BOAsl HANDBOOK OF AMERICAN INDIAN LANGUAGES 439 



GRAMMATICAL PROCESSES (§§ 5-8) 



§ 5. Enumeration of Grammatical Processes 



Grammatical categories and syntactic relations are expressed by 

 means of three processes. These are — 



1. Composition. 



2. Changes in the phonetic character of the stem. 



3. Position. 



§ 6. Composition 



Kwakiutl possesses a large number of stems which occur seldom 

 without word-forming affixes. The latter are numerous, and they are 

 always attached to the ends of stems or of derivatives of stems. The 

 number of stems exceeds by far the number of suffixes. The mean- 

 ing of many of these suffixes can not be determined, and in their 

 phonetic values they appear subordinate to the stems with which 

 they firmly coalesce. 



Two processes bring about the coalescence between stem and suffix: 

 (1) Phonetic contact phenomena and (2) contact phenomena due to 

 the individual character of the stem and of the sullix (see § 4). 



The former of these processes is founded entirely on phonetic laws, 

 and includes the transformation in the sufiix of a Tc sound into the 

 corresponding sound with u timber, after terminal u or o sound of the 

 stem or preceding sufiix ; the change of a Z:" and x" preceding an o or w 

 into h' and x'; modification of the terminal consonant of the stem 

 or preceding suffix, and of the initial consonant of the suffix, which 

 form inadmissible combinations; and contraction. 



The second group of processes can not be explained by phonetic 

 laws, but depends upon the individuality of the suffix and of the stem 

 or preceding suffix. The phenomena involved are contractions of 

 the terminal stem and initial suffix vowels, although the combination 

 of vowels may be quite admissible; elision of consonants; introduc- 

 tion of connective consonants; and retroactive changes which affect 

 the terminal consonant of the stem. In one case, at least, the reason 

 for the introduction of a connective consonant may be traced with a 

 high degree of probability to the retention of the terminal sound of a 

 suffix when combined with other suffixes, while the same sound has 

 been lost when the same suffix closes the word (see p. 532). 



The modifications which affect the terminal consonant of the stem 

 belong almost exclusively to a group of suffixes which usually follow 



§§5,6 



