The Tonkawa language was spoken in Oklahoma, Texas, and New Mexico by the Tonkawa people. A language isolate, with no known related languages, Tonkawa has not had L1 (first language) speakers since the mid 20th centiury. Most Tonkawa people now only speak English, but revitalization is underway.

Phonology

Vowels

Tonkawa has 10 vowels:

Consonants

Tonkawa has 15 consonants:

Consonant clusters

There are two environments in which consonant clusters occur in Tonkawa: Repeated or identical consonants are treated as one unit. However, the condition that causes this repetition has not been fully analyzed. There are cases where the glottal stop is not used in the cluster or combination There are certain consonants that can either begin or end in a cluster. However, if the cluster begins the syllable, there can be no intervening vowel.

Phonological processes and morphophonemics

Initial stem syllables that begin with h- Final stem syllables An interesting feature of Tonkawan phonology is that the vowels in even-numbered syllables are reduced. That is, long vowels are shortened, while short vowels disappear. Analyses of this were given by Kisseberth (1970), Phelps (1973, 1975) and Noske (1993).

Syllable structure

The Tonkawa language is a syllabic language that bases its word and sentence prosody on even stressed syllables. There are five types of syllable arrangements: (CL consonant, CC: consonant cluster, V: vowel)

Writing system

The orthography used on the Tonkawa Tribe's website is based on Americanist phonetic notation. Long vowels are indicated with a following middle dot ⟨·⟩. The affricate is written ⟨c⟩. The glottal stop is written as a saltillo ⟨⟩. The palatal glide is written ⟨y⟩. The phonemic orthography used in Hoijer's Tonkawa Texts is in a slightly different version of Americanist transcription. It uses a colon for long vowels ⟨꞉⟩ and the IPA glottal stop letter ⟨ʔ⟩.

Morphology

The morphemes in Tonkawa can be divided as follows: I. Themes In Tonkawa the theme is composed of morphologic units. The basic unit is the stem. The stem is composed of two elements (the consonant and vowel) and modified by affixes. The theme, or stem, is functional, which means it changes as more affixation is added. This leads to the fusion of the stem and affix where it becomes difficult to isolate the word into its smaller units. II. Affixes III. Enclitics

Grammar

In English, pronouns, nouns, verbs, etc., are individual words; Tonkawa forms the parts of speech differently, and the most important grammatical function is affixation. This process shows the subjects, objects, and pronouns of words and/or verbs. Within affixations, the suffix has more importance than the prefix. The differentiation between subject and object is shown in the suffix. While the word order tends to be subject-object-verb (SOV), compounding words is very common in Tonkawa. Reduplication is very common in Tonkawa and affects only the verb themes. Usually, only one syllable undergoes reduplication, and it notes a repeated action, vigorous action, or a plural subject.

Nouns

Nouns function as free themes, or stems, in Tonkawa. There is a limit of only two or three affixes that can compound with a noun. However, there are cases of a bound theme occurring in noun compounds, which occurs with the suffix -an is added. In English, pronouns and nouns are usually grouped together, but because pronouns in Tonkawa are bound themes, they will be discussed with the verb section.

Verbs

Verbs are bound morphemes that have a limit of only two themes, the second theme being the modifying theme and usually serving as an adverbial theme. However, if the suffix -/-wa is added the verb functions as a free theme.

Pronouns

Pronouns are not used except for emphasis on the subject and are affixated as prefixes. Person and number are usually indicated by the affixation of the verb. Most pronouns are bound themes, especially the demonstrative pronouns.

Demonstrative pronouns

Demonstrative adverbs can be formed by adding -ca 'place', -l 'direction', -c 'manner' to the demonstrative pronouns below. Interrogative pronouns can be formed by adding the prefix he- to the demonstrative pronouns as well by using the same format for the demonstrative adverbs. Indefinite pronouns can also be formed with affixation. (Interrogative + ) Also within the verbal-prefix category are the causatives and, where is the older form.

Verb suffixes

Verb suffixes are important in Tonkawa because they usually indicate the tense, negativity, and manner (outside of what is conveyed in the aforementioned prefixes) of the action performed.

Enclitics

Enclitics are bound morphemes that are suffixed to verbs, nouns, and demonstratives that end with -k. Enclitics often express modal concepts in Tonkawa, which occur in the declarative, interrogative, and quotative/narrative clauses or statements.

Lexicon

Vocabulary

Sample text

The following text is the first four sentences of Coyote and Jackrabbit, from Hoijer's Tonkawa Texts. Gloss: In this gloss, S is an abbreviation for "it is said", and afm for "the aforementioned".

Sources