User:Sdeneher/sandbox

Note: Underlined text indicates my own, the rest comes from the existing Wikipedia page

Onondaga Nation Language (Onoñdaʼgegáʼ nigaweñoʼdeñʼ,, literally "Onondaga is our language") is the language of the Onondaga First Nation, one of the original five constituent tribes of the League of the Iroquois (Haudenosaunee). Onondaga is a Iroquoian language, specifically of the Five Nations-Susquehannock branch.

This language is spoken in the United States and Canada, primarily on the reservation in central New York state, and near Brantford, Ontario.

History
It is believed that some of the history of the Onondaga people in recent centuries has had an impact on certain features of the language. After their villages along Onondaga Creek were were destroyed during the Revolutionary War, the Onondaga moved to Buffalo Creek, where there were already villages of Seneca and Cayuga people. They left behind approximately 100 native speakers of Onondaga. It is argued that it was this point that Onondaga acquired certain feature relating to the loss of the phoneme r, a feature which is shared the Seneca and Cayuga languages also lack.

In 1784, the Onondaga who settled in Buffalo Creek were granted land along the Grand River in Canada, and moved there, which prompted the creation of the Six Nations Reserve. Since the separation which occurred in 1778, after the Revolutionary War, speakers of Onondaga in the Six Nations Reserve and in Onondaga Nation have developed slightly different dialects.

Usage and revitalization
Onondaga is a Moribund language, with an extinction status of 8a, as classified by Ethnologoue. This means that "the only remaining active uses of the language are members of the grandparent generation and older". Currently, there are approximately 40 speakers of Onondaga. Two different dialects of Onondaga are spoken in the two locations mentioned above, Onondaga Nation and Six Nations of the Grand River First Nations Reserve. At Onondaga Nation, it is estimated that there are less than 12 native speakers of Onondaga, but language classes have been set up within the community to promote the maintenance of Onondaga.

The Onondaga Nation Language Center (called Neʼ Eñhadiweñnayeñdeʼnhaʼ, or "they will get to know the language") has been engaged in language revitalization efforts since 2010. Children learn the Onondaga language at Onondaga Nation School, and classes are also available for adults. In September 2015, it was announced that fifteen adults would enter a full-time language immersion class in Onondaga, after which they would become teachers of the language.

Phonology
This table shows the consonant phonemes that are found in Onondaga.

The two plosives,, are allophonically voiced to  and  before vowels and resonants (the bottom row of the chart labelled 'sonorant') and are spelled $\langled\rangle$ and $\langleg\rangle$ in this case. Depending on the environment the phoneme /s/ occurs as the palatoalveolar affricate [dj], as postalveolar fricative [ʃ], or as [s]. There is considerable palatalization and affrication in the language.

Onondaga has five oral vowels, ( is sometimes represented orthographically as $\langleä\rangle$), and two nasal vowels,  and. The nasal vowels, following the Iroquoianist tradition, are spelled with ogoneks in the scholarly literature and in Ontario ($\langleę\rangle$ and $\langleǫ\rangle$ or $\langleų\rangle$). In New York, they are represented with a following $\langleñ\rangle$ ($\langleeñ\rangle$ and $\langleoñ\rangle$). Vowels can be both short and long. When vowel length derives from the now lost consonant *r, it is phonemic. Vowel length is written with a following colon, $\langle꞉\rangle$ or raised dot (half colon) $\langleꞏ\rangle$.

Distribution of Phonemes
All of the vowel phonemes both occur word-initially and word-finally, with the phoneme /æ/ the only exception. The two internally complex consonant phonemes /ts/ and /kw/ never appear word-initially or word-finally. The resonant /y/ never appears word-initially or word-finally. The laryngeal obstruent /ʔ/ appears word-finally but not word-initially, and the resonants /w/ and /n/ occur word-finally but not word-initially.

Stress
There are three patterns which dictate where a word's main stress lies. This location of this stress is influenced by the location of the word in a sentence.

The three patterns are as follows; i) utterance-final intonation, ii) phrase-final intonation, and iii) word-level intonation.

Utterance-final intonation is denoted by penultimate main stress, as is phrase-final intonation, but phrase-final intonation is not followed by a pitch reset with the next utterance. Word-level intonation is marked by the main stress falling on the final syllable of a word, followed by another word with no pause.

Syllable Structure
In Onondaga, main stress is distributed by position of the syllable in the word. The distribution of syllables receiving secondary stress depends on a classification of syllables in terms of the rhythmic stress, which means that syllable-weight is used as a identifier when describing syllable structure in Onondaga. Heavy syllables attract secondary stress.

(The dot here signifies a longer vowel).

There is further sorting of syllables into open and closed syllables, as shown in the table below. An open syllable is one that is followed by a) a single, non-laryngeal consonant i.e (C)C.CV, or b) a consonant cluster consisting of either an oral obstruent followed by a resonant i.e. (C)V.CR or of two resonants i.e. (C)V.RR.

