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Vowels There are four vowels in Navajo: a, e, i and o. Each of these may occur as
or with one of four tones:
Various combinations of these features are possible, as in ́ą́ą (long, nasalized, high tone). Consonants The consonants of Navajo in the standard orthography are listed below (with IPA notation in brackets): The lateral l is actually a voiced lateral approximant, while ł is realized as a fricative. This pairing is common among languages because a true voiceless l is harder to perceive. However, some other Athabaskan languages, notably Hän, have a pair of voiced and voiceless lateral fricatives. The consonant h is in two places in the table because it is pronounced x when stem initial and h when prefixal or stem/word final. As in many northwestern American languages, Navajo is relatively poor in labial consonants. Syllable Phonological processes Consonant harmony. Grammar Typologically, Navajo is an agglutinating, polysynthetic head-marking language, but many of its affixes combine into barely recognizable contractions more like fusional languages. The canonical word order of Navajo is SOV. Athabaskan words are modified primarily by prefixes, which is unusual for an SOV language (suffixes are expected). Navajo is a "verb-heavy" language — it has a great preponderance of verbs but relatively few nouns. In addition to verbs and nouns, Navajo has other elements such as pronouns, clitics of various functions, demonstratives, numerals, postpositions, adverbs, and conjunctions, among others. Harry Hoijer grouped all of the above into a word-class which he called particles (i.e., Navajo would then have verbs, nouns, and particles). There is nothing that corresponds to what are called adjectives in English — this adjectival function being provided by verbs. Nouns Many concepts expressed using nouns in other languages appear as verbs in Navajo. The majority of true nouns are not inflected for number, and there is no case marking. Noun phrases are often not needed to form grammatical sentences due to the informational content of the verb. Verbs The key element in Navajo is the verb and is notoriously complex. Some noun meanings are provided by verbs, as in Hoozdo 'Phoenix, Arizona' (lit., 'the place is hot') and ch'é'étiin 'doorway' (lit., 'something has a path horizontally out'). Many complex nouns are derived from nominalized verbs as well, as in ná'oolkiłí 'clock' (lit., 'one that is moved slowly in a circle') and chidí naa'na'í bee'eldhtsoh bikáá' dah naaznilígíí 'army tank' (lit., 'a car that they sit up on top of that crawls around with a big thing with which an explosion is made'). Verbs are composed of an abstract stem to which inflectional and/or derivational prefixes are added. Every verb must have at least one prefix. The prefixes are affixed to the verb in a specified order. The Navajo verb can be sectioned into different components. The verb stem is composed of an abstract root and an often fused suffix. The stem together with a classifier prefix (and sometimes other thematic prefixes) make up the verb theme. The theme is then combined with derivational prefixes which in turn make up the verb base. Finally, inflectional prefixes (which Young & Morgan call "paradigmatic prefixes") are affixed to the base—producing a complete Navajo verb. Verb Template The prefixes that occur on a Navajo verb are added in specified order according to prefix type. This type of morphology is called a position class template (or slot-and-filler template). Below is a table of a recent proposal of the Navajo verb template (Young & Morgan 1987). (Edward Sapir and Harry Hoijer were the first to propose an analysis of this type.) A given verb will not have a prefix for every position...in fact, most Navajo verbs are not as complex as the template would seem to suggest. The Navajo verb has 3 main parts: These parts may be subdivided into 11 positions, with some of the positions having even further subdivisions: Although prefixes are generally found in a specific position, some prefixes change order by the process of metathesis. For example, prefix a- (3i object pronoun) usually occurs before di-, as in adisbąąs 'I'm starting to drive some kind of wheeled vehicle along' < 'a- + di- + sh- + ł + -bąąs. However, when 'a- occurs with the prefixes di- and ni-, the 'a- metathesizes with di-, leading to an order of di- + 'a- + ni-, as in di'nisbąąs 'I'm in the act of driving some vehicle (into something) & getting stuck' < di-'a-ni-sh-ł-bąąs < 'a- + di- + ni- + sh- + ł + -bąąs instead of the expected adinisbąąs ('a-di-ni-sh-ł-bąąs) (note also that 'a- is reduced to '-). Inflection Classificatory Verbs Navajo has verb stems that classify a particular object by its shape or other physical characteristics in addition to describing the movement or state of the object. These are known in Athabaskan linguistics as classificatory verb stems. These are usually identified by an acronym label. There are eleven primary classificatory "handling" verbs stems, which are listed below (given in the perfective mode): To compare with English, Navajo has no single verb that corresponds to the English word give. In order to say the equivalent of Give me some hay!, the Navajo verb níłjool (NCM) must be used, while for Give me a cigarette! the verb nítįįh (SSO) must be used. The English verb give is expressed by eleven different verbs in Navajo, depending on the characteristics of the given object. In addition to defining the physical properties of the object, primary classificatory verb stems also can distinguish between the manner of movement of the object. The stems may then be grouped into three different categories:
Handling includes actions such as carrying, lowering, and taking. Propelling includes tossing, dropping, and throwing. Free flight includes falling, and flying through space. Using an example for the SRO category, Navajo has
yi-/bi- Alternation (animacy) Like most Athabaskan languages, Southern Athabaskan languages show various levels of animacy in its grammar, with certain nouns taking specific verb forms according to their rank in this animacy hierarchy. For instance, Navajo nouns can be ranked by animacy on a continuum from most animate (a human being) to least animate (an abstraction) (Young & Morgan 1987: 65–66): Human → Infant/Big Animal → Medium-sized Animal → Small Animal → Natural Force → Abstraction Generally, the most animate noun in a sentence must occur first while the noun with lesser animacy occurs second. If both nouns are equal in animacy, then either noun may occur in the first position. This phenomenon was first noted by Ken Hale (1973). Text Example Here is the first paragraph of a very short story in Young & Morgan (1987: 205a–205b). Diné bizaad: Ashiiké t'óó diigis léi' tółikaní ła' ádiilnííł dóó nihaa nahidoonih níigo yee jiní. Áko t'áá ał'ąą ch'il na'atł'o'ii k'iidiilá dóó yinaalnishgo t'áá áłah ch'il na'atł'o'ii jiní. Áádóó tółikaní áyiilaago t'áá bíhígíí t'áá ał'ąą tł'ízíkágí yii' haidééłbįįd jiní. "Háadida díí tółikaní yígíí doo ła' aha'diidził da," níigo jiní'. Áádóó baa nahidoonih biniiyé kintahgóó dah yidiiłjid jiní'.... Free English translation: Some crazy boys decided to make some wine to sell, so they each planted grapevines and, working hard on them, they raised them to maturity. Then, having made wine, they each filled a goatskin with it. They agreed that at no time would they give each other a drink of it, and they then set out for town lugging the goatskins on their backs.... Interlinear text: Current use The Navajo language is still widely spoken by Navajos of all ages, with over half of the Navajo population speaking the Navajo language at home. Many parents still pass on the Navajo language to their children as a first language. The Navajo people are one of the very few Native American tribes that still use the native language of their tribe in everyday usage. However, the language is still moderately endangered, especially in urban areas outside of reservations, as more and more younger Navajos start to shift to the English language. Even on the reservation, Census data indicate that between 1980 and 1990 the proportion of Navajos aged 5-17 who spoke only English rose from 12% to 28%. In 2000 it appears that the figure reached 43%. See also Pedagogical Linguistics & other reference nv:Diné bizaad | |||||||||
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