Keres language

The chart below contains the consonants of the proto-Keresan (or pre-Keresan) from Miller & Davis (1963) based on a comparison of Acoma, Santa Ana, and Santo Domingo, as well as other features of the dialects compiled from The Language of Santa Ana Pueblo (1964), Kansas Working Papers in Linguistics (1987), and The Phonemes of Keresan (1946), and the Grammar of Laguna Keres (2005).[6][7][8][9]

		Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Retroflex	Velar	Glottal
Plosive	voiceless	p	t	c		k	ʔ
	aspirated	pʰ	tʰ	cʰ		kʰ
	ejective	pʼ	tʼ	cʼ		kʼ
Fricative	voiceless		s	ʃ	ʂ		h
	ejective		sʼ	ʃʼ	ʂʼ
Affricate	voiceless		ts	tʃ	tʂ
	aspirated		tsʰ	tʃʰ	tʂʰ
	ejective		tsʼ	tʃʼ	tʂʼ
Approximant	voiced	w		j	ɽ
	glottalized	wˀ		jˀ	ɽˀ
Nasal	voiced	m	n	ɲ
	glottalized	mˀ	nˀ	ɲˀ

Keresan vowels have a phonemic distinction in duration: all vowels can be long or short. Additionally, short vowels can also be voiceless. The vowel chart below contains the vowel phonemes and allophones from the information of the Keresan languages combined from The Language of Santa Ana Pueblo (1964),[6] The Phonemes of Keresan (1946),[8] and Kansas Working Papers in Linguistics (1987).[7]

Notes:

• Western Keres does not have phonemic /oː/ or /o/, though both vowels may occur phonetically.[9] Eastern Keres words containing /o/ show /au/ in Western Keres.[10] For instance, the first vowel in the word-sentence Sraúkacha - “I see you”:
  • Kotyit Keres: [ ʂóːkʰɑ̥tʃʰɑ̥ ]
  • Kʼawaika Keres: [ ʂɑ̌ukʰɑ̥tʃʰɑ̥ ] -

All Keresan short vowels may be devoiced in certain positions. The phonemic status of these vowels is controversial.[9] Maring (1967) considers them to be phonemes of Áákʼu Keres, whereas other authors disagree. There are phonetic grounds for vowel devoicing based on the environment they occur, for instance word-finally, but there are also exceptions. Vowels in final position are nearly always voiceless and medial vowels occurring between voiced consonants, after nasals and ejectives are nearly always voiced.[11]

• Word-final devoicing: [ pɑ̌ːkʊ̥ ] because
• Word-medial devoicing: [ ʔìpʰi̥ʃɑ́ ] white paint

Acoma Keres has four lexical tones: high, low, falling and rising.[11] Falling and rising tones only occur in long vowels and voiceless vowels bear no tones:

Most Keresan syllables take a CV(V) shape.[9] The maximal syllable structure is CCVVC and the minimal syllable is CV. In native Keresan words, only a glottal stop /ʔ/ ⟨ʼ⟩ can close a syllable, but some loanwords from Spanish have syllables that end in a consonant, mostly a nasal (i.e. /m n/ but words containing these sequences are rare in the language.[12]

Due to extensive vowel devoicing, several Keresan words may be perceived as ending in consonants or even containing consonant clusters.

• Word-internal cluster: yʼâakạ srûunị ‘stomach’ /jˀɑ̂ːkḁʂûːni/ > [jɑ̂ːkḁʂûːni] ~ [jɑ̂ːkʂûːni]
• Word-final coda: úwàakạ ‘baby’; /úwɑ̀ːkḁ/ > [úwɑ̀ːkʰḁ] ~ [úwɑ̀ːkʰ]

The only sequence of consonants (i.e. consonant cluster) that occurs in native Keresan words is a sequence of a fricative /ʃ ʂ/ and a stop or affricate. Clusters are restricted to beginnings of syllables (i.e. the syllable onset). When the alveolo-palatal consonant /ʃ/ occurs as C₁, it combines with alveolar and palatal C₂, whereas the retroflex alveolar /ʂ/ precedes bilabial and velar C₂s, which suggest a complementary distribution. Consonant clusters may occur both word-initially and word-medially.[10]

Signs at Acoma Pueblo sometimes use special diacritics for ejective consonants that differ from the symbols above, as shown in the table:

Signage at Acoma Pueblo

Vowel sounds are represented straightforwardly in the existing spellings for Keresan. Each vowel sound is written using a unique letter or digraph (for long vowels and diphthongs). However, there are two competing representations for the vowel /ɨ/. Some versions simply use the IPA ⟨ɨ⟩ whereas others use the letter ⟨v⟩ (the sound /v/ as in veal does not occur in Keresan). Voiceless vowels have also been represented in two ways; either underlined or with a dot below (see table).

Tone may or may not be represented in the orthography of Keresan. When represented, four diacritics may be used above the vowel. Unlike the system used for Navajo, diacritics for tone are not repeated in long vowels.

Although Keresan is not normally written, there exists only one dictionary of the language in which words are listed in any given order. In this dictionary of Western Keres, digraphs count as single letters, although ejective consonants are not listed separately; occurring after their non-ejective counterparts. The glottal stop ⟨ʼ⟩ and long vowels (e.g. ⟨aa ee ii⟩ etc.) are not treated as separate letters.

Woodpecker and Coyote[10]

Ái dítʼîishu srbígà kʼánâaya dyáʼâʼu. Shʼée srbígà ái dyěitsị ái náyáa shdyɨ dyáʼa.

