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The Thompson language, also known as Nlaka'pamuctsin or the Nlaka'pamux ('Nthlakampx') language, is an Interior Salishan language spoken in the Fraser Canyon, Thompson Canyon, Nicola Country of the Canadian province of British Columbia, and formerly in the North Cascades region of Whatcom and Chelan counties of the state of Washington in the United States. A dialect distinctive to the Nicola Valley is called Scw'exmx, which is the name of the subgroup of the Nlaka'pamux who live there.

Phonology
Thompson distinguishes. The consonants can be divided into two subgroups: obstruents, which restrict airflow, and sonorants or resonants, which do not. The sonorants are often syllabic consonants, which can form syllables on their own without vowels.

Consonants
Like all Salishan languages, Thompson allows for extensive consonant clusters on the surface level.

Stress
Stress is unpredictable on the phonological level in Thompson. Instead, each root is marked as "strong" or "weak" - that is, taking primary stress or not. Suffixes, meanwhile, can be "strong" or "nonstrong", with the latter divided into "ambivalent" or "weak". Underlyingly strong syllables are marked with an acute accent on the vowel (e.g. <á>), as are syllables that are stressed in the surface realization. The rules for stress assignment are as follows:


 * 1) Prefixes never take primary stress.
 * 2) A suffix is stressed when it is equal or greater in strength to its respective root. A strong suffix, therefore, will take stress from a strong or weak root, and a nonstrong suffix will take stress from a weak root. For example, the desiderative suffix |-mémn| is stressed both with a weak root, as in |√cəw-mémn-| /cu-mémn-/ "want to work", and with a strong root, as in |√tékɬ-mémn-| > /tekɬ-mémn-/ "trying to rain". A nonstrong suffix like |=qin| "head, top", for example, will not take stress from a strong root, as in |ʔes-q’áz=qin| > /ʔes-q’áz-qn/ "slanted on top", but will take stress from a weak root, as in |√wuxwt=qin| > /wuxwt-qín| "snow on top". (For standards of notation, see "Phonological processes" below).
 * 3) An ambivalent suffix, such as |qin| above, will capture stress from a weak root and form a strong stem in further derivation:

Phonological processes
Proper analysis of phonological processes in Thompson requires multiple levels of notation to convey the transition from underlying morphology to speech.

Thompson's extensive consonant clusters generally arise due to pervasive syncope of underlying vowels in unstressed positions, which may be pronounced elsewhere. For example, cúłqsxtxw "you point a gun at him" can be represented underlyingly as /cúł=aqs-xi-t-xw/, with three underlying vowels instead of one.

Morphology and syntax
Researchers working in the Generative tradition have speculated that Salishan languages lack lexical categories such as nouns and verbs. Evidence for such an absence of contrast between parts of speech in Thompson come from a lack of clear morphological markers (e.g. morphemes) that differentiate nouns and verbs. Instead, generative linguists discuss morphology and syntax in Salishan based on a framework of predicates and particles. However, more contemporary work suggests a changing understanding of Salishan grammar. Some Salishanists believe that functional categories are not prescriptive of lexical categories. Work in Functional linguistics suggests that other factors beyond morphological evidence code lexical categories in languages. In Salishan, the distinction would be less overt than in some other languages.

Lexical suffixes
One morphological feature of Thompson is lexical suffixes. These are words that add nuance to predicates and can be affixed to the ends of root words to add their general meaning to that word. Thompson and Thompson assert that as a result of English language influence, speakers are using these more complex predicates less and less in favor of simpler predicates with complements and adjuncts, resulting in “a general decline in the exploitation of the rich synthetic resources of the language.”