Seri language

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Seri
Cmiique Iitom 
Pronunciation: IPA: [kw̃ĩkˈiːtom]
Spoken in: Sonora, Mexico
Total speakers: ~800
Language family: Language isolate
Language codes
ISO 639-1: none
ISO 639-2: nai
ISO/FDIS 639-3: sei
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. See IPA chart for English for an English-​based pronunciation key.

Seri is a language isolate spoken by the Seri people in two villages on the coast of Sonora, Mexico.

Contents

[edit] Classification

The term "Serian family" may be used to refer to a language family with Seri as its only member. Attempts have been made to link it to the Yuman family, to the now-extinct Salinan language of California, and to the much larger hypothetical Hokan family. These hypotheses came out of a period when attempts were being made to group all of the languages of the Americas into families. In the case of Seri, however, very little evidence has ever been produced. Until such evidence is presented and evaluated, the language is most appropriately considered an isolate.

[edit] Phonology

[edit] Vowels

Front Back
High i, iː o, oː
Low ɛ, ɛː ɑ, ɑː

Vowel length is contrastive only in stressed syllables. The low front vowels /ɛ, ɛː/ are phonetically low-mid, and have also been transcribed as /æ æː/.

The non-rounded vowels /i ɛ ɑ/ are realized as diphthongs [iŭ ɛŏ ɑŏ] when followed by the rounded consonants /kʷ xʷ χʷ/.

[edit] Consonants

Bilabial Dental Alveolar Postalveolar
/ Palatal		 Velar Uvular Glottal
Central Lateral Plain Rounded Plain Rounded
Stop p t k kʷ ʔ
Nasal m n
Fricative ɸ s ɬ ʃ x xʷ χ χʷ
Flap (ɾ)
Approximant (l) j

/ɾ/ occurs only in loanwords. /l/ occurs in loanwords and in a few native words, where it may alternate with /ɬ/ depending on the word and the individual speaker. Other consonants may occur in recent loans, such as [ɡ] in hamiigo "friend" (from Spanish amigo), and [β] in hoova "grape" (from Spanish uva).

The labial fricative /ɸ/ may be labiodental [f] for some speakers, and the postalveolar fricative /ʃ/ may be retroflex [ʂ].

In unstressed syllables, /m/ assimilates to the place of articulation of the following consonant. This assimilation may take place over word boundaries in connected speech. When /m/ is preceded by /k/ or /kʷ/, it becomes a nasalized approximant [w̃] and the following vowel becomes nasalized, e.g. cmiique /kmiːkɛ/ "person; Seri" is pronounced [ˈkw̃ĩːkːɛ] or [ˈkw̃ĩːkːi]. For some speakers, word-final /m/ may become [ŋ] at the end of a phrase or sentence, or when said in isolation.

[edit] Phonotactics

Seri generally allows up to three consonants to occur together at the beginning or end of a syllable. It is like English in this respect, which allows three-consonant combinations like spray and acts. Unlike English, however, the specific combinations which may occur are much less restricted. For example, English allows spr- but disallows *ptk-, which Seri does allow, as in ptcamn, "Cortez spiny lobster".

Rarely, clusters of four consonants can occur, e.g. /kʷsχt/ in cösxtamt, "there will be many..."; /mxkχ/ in ipoomjcx "if he brings it..."

[edit] Stress

Stress in contrastive in Seri. Although it usually falls on the first syllable of a root, there are many words where it does not. These are mostly nouns, as well as a small class of common verbs whose stress may fall on a prefix rather than on the root. An alternative analysis, recently proposed and with fewer exceptions, assigns stress to the penultimate syllable of the root of a word (since suffixes are never stressed and prefixes receive stress only as a result of phonological fusion with the root). This rule is also sensitive to syllable weight. A heavy final syllable in the root attracts stress. A heavy syllable is one that has a long vowel or vowel cluster or a final consonant cluster. (A single consonant in the syllable coda is typically counted as extrametrical in Seri.)

Consonants following a stressed syllable are lengthened, and vowels separated from a preceding stressed vowel by a single consonant are also lengthened, so that e.g. cootaj /ˈkoːtɑx/ "ant" is pronounced [ˈkoːtːɑːx]. Such allophonically lengthened vowels may be longer than the phonemically long vowels found in stressed syllables. This lengthening does not occur if the following consonant or vowel is part of a suffix (e.g. coo-taj, the plural of coo "shovelnose guitarfish", is [ˈkoːtɑx], without lengthening) if the stressed syllable consists of a long vowel and a short vowel (caaijoj, a fabulous kind of manta ray, is [ˈkɑːixox], without lengthening), or if the stressed vowel is lengthened to indicate intensity. It also doesn't affect most loanwords.

[edit] Morphology

Verbs, nouns and pospositions are inflected word categories in Seri.

[edit] Nouns

Nouns inflect for plurality, through suffixation. Kinship terms and body part nouns inflect for possessors through prefixes (with slightly different prefix sets). As they are obligatorily possessed nouns, an special prefix appears when no possessor is specified.

[edit] Verbs

Finite verbs obligatorily inflect for number of the subject, person of the subject, direct object and indirect object and tense/mood. They may also be negative and/or passive. A transitive verb may be detransitivized through a morphological operation, and causative verbs may be formed morphologically.

[edit] Postpositions

The postpositions of Seri inflect for the person of their complement: hiti 'on me', miti 'on you', iti 'on her/him/it'. Some of them have suppletive stems to indicate a plural complement.

