BOAS] 



HANDBOOK OF INDIAN LANGUAGES TAKELMA 



37 



the liquid, nasals, semivowels, and Ti never appear, or with very few 

 exceptions, as the first members of initial combinations, it was not con- 

 sidered necessary to provide for them in the horizontal row. Simi- 

 larly the tenues and fortes never occur as second members of initial 

 combinations. A dash denotes non-occurrence. 



i It will be noticed that only t' (p' and V were given mainly for 

 contrast) and the two voiceless spirants s and x combine with fol- 

 lowing consonants {¥w- is not to be analyzed into ¥ -\-w, but is to be 

 regarded as a single consonant, as also gw- and Ic.'w-, both of which 

 frequently occur as initials) ; furthermore that s, x, and y never com- 

 bine with preceding consonants. The general law of initial combi- 

 nation is thus found to be: tenuis (f) or voiceless spirant (s, x) + 

 media (b, d, g) or voiced continuant (Z, m, n, w).^ Of the combina- 

 tions above tabulated, only t'h- fg-, si-, sg-, and perhaps sgw- and 

 SW-, can be considered as at all common, fm-, fw-, sd-, sn-, xd-, 

 xl-, and xn- being very rare, si-, sh-, xm-, and xw- have not been 

 found, but the analogy of xl- for the first, and of sh-, sm-, and sw- 

 for the others, make it barely possible that they exist, though rarely; 

 there may, however, be a distinct feehng against the combination 

 a:+ labial (6, m, w). 



Only two cases have been found of fortis or media + consonant: 



t!wep!e't!wapx they fly about without lighting; future dwep'- 

 dwa'pxda^ 



This may possibly serve to explain why the affricative ts- (to correspond to («•/) is not found in Takelma. 



§ 15 