Boas text[9]

Baanaʼa, egu kauʼseeʼe, atsi sʼaama-ee srayutse.

Keresan is a verb-final language, though word order is rather flexible.[10][9]

Laguna Keres:[9]

Negation is doubly marked in Keresan. In addition to the adverb dzaadi, verbs index negation through a suffix (e.g. -u).

• Gukacha 'S/he saw her/him'
• Dzaadi gukachau 'S/he didn't see her/him'

The verb is a central grammatical category in Keres, conveying the most information about events in communicative acts.[9][10][11] Through its morphemes, Keresan verbs code not only person and number of the initiator of the action (e.g. “Tammy drinks decaf”) as is common in Indo-European languages, but also how the initiator is implicated in the action. For instance, the three verbs that describe Tammy's actions in “Tammy kicked the ball” vs. “Tammy jumped” vs. “Tammy sneezed” require different levels of effort from Tammy, that is when kicking vs. jumping vs. sneezing.

Additionally, the person and number of the undergoer of the action are all coded on the verb (e.g. the word gukacha means “S/he sees her/him”, a full sentence in English). The ways the speaker assesses the action (i.e. evidentiality, as in “I think Tammy arrived from class” vs. “Tammy arrived from class”). Finally, the internal temporal structure of the action (i.e. aspect, as in “Tammy was sneezing in class” vs. “Tammy sneezed in class”) is also coded in Keresan verbs.

According to Maring (1967), the Keresan verb is organized around the following grammatical categories (pp. 39-40)[11]

• Subject/Object relations
  • Subject of intransitive verbs: marked by a prefix that distinguishes 3-4 persons in the singular (see below).
  • Subject of transitive verbs: marked by a prefix that distinguishes 3-4 persons in the singular (see below).
  • Object of transitive verbs: marked by a prefix that combines with the subject prefix, or by a suffix
• Number relations
  • Singular: usually marked by a prefix
  • Dual: can be marked by a prefix, partial reduplication or by suffixes
  • Plural: can be marked by a prefix, partial reduplication, by suffixes or by suppletive stem forms (i.e. singular and plural forms are not related etymologically)
• Temporal relations
  • Future: is marked on the verb by a series of prefixes that also encode number
• Modality relations
  • Indicative
  • Dubitative
  • Hortative
    • Negative hortative
  • Negative
    • Future negative
• Voice relations
  • Active
  • Passive
  • Reflexive
  • Reciprocal
• Aspect
  • Imperfective
  • Inceptive
  • Repetitive
  • Continuative
  • Habitual
  • Inchoative
  • Perfective

In Keres, the verbal prefix carries information from five different grammatical categories: argument role, modality, polarity,[9] person and number. That is, a single Keresan verb prefix codes who initiated the action and how implicated that entity is (the subject/case), whom underwent the effects of the action (the direct object), the speaker's assessment of the action (the modality)[15] and whether it occurred or not (polarity). On the other hand, information about when the action took place (i.e. tense) is expressed elsewhere in a clause, mostly by adverbs.[10]

Keresan verbs distinguish three numbers: singular, dual (two entities) and plural (more than two entities); and four persons: first (the speaker), second (the hearer), third (a known, definite or salient entity being talked about) and fourth (a non-salient, unknown or indefinite entity being talked about, also known as obviative) persons. The plural and dual forms are often marked by reduplication of part of the stem (gukacha ‘s/he saw it’ vs guʼukacha ‘the two of them saw it’).

Languages encode two main types of actions: those in which the main participant initiates an action that produces change in an object (e.g. kick a ball, buy a gift, cook a dish, read a book); and those in which the action produces no (perceived) change in the world or that have no object (sneezing, breathing, growing, diving, etc.).[16] Actions that take an object are encoded by transitive verbs, whereas those that take no object are expressed via intransitive verbs.

In Indo-European languages like English, all intransitive verbs behave similarly (‘They sneeze/breathe/dive/think’/etc.). In Keresan, actions that take no object are conceptualized in two distinct ways depending on how the initiator of the action is implicated. More active-like intransitive verbs (e.g. ‘to sneeze’) are coded through one set of morphemes, whereas actions conceptualized as involving the initiator at a lesser degree (e.g. ‘to believe’) are coded using a separate set of prefixes.

Ideas expressed in Indo-European languages with adjectives are most often encoded by verbs in Keresan. That is, in Keresan one express the idea in the sentence ‘He is selfish’ by saying something along the lines of ‘He selfishes’. In such “actions”, the entity that is characterized by them is not implicated in the action directly (i.e. it's beyond their control), and thus belong in the Inactive intransitive category. The different sets of prefixes are shown below:

Aspect in Keresan is signalled by suffixes.

The category of tense is expressed in Keresan via adverbs that indicate when the action about which one is speaking took place.

The Keresan numeral system is a base 10 system. Numerals 11-19, as well as those between the multiple of tens, are formed by adding the word kʼátsi (/ kʼátsʰɪ / 'ten') followed by the word dzidra (/tsɪtʂa/ 'more'). Numerals 20 and above are formed by adding a multiplicative adverb (-wa or -ya) to the base number and the word kʼátsi.[9]

European colonizers arriving in the Southwest US brought with them material culture and concepts that were unknown to the peoples living in the area. Words for the new ideas introduced by Spaniards were often borrowed into Keres directly from Early Modern Spanish, and a large number of these persists in Modern Keresan.[12]