Saanich

SAANICH (Southeastern tip of Vancouver Island; Salishan, Straits)	For more information about metathesis in this language, click on the following links:
Summary: a. The ACTUAL (a kind of imperfective) is formed by metathesizing the second root consonant and a following vowel. b. Metathesis occurs when the vowel of a CVC root is a non-schwa and penultimate stress placement would otherwise cause stress to fall on a following /E/-initial suffix.	Examples Conditions Motivation Related processes Comments References

Examples:
(See Comments for key to special characters used.)

a. When the root is CC, and it is followed by a suffix beginning with a vowel, such as /Et/ 'control transitive' or /EN/ 'control middle', the ACTUAL is formed by metathesis.

root
sq'	sq'E't	'tear it'	sE'q't	'tearing it'
t's	t'sE't	'break it'	t'E'st	'breaking it'

b.When the underlying form of a root is CCVC, the ACTUAL form appears as CVCC as the result of metathesis.

TLE'K 'pinch' TE'LK 'pinching'

c. Metathesis occurs when the vowel of a CVC root is a non-schwa and penultimate stress placement would otherwise cause stress to fall on a following /E/-initial suffix.

ma'CEt 'aim it' mECa'tEN 'it was aimed'

Ke'sEt 'scald it' Kse'tEs 'he scaled it'

Conditions:

No information currently available.

Motivation:

No information currently available.

Related processes:

a. The ACTUAL is formed by reduplication of the first consonant of a CVC root when stress is on the root and the root either stands alone as a stem by itself or is followed by a suffix begining with a consonant. The copy of C1 appears after the stressed vowel and is followed by a schwa.

root
qwEl'	qwE'l'	'say'	qwE'qwEl'	'saying (something)'
LiK	Li'K sEn	'trip (lit. snag-foot)'	Li'LEKsEn	'tripping'

b. The ACTUAL is formed with a glottal stop affixed after the stressed vowel in all stems that do not provide the environment for reduplication or metathesis.

root

?iLEn ?i'LEn 'eat' ?i'?LEn' 'eating'

weqEs we'qEs 'yawn' we'?qEs 'yawning'

Comments:

Special Symbols:
N = velar nasal
E = mid central vowel ('schwa')
V' = stressed vowel
T = glottalized dental affricate
L = voiceless alveolar lateral fricative
K = glottalized voiceless labio-velar stop
? = glottal stop

Last updated: 9/26/2002

References:

Montler, Timothy R. 1986. An outline of the morphology and phonology of Saanich, North Straits Salish. University of Montana Occasional Papers in Linguistics, No. 4.

Montler, Timothy R. 1989. Infixation, Reduplication, and Metathesis in the Saanich Actual Aspect. Southwest Journal of Linguistics. vol. 9 (1). University of North Texas Press.

Stonham, John. 1990. Current Issues in Morphological Theory. PhD. dissertation. Stanford University.

Thompson, L. C. & M. T. Thompson. 1969. Metathesis as a Grammatical Device. International Journal of American Linguistics, 35:213-219.

Thompson, L. C. & M. T. Thompson. 1969. Clallam: A Preview. In Jesse Sawyer (ed.) Studies in American Indian Languages, University of California Papers in Linguistics 65: 251-294.