290 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [uvLi.. 40 



§ 3. Grouping of Sounds and Laws of Euphony 



Clustering of consonauts is almost unrestricted, and a number of 

 extended consonantic clusters may occur; as, for instance, -ltkH(j' ^ 

 ppt^ qsL, '.rtg', and many others. 



Examples are: 



a'qhl'f^det they reached 111.1^ 

 d'cTtl-sl^L came 35.1 

 xsl"al" eagle 178.10 



There are, however, a number of restrictions regulating the use of 

 consonants before vowels. Terminal surd stops and the affricative ts 

 are transformed into sonants whenever a vowel is added to the word. 



g-at man g-a'dsm. 90.6 



gwall'^ dry " grm' hjwa 17Q.2 



nE-he'p uncle dsp-he'Ehe ray uncles 157.9 



n-ts'e'ets grandmother ts'e'Edze my grandmother 157.10 



It seems that single surd stops do not occur in intervocalic position. 

 A number of apparent exceptions, like JSopE- small, were heard by 

 me often with sonant, and contain probably in reality sonants. 



There are a number of additional intervocalic changes: 



Intervocalic x' changes into y. 

 " X changes into yr, o. 



" X changes into ^. This last change is not quite regular. 



ox- to throw oytn you throw 139.3 



hwtla'x- to know hwtld'yi I know 



hdx' to use hd'yoEiii use of — 55.3 



xhEtsd'x afraid xbEtsd'we I am afraid 



k'sax to go out k'sa'wun I go out ! 171.4 



yd'oxk'^ to eat yd'og'an to feed 



In a few cases / is assimilated by preceding n. 



an-hvn'n instead of an-lnoi'l 40.6, 7 



§ 4. The Phonetic Systems of Nass and Tsimshian 



The system of vowels of Tsimshian is nearly the same as that 

 of the Nass dialect, except that the pure a and d do not occur. 

 The vowels o 3, and e e appear decidedly as variants of u u and i l 

 respectively, their timbre being modified by adjoining consonants. 



1 Figures refer to page and line of F.Boas, Tsimshian Texts {Bulletin 27 of the Bureau of American 

 Ethnology); figuTea preceded by E S, to F. Boas, Tsimshian Texts, New Series (Publications of the 

 American Ethnological Society, Vol. in, 1910). 



§§3,4 



