Choctaw

Dialects

There are three dialects of Choctaw (Mithun 1999):

"Native" Choctaw on the Choctaw Nation in southeastern Oklahoma

Mississippi Choctaw of Oklahoma on Chickasaw Nation of south-central Oklahoma (near Durwood)

Choctaw of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians near Philadelphia, Mississippi

Other speakers live near Tallahassee, Florida, and with the Koasati in Louisiana, and also a few speakers live in Texas and California.

Phonology

More information on suffixes is in the Morphology section.

Consonants

^ The only voiced stop is /b/. The voiceless stops /p/, /t/, and /k/ may become partially voiced between vowels, especially /k/ and for male speakers. Also, the voiceless stops are slightly aspirated at the onset of words and before stressed syllables, behaving like English voiceless plosives.

^ Controversially, some analyses suggest that all nouns end in an underlying consonant phoneme. Nouns apparently ending in a vowel actually have a glottal stop /ʔ/ or a glottal fricative /h/ as the final consonant. Such consonants become realized when suffixes are attached.

^ The distinction between phonemes /s/ and /ʃ/ is neutralized at the end of words.

There is free variation of some consonants in Choctaw with some speakers:

/ɬ/, the voiceless lateral fricative, is pronounced as a voiceless dental fricative [θ]: /ɬ/→[θ].

The voiceless labiodental fricative /f/ is pronounced as a voiceless bilabial fricative [ɸ]: /f/→[ɸ].

In Choctaw /k/, the voiceless velar plosive, is often pronounced as [ɣ], a voiced velar fricative, between vowels.

/k/→[ɣ]/V_V

im-ofi-aki̱lih → [ɪmofijəɣẽːlih]

III-dog-indeed

'his own dog'

The voiceless glottal fricative /h/ is often pronounced like a voiceless palatal fricative [ç] when it precedes the voiceless palato-alveolar affricate /tʃ/.

/h/→[ç]/_tʃ

katihchish → [katɪçtʃɪʃ]

Vowels

^ Lax vowels occur more often in closed syllables. In traditional orthography, ʋ usually indicates [ə] and u usually indicates [ʊ]. Exceptions include pokoli (traditional) for /pʊk.koli/, imalakusi for /imaːlakosi/. The traditional orthography does not distinguish lax and tense front vowels; instead it indicates /iː/ with e.

^ Nasal vowels are intrinsically long.

In Choctaw, very few words are distinguished only by pitch accent. Nouns in Choctaw have pitch realization at the penultimate syllable or the ultimate syllable. Verbs in Choctaw will have pitch realization at morphemes indicating tense, but sometimes, pitch directly precedes the tense morpheme.

Syllable structure

As is in the chart above, there are three syllable structure types in Choctaw: light, heavy, and super heavy. Possible syllables in Choctaw must contain at least one vowel of any quality.

Syllables cannot end with a consonant clusters CC. However, there is an exception with the structure *(C)VCC if a word in Choctaw ends with the suffix /-t/.

Syllables do not begin with consonant clusters CC, but there is an exception in an initial /i-/ deletion, which results in a syllable *CCV .

Rhythmic lengthening is the process of lengthening the vowel duration of an even-numbered CV syllable in Choctaw. However, vowels at the end of words are not permitted to undergo that process. Also, if an even-numbered syllable is a verbal prefixes class I or III, the affix's vowel may not undergo lengthening, and the same holds true for noun prefixes class III as well.

CV-CV-CVC→CV-CV꞉-CVC

salahatok→sala꞉hatok

The smallest possible word in Choctaw must contain either two short vowels or one long vowel.

ofi' 'dog'

waak 'cow'

/a-/ insertion: there are verbs with only one short vowel in their roots. Without an affix attached to the verb root, the verbs become impossible utterances because Choctaw requires either two short vowels or a long vowel for a word to be formed. An initial A-prefix is thus attached to the root of the verb.

*bih → a-bih

Phonological processes

When a verb root ends with a long vowel, a glide /w/ or /j/ is inserted after the long vowel.

∅→/wa/ / V꞉____

Where V꞉ is oo

boo-a-h→bóowah

∅→/ja/ / V꞉____

Where V꞉ can be either ii or aa

talaa-a-h→talaayah

In Choctaw, there is a group of nouns which contain an initial /i-/ that encodes for 3rd person possession. It may be deleted, but if the /i/ is part of a VC syllable structure, the C is also deleted, because the resulting CCV syllable is rarely a permissible syllable structure at the onset of words.

/i/→∅ / #____

Part 1: /i + C/→∅ + /C/ / #____

Part 2: /∅ + C/→∅ / #____

ippókni'→ppókni'→pókni'

The verbal infix /l/ is pronounced /h, ch, or ɬ/ when /l/ precedes a voiceless consonant.

l → {h, tʃ, ɬ} /_C[-voice]

ho-l-tinah → ho-ɬ-tinah

There are several assimilation processes that occur with the suffix /-li/. When the verbal suffix /-li/ is preceded by /f/ /ɫ/ /h/ /m/ /n/ or /w/, the /l/ assimilates to the corresponding consonant that precedes it. Also, the verbal suffix /-li/ is preceded by the consonant /b/, the /l/ is realized as /b/. Third, when the verbal suffix /-li/ is preceded by the consonant /p/, the /p/ is pronounced as /b/. Lastly, when the verbal suffix /-li/ is preceded by the consonant /t/, the /t/ is pronounced as /l/.

