BOAS] HANDBOOK OF INDIAN LANGUAGES COOS 309 



All inadmissible terminal clusters are avoided through the insertion 

 of a (weak) vowel between the two final consonants. 



dEmst- di^mAt prairie 22.12 



helq- he'laq he arrived 20.18 



hhinp- Lhi'Tiap he went through 22.11 



milx- m.i'lax lunch 28.15 



alq- + -s {^ ^o) a'lqas fear 66.4 



ioinq--\--s (§25) iiiVnqcbs mat, spider 58.5 



Inadmissible medial clusters are avoided through the insertion of a 

 weak vowel or vowels: 



winq- + -XEm vAna'qaxEm it is spread out 32. 14 



helq- + -xEm hela'qaxEni it is the end 44. 14 



Inq- + -a iix Ina'qa they two went down 



8.4 



§ 5. Accent 



With the exception of the monosyllabic particles, that are either 

 enclitic or proclitic, each word in Coos has its stress accent, designated 

 by the acute mark (') or by the rising tone rendered here by ~. The 

 former accent is not inseparably associated with any particular sylla- 

 ble of a word. It may, especially in cases of polysj^llabic stems, be 

 shifted freely from one sjdlable to another, although it is very possi- 

 ble that this apparent shifting of accent may be largely due to the 

 rapidity with which the words in question were pronounced by the 

 natives. The circumflex accent appears mostly on the last syllable, 

 and may best be compared with the intonation given to the word so 

 in the English interrogative sentence Is that so ? 



The accent very often modifies the syllable on which it falls by 

 lending a specific coloring to the vowel, or by making it appear with 

 a long quantity. This is especially the case in syllables with the 

 obscure vowel, which, under the influence of accent, may be changed 

 to an a or an e. 



A very peculiar use of the accent is found in connection with the 

 verbal stem hela/q. This stem expresses two different ideas, that are 

 distinguished by means of the two kinds of accent. When occurring 

 with the stress accent ('), he'laq denotes to get, to arrive; while 

 heWq with the rising tone of a expresses the idea to climb up. 



§ 5 



