boas] handbook of AMERICAN INDIAN LANGUAGES 295 



§ 5. GRAMMATICAL PROCESSES 



The most oharacteri.stic trait of Tsimshian gTammar i^ the use of a 

 superabundance of particles that modif}^ the following- word. Pho- 

 netically these particles are strong- enough to form a syllabic unit, 

 and they remain alwaj's separated bj^ a hiatus from the following- 

 word. Most of them, however, have no accent, and must therefore 

 be designated either as proclitics or as prefixes. These appear par- 

 ticuhirly with verbal stems, but their use with nominal stems is 

 not by any means rare. They do not undergo any moditications, 

 except in a few cases, and for this reason a large part of the gram- 

 matical processes relate to the use of these particles. On the whole, 

 their position in the sentence or word-complex is fairly free. Suf- 

 fixes are rather few in number. They difler fundamentally from 

 the proclitic particles in being phonetically weaker and in forming 

 with the preceding stem a firm unit. Some pronouns which belong 

 to the proclitic series are also phonetically weak and share with the 

 suffixes the inclination to amalgamate with the preceding elements. 

 Thus the. proclitic pronouns sometimes become apparently suffixes 

 of the preceding words, whatever these may be. 



Incorporation of the nominal object occurs principalh' in terms 

 expressing habitual activities. In these it is well developed. 



The Tsimshian uses stem modifications extensivel}" for expressing 

 grammatical processes. Most important among these is reduplica- 

 tion, which is ver}" frequent, and which follows, on the whole, fixed 

 laws. Change of stem-vowel is not so common, and seems some- 

 times to have developed from reduplication. It occurs also in com- 

 pound words, which form a peculiar trait of the language. Not 

 many instances of this type of composition have been observed, but 

 they play undoubtedly an important part in the history of the 

 language. Many elements used in word-composition have come to 

 be so weak in meaning that they are at present more or less formal 

 elements. This is true particulai'ly of suffixes, but also, to a certain 

 extent, of prefixes, though, on the whole, they have preserved a 

 distinct meaning. 



The grammatical processes of Tsimshian have assumed a much more 

 formal character than those of many other Indian languages. It is 

 not possible to lay down general rules of composition or reduplication, 

 which would cover by far the greatest part of the field of grammar. 



§5 