A closed syllable consists of either a single laryngeal consonant, i.e. (C)VL.V, or two or more obstruents, i.e. (C)VC.C.

Morphology
Onondaga is a polysynthetic language, exhibiting a great deal of inflectional and derivational morphology on the verbal forms (including noun incorporation). It is non-configurational. Nominal forms have less morphology. Additionally, there are particles, which are monomorphemic.

In Onondaga, three parts of speech can be identified using their internal structures: nouns, verbs, and particles. Nouns and verbs are morphologically complex whereas particles lack internal structure.

Every Onondaga verb or noun is composed of one or more lexical elements surrounded by various classes or affixes, which must occur in specific positions in relation to the lexical elements and in relation to one another. The position classes differ depending on whether the word is a verb or a noun.

Clitics are the final part of speech present in Onondaga. Clitics have a diverse set of meanings, and their attachment is not specific to a particular lexical class. They attach to fully inflected words.

Verbal morphology
The verb is the nucleus of Onondaga, and is the most morphologically complex element of the language, capable of standing alone as complete clause syntactically.

Onondaga verbs can be divided into three main classes according to their aspectual properties (discussed below). These are the active verbs, motion verbs, and stative verbs. We must distinguish between tense and aspect. Tense refers to when the event takes place, either in the past, the present or the future. Aspect refers to the event itself, such as whether it is finished or ongoing or occurs repeatedly.

There are four aspects in Onondaga. The first is the habitual aspect (HAB). This aspect is used to refer to an event that takes place repeatedly or on an ongoing basis. The second is the punctual aspect (PUNC) (also known as perfective aspect). This aspect refers to an entire event in its completeness. When used in the past tense, the event is described as "over and done-with." It cannot describe an event that is interrupted or incomplete. The third aspect is the stative (STAT) (also known as imperfective) refers to an event that is ongoing or incomplete or, if it occurs in the past tense, that has some bearing on the present. Finally, there is the purposive aspect (PURP), which refers to imminent action and usually implies intent or volition on the part of the subject. Active verbs can appear with any of the first three aspects. Motion verbs can appear with any of all four aspects. Stative verbs can only appear with the stative aspect.

Verbal template
A typical Onondaga verb consists of several morphemes (components). The following chart outlines the order of the morphemes. Obligatory morphemes appear in boldface, and optional morphemes are in standard font. Note that some of the "optional" morphemes are obligatory with certain verb roots. The obligatory morphemes, however, must appear on each and every single verb. Each of the following sections outlines the shapes that these morphemes can take.

(I have not included the "following sections" referenced here as I did not have anything to add or modify.)

(I intend to include the section on the imperative after the sections which detail the various additions to the basic noun form)

The imperative
Although not usually considered an aspect category, in Onondaga, as well as in other Iroquoian languages, the imperative also appears in the aspect position. In its simplest form, the imperative takes the imperative suffix and agent pronominal prefixes. s-e̜niˑhe̜-h'

2SG.IMP-stop-IMP

stop!

Nominal Morphology
A basic noun is composed of the following three morphemes in this order: noun prefix, root, and noun suffix.

According to Woodbury (2003), nouns in Onondaga are categorized into two main classes. These are non-human and human. The inanimate nouns are further divided into natural and man-made. The prefix (NPRE) on the noun depends on these classes. For inanimate nouns, the prefix is either /o-/ for natural objects or /ka-/ for man-made objects. The noun forming suffix also depends on the noun class. It is /aʔ/ for non-human nouns and /-h/ for human nouns.

Noun incorporation
Noun incorporation is a process of compounding in which two stems, a noun and a verb stem, are combined into a new stem that is inflected with verbal morphology and that functions as a verb. Nouns occupying the semantic roles or thematic relations, of patient, theme, factitive theme, location, goal, path, or instrument are eligible for incorporation. Of these, it is nouns designating semantic patients and themes that are most frequently incorporated. Semantic agents, causers, and beneficiaries are not eligible for incorporation.

The first example shows that the nominal root -nęh- "corn" has been incorporated into the verbal complex forming a single word. The second example shows the noun /onęhaʔ/ ('corn') as a separate word and preceded by the particle neʔ, a particle which marks a following word or phrase as a nominal.


 * waʔhanęhayę́thwaʔ
 * waʔ-ha-nęh-yęthw-aʔ
 * factual.mode-he-corn-plant-punctual.aspect
 * 'he planted corn' [literally, 'he corn-planted'].


