Babine-Witsuwitʼen language

Witsuwitʼen has 35 consonants. Aspirated and ejective labials are rarer than other consonants.[13]

Witsuwitʼen has six underlying vowels in its inventory.[14]

Witsuwitʼen lexical categories include nouns, verbs, adjectives, and postpositions. Directional terms are considered to be a lexical group in Witsuwitʼen found throughout lexical categories.[14]

Witsuwitʼen nouns are only inflected for possession, and no case marking exists in Witsuwitʼen.[14] Possessive morphology takes different forms depending on whether the referent is alienable or inalienable.

Because trap bait is an alienable entity which need not be possessed by anyone/anything, it does not include any possessive morphology but stands alone in its bare form. In contrast, brother is an inalienable entity; a brother cannot exist without someone else to be in relation to. Thus, brother requires possessive morphology, as exampled in səɬtsen 'my brother'.[14]

The basic lexical verb in Witsuwitʼen is the verb theme, a unit composed of two parts: a verbal root and required thematic prefixes.[14]

Verbal morpheme order is stable throughout the Athabaskan family; thus, the template of the Witstuwitʼen verb is very similar to other Athabaskan languages.[15] Prefixes which are furthest away from the lexical stem display more variability. The Witsuwitʼen verb consists of a lexical root and an aspectual, tense, or modal affix (most often a suffix). All Witsuwitʼen verbs carry tense and subject inflection; there is no Witsuwitʼen equivalent to the English infinitive.[16]

Postpositional object marking is demonstrated in the examples below. Postpositions can stand by themselves, as in the example '3s was playing with it,' or attach to the verbal complex.[17]

Yi-lh niwilyekh.

with-3s 3s-plays

'3s was playing with it.'

Complex directional systems and directional terms have been described in Ahtna, Slavey, Kaska, Koyukon, Tsek'ene, and Witsuwitʼen. Directional terms are composed of a directional root, prefixes which describe distance, and suffixes which indicate motion or rest.[14]

Like most Athabaskan languages, basic word order in Babine-Witsuwitʼen is Subject-Object-Verb (SOV), demonstrated in the example below.[16]

Mary dilhtsen yikʼëntsiyʼ

Mary 3.SG.REFL.brother 3.SG.loves.3.SG.

'Mary loves her own brother.'

Babine-Witsuwitʼen uses verbal morphology to express grammatical roles. Subjects of transitive and intransitive constructions are marked in the same way and appear in identical positions within the sentence, while objects of transitive constructions may differ in position and occasionally in morphological form. Subjects are marked in different places within the verbal complex, with 1st and 2nd person subjects appearing more closely to the verb stem and 3rd person subjects and direct objects further to the left.[18]

Two object prefixes [hiy-] and [y-]:[17]

Hiy-ïtsʼoldeh.

'They need it.'

Ndutah yiziz

what 3S.is.drinking.it

'What's he drinking?'

1st and 2nd person subjects include 1SG, 2SG, and 2PL. 3rd person subjects can be expressed as unspecified (human), indefinite, or 4th person (referred to as the obviative in Algonquian languages).[18]

Athabaskan languages like Babine-Witstuwitʼen make use of two main argument transferring morphemes known as classifiers. However, the term classifier is recognized among Athabaskanists as a misnomer; voice and valence markers are more appropriate descriptors.[18] Each lexical entry of Witsuwitʼen verbs features a lexicalized voice/valence marker fused with the verb stem, though this element sometimes appears as zero. The classifiers [ɬ] and [d] regulate transitivity: [ɬ] increases transitivity by creating causatives and the [d] classifier lowers transitivity to create middle voice. The valence marker [l] is more complex in nature, indicating a combination of [ɬ] and [d] where a middle is built upon a causative.[18]