Caddo Verb MorphologyAt the time of European contact with Native communities, the Caddos (who call themselves the Hasinai) were accomplished traders living in the southern plains. Their communities occupied parts of present-day Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Oklahoma. It was early Spanish explorers who named a part of this territory “Texas,” borrowing the Caddo word for “friend.” Today there are approximately thirty-five hundred Caddos, most of whom live in Oklahoma. Their original language, which is related to the Plains languages—Pawnee, Arikara, Kitsai, and Wichita—is rapidly dying and is spoken only by a diminishing number of Caddo elders. Drawing on interviews with Caddo speakers, tapes made by earlier researchers, and written accounts, Lynette R. Melnar provides the first full-length overview and analysis of Caddo grammar. Because Caddo is an extremely complex language, Melnar’s clear description will be important to linguists in general as well as to those specializing in Native languages. Caddo Verb Morphology is an essential contribution to our understanding of the Caddos’ traditional world in particular and of Native America in general. |
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Common terms and phrases
absolutive argument absolutive number absolutive referent allomorph animacy animate plural aspect Caddo language Caddo verb Caddoan čah causativized Chafe cislocative clause combines compounding contexts continuative aspect cooccur copula dative applicative dative-applicative Defocusing person defocusing prefixes denotes derived distinctions distributive categories dual entity examples exemplified forms function glossed going grammatical AGENT grammatical PATIENT habitual hák homophony húk illustrated imperfective imperfective aspect inchoative incorporated noun roots indexed interrogative 3.3.2 intransitive IRR negative irrealis irrealis mood iterative language lexicalized Linguistics locative Mithun mood morphemes morphology motion verb negative continuative negative past nominalized noun incorporation number and distribution partial negative participants past prioritive past quotative past-tense phonological polysynthetic position 15 position class posture prioritive quotative proclitics pronominal morphology realis second person secondary stem semantic patient simulative situation speaker specifies subpositions suffix syllable syllable nucleus tense third person transitive verb translocative valency verb root verb stem verb template verbal event vowel