St’át'imcets intonation contours: a preliminary study

Acoustic research on the prosody and intonation of Northwest Coast languages has until recently been under-researched. This paper joins the growing body of research on the subject and reports on the results of the first study of intonation in St’át'imcets (Lillooet Salish; Northern Interior Salish). It tests the generalization proposed by Davis (2007) that information structure is not correlated with prosody in Salish languages by comparing the intonation contours of declaratives and yes/no questions. Specifically, I ask two questions: is nuclear accent rightmost? And are yes/no questions associated with higher pitch, as predicted by the Universality of Intonational Meaning? Results are comparable to those reported for other Salish languages, namely Koch (2008, 2011) on Nɬeʔkepmxcín, Jacobs (2007) on Skwxwú7mesh and Benner (2004, 2006) and Leonard (2011) on SENĆOŦEN. Nuclear accent is associated with the rightmost stressed vowel, regardless of focus, and while no speaker signals yes/no questions with a final rise, each has higher pitch within typologically common parameters.

Oblique marked relatives in Southern Interior Salish: Implications for the movement analysis

This article examines relativization strategies in Southern Interior Salish, and focuses specifically on an analytical problem introduced by a subset of Okanagan relative clauses which are introduced by the oblique marker t. I first show that Okanagan relative clauses, like those in Northern Interior Salish languages, are formed by movement of a clause-internal DP or PP to the left-periphery of the relative clause CP. As such, the particles which introduce an Okanagan relative clause code the relation of a clause-internal gap to the relative clause predicate. For some relatives introduced by the oblique marker t, however, the oblique marker does not code this relation, and so by hypothesis cannot have undergone movement. These problematic cases can be explained if clause-internal movement in Southern Interior Salish targets a higher structural position than in Northern Interior Salish. This analysis also potentially explains the DP-internal “prepositions” characteristic of Southern Interior Salish.

An Exemplar Dynamic Approach to Language Shift

This squib presents an exploration of how Exemplar Dynamics (Hintzman 1986; Goldinger 1996; Pierrehumbert 2001) can be used to model the increased phonetic variability observed in language shift situations. It is based on a study of laryngealized resonants, as pronounced by three fluent speakers of St’át’imcets, a Northern Interior Salish language of British Columbia.

From complex to simple: balsamroot, inulin, and the chemistry of traditional Interior Salish pit-cooking technologyThis paper was submitted for the Special Issue on Ethnobotany, inspired by the Ethnobotany Symposium organized by Alain Cuerrier, Montréal Botanical Garden, and held in Montréal at the 2006 annual meeting of the Canadian Botanical Association/l’Association Botanique du Canada.

This paper presents the results of an experiment replicating traditional Interior Salish pit-cooking methods to process balsamroot ( Balsamorhiza sagittata (Pursh) Nutt.), a former food staple that contains the complex carbohydrate inulin. Analysis of fresh and cooked balsamroot samples reveals that with sufficient heat, moisture, and the release of volatile organic acids, inulin is hydrolyzed during pit cooking. This process converts complex carbohydrates into simple ones, resulting in an increase of 250% in the energy provided by simple sugars. When the average energy contributions of protein, simple and complex carbohydrates are tallied, the net result is an energy gain of approximately 65% between fresh and pit-cooked balsamroot. This research demonstrates the effectiveness of ancient pit-cooking practices in transforming unpalatable and inedible root resources into sweet-tasting, highly digestible sources of carbohydrate energy and supports my assertion that this processing technology was a key component of the wild plant food production systems of Interior Salish Peoples.

Evidentials as epistemic modals: Evidence from St'át'imcets

This paper argues that evidential clitics in St’át’imcets (a.k.a. Lillooet; Northern Interior Salish) must be analyzed as epistemic modals.We apply a range of tests which distinguish the modal analysis from the main alternative contender (an illocutionary operator analysis, as in Faller 2002), and show that the St’át’imcets evidentials obey the predictions of a modal analysis. Our results support the growing body of evidence that the functions of encoding information source and epistemic modality are not necessarily distinct. The St’át’imcets data further provide a novel argument against the claim that evidentiality and epistemic modality are separate categories. Many authors argue that evidentials differ from modals in that the former do not encode speaker certainty (see, e.g., de Haan 1999; Aikhenvald 2004).We argue that modals are also not required to encode speaker certainty; we provide evidence from St’át’imcets that marking quantificational strength is not an intrinsic property of modal elements.

Unpacking the Okanagan Person-Marking Conundrum

Okanagan, a Southern Interior Salish language spoken in northern Washington state and southern British Columbia, exhibits a peculiar set of pronominal morphemes that surely are a testament to a diverse and varied history. From the outside, the pronominal markers associated with Okanagan clauses appear to be a disparate group of morphemes. A lack of formal similarity frustrates attempts to characterize them as either nominative-accusative or ergative-absolutive. Morphologically the pronominal forms appear to be the typologically rare tripartite system. Yet, speakers have little trouble using the different markers in their appropriate contexts. In what follows, I will propose an analysis of how the person marking in the language has come to have such an interesting shape. I will offer internal and external motivations that the system responded to as it evolved into its current form.

Spokane

Spokane and Kalispel (NpoqÉ ånišcn, Qalispé), both located in eastern Washington State, and Montana Salish (Flathead), are nearly identical dialects of an Interior Salish language now spoken by only a handful of elders. Grammatical sketches are available for Spokane (Carlson 1972) and Kalispel (Vogt 1940). There is no modern grammar of Montana Salish; Black (1996) uses both Spokane and Montana Salish material in her doctoral dissertation. Thompson (1973) and Czaykowska-Higgins & Kinkade (1998) provide general Salish research summaries.