 * waʔhayę́thwaʔ neʔ onę́haʔ
 * waʔ-ha-yęthw-aʔ neʔ o-nęh-aʔ
 * factual.mode-he-plant-punctual.aspect nominal.particle it-corn-noun.suffix
 * 'he planted (the) corn'

Noun incorporation is a highly productive process in Onondaga. However, its productivity is an attribute of individual nouns and verbs. Every noun and every verb is lexically marked in terms of its incorporation characteristics. Some nouns incorporate frequently, that is, they can combine with many different verbs, others almost never. Among the verbs that can incorporate—and some do not incorporate at all—there is a continuum of productivity. At their most productive, verbs can incorporate one of any number of nouns, in fact, some verbs can only occur together with an incorporated noun. Verbs at their most unproductive can incorporate only a single noun. Between these extremes are additional types: verbs that can incorporate only a restricted set of nouns; verb and noun combinations that are highly idiomatic—these often denote conventionalized activities (e.g., English 'he information-gathered)—so that separating the noun, though interpretable, is perceived as inappropriate.

The use of noun incorporation is governed by various discourse factors. It is often used as a way of backgrounding information.

The noun prefix
Nouns whose referents are non-animate entities are prefixed with noun prefixes that are formally identical to the verbal singular or patient pronominal prefixes, but function in this context to mark the stem as a noun. This is the basic noun prefix.

(These examples are all from my original draft, I just can't underline in the template)

o-ne̜h-aʔ

NPF-bucket-NSF

bucket

To mark a noun for possession, a pronominal prefix from the agent or patient series of verbal pronominal prefixes referencing the possessor is used.

The noun suffix
The simple noun suffix is used to indicate a noun. It can sometimes be replaced by the internal locative suffix, which derives a location expression from a simple noun.

ga-hesgaR-aʔ

NPF-arrow-NSF

arrow

ga-Rihse̜ˑhd-agu̜wa

NPF-dream-LOC

in a dream

Particles
Particles are a closed class, and are by definition monomorphemic, meaning they cannot be analyzed as having smaller constituents. As a class, particles are prolific in Onondaga, with approximately 185 particles, divided into four categories: (i) pro-forms, (ii) adverbials, (iii) particles with grammatical functions, and (iv) particles with discourse-pragmatic functions.

The most important of these are pro-forms, which are words or affixes that substitute for nouns, and are either independent words or bound morphemes. Personal pronouns can occur in both forms. Independently occurring pro-forms are the personal pronouns, interrogative particles, indefinite particles, and demonstrative particles.

Cliticization
Clitics are a small group of affixes which attach to the right of fully inflected words, and are not specific to any lexical class, as noted above. There are nine clitics in Onondaga, with numerous functions.

Word order
Word order is typically free in Onondaga (though see question formation below). It depends on various discourse factors.

This relatively simple organization at the syntactic level is a reflection of the verb's abundant and complex morphological patterning. Much of what is accomplished by the rules of syntax in other languages takes place at the morphological level in Onondaga. Whereas in languages like English the arguments of verbs are realized by separate words, in Onondaga arguments are referenced morphologically by obligatory pronominal prefixes within the verb and separate words simply add additional information.

Therefore, in Onondaga, discourse is analyzed in terms of intonationally defined units involving accent placement, pitch contours, pauses, and various phonological markers.

Included below are some examples of sentences in which the verb acts as a clause. These examples illustrate the way in which the basic word order of Onondaga is not fixed, but is in fact extremely fluid.

(One of the notes on my second draft asked me to try and include an additional line in my interlinear gloss, however, I was unable to make this work using the interlinear gloss template, so i choose to omit in favour of keeping the template)

(These examples all from my original draft, I just can't underline in the template)Sahahde̜yáʔ neʔ Shohéˑyis

REP-FACT-3M.SGA-move.on-PNC NOM NAME

Shoheyis returned home

ne̜gé̜ neʔ he̜wéh waʔshaˑgóˑyoʔ neʔ héˑnaʔ

DEM NOM 3M.SG.A-man:SUFF FACT-3M.SG>3-kill-PNC NOM NOUN

This man killed his wife

Ge̜dyohgówane̜ oné̜ hu̜wanaʔwé̜thwih

3N/K.SG.A-crowd-be.large-STV TMP 3>3M.PL-slaughter-STV

The have slaughtered a lot of people by now

Question formation
Wh-questions begin with the interrogative word:


 * gaę nų́ tganųhsáꞏyęʔ
 * gaę nų́ t-ga-nųhs-yę-ʔ
 * where place here-it-house-be.lying-stative.aspect
 * "Where is the house?"


 * wadę́ʔ nihsaꞏdyéꞏhaʔ
 * wadę́ʔ ni-hs-adyéꞏ-haʔ
 * what thus-you-do-habitual.aspect
 * "What are you doing?"

Yes-no questions are formed by appending the question-particle to the questioned item:


 * Sędáʔwih khę́h.
 * sa-idáʔw-ih khę́h.
 * you-be.asleep-stative.aspect question.particle
 * "Are you asleep?"