Orthography

The written Choctaw language is based upon the English version of the Roman alphabet and was developed in conjunction with the "civilization program" of the United States, a program to westernize and forcefully assimilate Indigenous Americans, particularly those adhering to what were to become the Five Civilized Tribes (of which the Choctaw are a part) into Anglo-American Culture and Sympathies during the early 19th century. Although there are other variations of the Choctaw alphabet, the three most commonly seen are the Byington (Traditional), Byington/Swanton (Linguistic), and Modern (Mississippi Choctaw).

Many publications by linguists about the Choctaw language use a slight variant of the "modern (Mississippi Choctaw)" orthography listed here, where long vowels are written as doubled. In the "linguistic" version, the acute accent shows the position of the pitch accent, rather than the length of the vowel.

The discussion of Choctaw grammar below uses the linguistic variant of the orthography.

^Choctaw Bible Translation Committee

^Substituted with 'v' according to typesetting or encoding constraints.

^The former is used before a vowel; the latter, before a consonant. The intervocalic use of ⟨hl⟩ conflated the common consonant cluster /hl/ with /ɬ/.

^Dictionary editors John Swanton and Henry Halbert systematically replaced all instances of ⟨hl⟩ with ⟨ł⟩, regardless whether ⟨hl⟩ stood for /ɬ/ or /hl/. Despite the editors' systematic replacement of all ⟨hl⟩ with ⟨ł⟩, the digraph ⟨lh⟩ was allowed to stand.

Morphology

Verbal morphology

Choctaw verbs display a wide range of inflectional and derivational morphology. In Choctaw, the category of verb may also include words that would be categorized as adjectives or quantifiers in English. Verbs may be preceded by up to three prefixes and followed by as many as five suffixes. In addition, verb roots may contain infixes that convey aspectual information.

The verbal prefixes convey information about the arguments of the verb: how many there are and their person and number features. The prefixes can be divided into three sorts: agreement markers, applicative markers, and anaphors (reflexives and reciprocals). The prefixes occur in the following order: agreement-anaphor-applicative-verb stem.

The agreement affixes are shown in the following chart. The only suffix among the personal agreement markers is the first-person singular class I agreement marker /-li/. Third-person is completely unmarked for class I and class II agreement arguments and never indicates number.

Some authors (Ulrich 1986, Davies, 1986) refer to class I as actor or nominative, class II as patient or accusative and class III as dative. Broadwell prefers the neutral numbered labels because the actual use of the affixes is more complex. This type of morphology is generally referred to as active–stative and polypersonal agreement.

Class I affixes always indicate the subject of the verb. Class II prefixes usually indicate direct object of active verbs and the subject of stative verbs. Class III prefixes indicate the indirect object of active verbs. A small set of stative psychological verbs have class III subjects; an even smaller set of stative verbs dealing primarily with affect, communication and intimacy have class III direct objects.

As the chart above shows, there is no person-number agreement for third person arguments. Consider the following paradigms:

^ When the subject and object refer to the same thing or person (coreference), the reflexive ili- prefix is mandatory and used in place of the coreferent object.

Nominal morphology

Nouns have prefixes that show agreement with a possessor. Agreement markers from class II are used on a lexically specified closed class of nouns, which includes many (but not all) of the kinship terms and body parts. This is the class that is generally labeled inalienable.

Nouns that are not lexically specified for II agreement use the III agreement markers:

Although systems of this type are generally described with the terms alienable and inalienable, this terminology is not particularly appropriate for Choctaw, since alienability implies a semantic distinction between types of nouns. The morphological distinction between nouns taking II agreement and III agreement in Choctaw only partly coincides with the semantic notion of alienability.

Choctaw nouns can be followed by various determiner and case-marking suffixes, as in the following examples, where we see

determiners such as /-ma/ 'that', /-pa/ 'this', and /-akoo/ 'contrast' and case-markers /-(y)at/ 'nominative' and /-(y)a̱/ 'accusative':

The last example shows that nasalizing the last vowel of the preceding N is a common way to show the accusative case.

Word order and case marking

The simplest sentences in Choctaw consist of a verb and a tense marker, as in the following examples:

As these examples show, there are no obligatory noun phrases in a Choctaw sentence, nor is there any verbal agreement that indicates a third person subject or object. There is no indication of grammatical gender, and for third person arguments there is no indication of number. (There are, however, some verbs with suppletive forms that indicate the number of a subject or object, e.g. iyah 'to go (sg.)', ittiyaachih 'to go (du.)', and ilhkolih 'to go (pl)'.)

When there is an overt subject, it is obligatorily marked with the nominative case /-at/. Subjects precede the verb

When there is an overt object, it is optionally marked with the accusative case /-a̱/

The Choctaw sentence is normally verb-final, and so the head of the sentence is last.

Some other phrases in Choctaw also have their head at the end. Possessors precede the possessed noun in the Noun Phrase:

Choctaw has postpositional phrases with the postposition after its object:

Vocabulary

Some common Choctaw phrases (written in the "Modern" orthography):

Choctaw: Chahta

hi: Halito!

See you later!: Chi pisa la chike!

number: holhtina/holhtini

Thank you: Yakóki

What is your name?: Chi hohchifo yat nanta?

My name is...: Sa hohchifo yat...

yes: a̱

no: kíyo

okay: ohmi

I don't understand.: Ak akostiníncho.

I don't know.: Ak ikháno.

Do you speak Choctaw?: Chahta imanompa ish anompola hinla ho̱?

What is that?: Yammat nanta?

Other Choctaw words:

Cherokee: Chalaki

Chickasaw: Chickashsha

Seminole: Siminóli

Creek/Muskogee: Maskóki

today: himak nittak

tonight: himak ninak

tomorrow: onnakma

yesterday: piláshásh