 



t before in becomes ni. 



yaiLkiininin they intended to catch (for ya'iLkitinin) 



ft before I becomes I. 



yawin^an he picked up a stone (but yawillal he picked up 

 several stones) 



t before I becomes I. 



noiwiLkillihte it will be foggv (for iioivnLkitliLte) 



ft before t or d becomes it. 



ne'iLin 1 am looking at it (but neiLinte I am going to look 

 at it) 



fi before ni becomes m. 



yawlTi^an he picked it up (but yawlmmas he rolled over) 



(2) Progressive. 



h after I becomes I. 



tcuk.qalllt as he walked along (for tcuhjaUdt) 



w after it becomes n. 



tcuwinnas he scraped bark off (but weuns I scraped bark 

 off) 



When morphological causes bring two consonants at the end of a 

 syllable, one of them is dropped. This is evidently the case in the 

 formation of the conjugation where the modal prefix (L) would be 

 expected after the sign of the first person singular (w). In this case 

 the modal prefix is not found. In the second person singular of the 

 verb the modal prefix remains, but the sign of the second person 

 {n) has been dropped. Also, in the third person singular .s would be 

 expected before the same modal prefix, but it does not occur in Hupa. 

 In Tolowa all of these combinations do occur, and in the very places 

 where one would expect them in Hupa but fails to find them. 



§4 