[edit] Grammar

The Seri language is a head-final language. The verb typically occurs at the end of a clause (after the subject and direct object, in that order), and main clauses typically follow dependent clauses. The possessor precedes the possessum. The language does not have many true adjectives; adjective-like verbs follow the head noun in the same kind of construction and with the same kind of morphology as verbs in the language. The words that correspond to prepositions in languages like English are usually constrained to appear before the verb; in noun phrases they appear following their complement.

[edit] Articles

Seri has several articles (equivalent to English a and the), which follow the noun, rather than precede it as in English.

The singular indefinite article (a, an) is zo before consonants, and z before vowels. (It presumably is historically related to the word for 'one', which is tazo.) The plural indefinite article (roughly equivalent to some) is pac.

Cototaj zo hant z iti poop...
boojum tree a place a in if there is
If there is a boojum tree in a place...
Comcaac pac yoozcam.
Seris some came.
Some Seris arrived.

There are several different definite articles (the), depending on the position and movement of the object:

  • Quij (singular) and coxalca (plural) are used with seated objects.
  • Cap/cop (sg.) and coyolca (pl.) are used with standing objects. Cap and cop are dialectal variants.
  • Com (sg.) and coitoj (pl.) are used with objects lying down.
  • Hipmoca (sg.) and hizmocat (pl.) are used with close, approaching objects.
  • Hipintica (sg.) and hipinticat (pl.) are used with close objects going away.
  • Timoca (sg.) and tamocat (pl.) is used with distant, approaching objects.
  • Tintica (sg.), tanticat (pl.), himintica (sg.), and himinticat (pl.) are used with distant objects going away.
  • Hac (sg. & pl.) are used with locations and verbal nouns. Hac is pronounced [ʔɑk] after vowels and [ɑk] after consonants.
  • Quih (sg.) and coi (pl.) are unspecified. Quih is pronounced [kiʔ] before consonants, [kʔ] before vowels, and [k] at the end of an utterance.

These articles are derived historically from nominalized forms (as appear in relative clauses in Seri) of verbs: quiij 'that which sits', caap 'that which stands', coom 'that which lies', quiih 'that (especially soft item like cloth) which is located', moca 'that which comes', contica 'that which goes', and caahca (root -ahca) 'that which is located'.

[edit] Vocabulary

Seri has a small number of loanwords, most ultimately from Spanish, but via other languages such as O'odham.

Many ideas are expressed not with single words, but with fixed expressions consisting of several words. For example, "compass" is ziix hant iic iihca quiya (literally, "thing that knows where places are"), and "radio" is ziix haa tiij coos (literally, "thing that sitting there sings").

[edit] Writing system

Seri is written in the Latin alphabet.

A a C c Cö cö E e F f H h I i J j Jö jö L l M m
/ɑ/ /k/ /kʷ/ /ɛ/ /ɸ/ /ʔ/ /i/ /x/ /xʷ/ /ɬ/ /m/
N n O o P p Qu qu R r S s T t X x Xö xö Y y Z z
/n/ /o/ /p/ /k/ /ɾ/ /s/ /t/ /χ/ /χʷ/ /j/ /ʃ/

Qu represents /k/ before the vowels e and i, while c is used elsewhere, as in Spanish. Long vowels are indicated by doubling the vowel letter. The voiced lateral /l/ is indicated by placing an underline under l, i.e. Ḻ ḻ. Stress is generally not indicated, but can be marked by placing an acute accent (´) over the stressed vowel.

The letters B, D, G, Gü, and V occur in some loanwords.

The Seri alphabet was developed in the 1950s by Edward W. and Mary B. Moser, and later revised by Stephen Marlett. In particular:

  • The rounded velar stop [kʷ] was written both cu and cö, but is now only written cö.
  • The diphthongs [aŏ iŭ eŏ] were written ao iu eo, but are now considered to be allophones occurring before rounded consonants, e.g. Tahéojc → Tahejöc.
  • The velar nasal [ŋ] was written ng, but is now considered an allophone of /m/ and written m, e.g. congcáac → comcaac.
  • Nasalized vowels were marked with an underline, but are now considered allophones occurring after /km/, e.g. cuá̱am → cmaam.
  • Lengthening of vowels and consonants that follow a stressed syllable were written double, but are now considered allophonic, e.g. hóoppaatj → hóopatj. Long vowels and consonants in other situations are still written double.
  • Word boundaries sometimes changed, with clitics being often originally written solid with the adjacent words, but now written separately.

[edit] Trivia

The Seri word for shark, which is hacat, was chosen by ichthyologist Juan Carlos Pérez Jiménez to name a newly discovered species of smooth-hound shark in the Gulf of California, Mustelus hacat.

[edit] References

  • Campbell, Lyle (1997). American Indian languages: the historical linguistics of Native America. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Marlett, Stephen A. (1981). The Structure of Seri, Unpublished Ph.D. thesis. University of California, San Diego.
  • Marlett, Stephen A. (July 1988). "The Syllable Structure of Seri". International Journal of American Linguistics 54 (3): 245–278.
  • Marlett, Stephen A. (1994). "One Less Crazy Rule". Work Papers of the Summer Institute of Linguistics, University of North Dakota Session 38: 57–58.
  • Marlett, Stephen A. (2002). "Reanalysis of Passive and Negative Prefixes in Seri". Linguistic Discovery 1 (1).
  • Marlett, Stephen A. (2006). "El acento, la extrametricalidad y la palabra mínima en seri". Encuentro de Lenguas Indígenas Americanas, Santa Rosa, La Pampa, Argentina.
  • Marlett, Stephen A. (2006). “La situación sociolingüística de la lengua seri en 2006”, Stephen A. Marlett, ed.: Situaciones sociolingüísticas de lenguas amerindias. Lima: SIL International y Universidad Ricardo Palma. [1]

[edit] External links

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