2UG GRAMMAR OF THE KLAMATH LANGUAGE. 



PHONOLOGY. 



The sounds or ])honetic elements of language are either vowels or 

 consonants or clicks. The former two are uttered by expiration of air 

 through the vocal tube. The vowels or voiced breaths are either simple or 

 compound. Compound vowels may either combine by passing into diph- 

 thongs or triphthongs, or when coalescing into one vocalic sound, become 

 softened vowels, "Umhiute." Consonants are sounds uttered without voice; 

 they are either checks, momentaneous sounds, or breaths, sounds of dura- 

 tion. Glides^ or sounds produced by inspiration of air, do not occur in the 

 Klamath language as parts of words, though they are occasionally intro- 

 duced in the form of interjections. Cf. o, o' in Dictionary and Note to 

 194; 2. 



VOWELS. 



The five simple vowels of the Klamath language given in the order as 

 they increase in pitch of voice, are : u, o, a, e, i ; each of them can be pro- 

 nounced short and long, and this makes up in all ten vowels. Only three 

 of them, however, are primary vowels when pronounced short: the guttural 

 vowel a, the palatal vowel i, and the labial vowel u. They are called 

 primary vowels because the large majority of the radical syllables in Kla- 

 math contain one of them, which may also be said of a large number of 

 affixes. When pronounced long, the five simple vowels are often the 

 product of synizesis or other sort of vocalic coalescence. In pitch, o 

 stands between a and u, e between a and i; a rapid pronunciation of au 

 and ai has produced o and e, as we observe it also in French. 



The softened vowels or '^Umlaute" are ii, 6, a, as in German, and can 

 be pronounced short and long. They originated through a coalescence of 

 different vocalic components into one sound, as can be shown in many, 

 though not in all, instances. Only one of them, a, is of frequent occur- 

 lence, and is observed to alternate constantly with e, both being a product 



