{"history":[],"article":{"id":"d48a6fa2-36dc-4e94-9742-1c139bfdb2e7","title":"Tunica language","slug":"tunica-language","content":":::summary\n**Name:** Tunica \n**Nativename:** Luhchi Yoroni \n**States:** [United States](https://bliptext.com/articles/united-states) \n**Region:** Central [Louisiana](https://bliptext.com/articles/louisiana) \n**Extinct:** December 6, 1948 with the death of [Sesostrie Youchigant](https://bliptext.com/articles/sesostrie-youchigant) \n**Revived:** 60 [L2](https://bliptext.com/articles/second-language) speakers (2023) \n**Ref:** e25 \n**Familycolor:** American \n**Family:** [Language isolate](https://bliptext.com/articles/language-isolate) \n**Iso 3:** tun \n**Map:** Tunica lang.png \n**Mapcaption:** Pre-contact distribution of the Tunica language. \n**Notice:** IPA \n**Glotto:** tuni1252 \n**Glottorefname:** Tunica \n**Ethnicity:** [Tunica people](https://bliptext.com/articles/tunica-people) \n:::\n\n# \nThe **[Tunica](https://bliptext.com/articles/tunica-people)** or **Luhchi Yoroni** (or **Tonica**, or less common form **Yuron**) language is a [language isolate](https://bliptext.com/articles/language-isolate) that was spoken in the Central and Lower Mississippi Valley in the [United States](https://bliptext.com/articles/united-states) by [Native American](https://bliptext.com/articles/native-americans-in-the-united-states) **[Tunica](https://bliptext.com/articles/tunica-people)** peoples.\nThere are no native speakers of the Tunica language, but there were 32 [second-language](https://bliptext.com/articles/second-language) speakers in 2017, and, there are 60 [second-language](https://bliptext.com/articles/second-language) speakers.\n[Tunica-Biloxi](https://bliptext.com/articles/tunica-biloxi) tribal member William Ely Johnson worked with Swiss ethnologist [Albert Gatschet](https://bliptext.com/articles/albert-samuel-gatschet) to help him document the language in 1886.\nThis initial documentation was further developed by linguist [John R. Swanton](https://bliptext.com/articles/john-r-swanton) in the early 1900s.\nThe last known native speaker, [Sesostrie Youchigant](https://bliptext.com/articles/sesostrie-youchigant), died in 1948.\nIn the 1930s, linguist [Mary Haas](https://bliptext.com/articles/mary-haas) worked with him to describe what Youchigant remembered of the language, and the description was published in A Grammar of the Tunica Language in 1941.\nThat was followed by Tunica Texts in 1950 and Tunica Dictionary in 1953.\nBy the 17th century, the people had suffered a high rate of fatalities from Eurasian infectious diseases, warfare, and social disruption.\nThe reduced [Tunica tribe](https://bliptext.com/articles/history-of-the-tunica-people) lived close to the [Ofo](https://bliptext.com/articles/mosopelea) and [Avoyelles](https://bliptext.com/articles/avoyel) tribes, in present-day Louisiana.\nThey communicated by [Mobilian Jargon](https://bliptext.com/articles/mobilian-jargon) or [French](https://bliptext.com/articles/french-language).\nThe small population and the use of a jargon made Haas note that the eventual deterioration of the Tunica language was inevitable.\n\n# Classification\nAlthough Tunica is usually classified as a [language isolate](https://bliptext.com/articles/language-isolate), Granberry (1994) suggested that Tunica was related to [Calusa](https://bliptext.com/articles/calusa-language), with [Calusa](https://bliptext.com/articles/calusa-language) possibly being relatively a recent arrival from the [lower Mississippi region](https://bliptext.com/articles/mississippi-alluvial-plain).\nAnother possibility was that similarities between the languages were derived from long-term mutual contact.\n\n# Language revitalization efforts\nIn 2010, the [Tunica-Biloxi](https://bliptext.com/articles/tunica-biloxi) tribe formed the Tunica Language Project in partnership with the Linguistics Program at [Tulane University](https://bliptext.com/articles/tulane-university) in a continuing effort to revitalize the Tunica language.\nTribal members read from a new children's book in Tunica at a 2010 pow wow.\nOnly about half of the tribal members live within 75 miles of the reservation, in [Avoyelles Parish](https://bliptext.com/articles/avoyelles-parish-louisiana).\nThe Tunica-Biloxi Language & Culture Revitalization Program uses webinars to teach the language to those who do not live near the reservation.\n\n# Phonology\nThe phonology of Tunica is as follows.\n\n## Vowels\nTunica has seven [vowels](https://bliptext.com/articles/vowels), all of which are usually short but may be lengthened in [stressed syllables](https://bliptext.com/articles/stressed-syllable), and all of which are voiced completely, except if a /u/ is at the end of a phrase in a word with stress on the second-last syllable, when it is unvoiced after a /k/ or /hk/.\nVowels are paired with a certain [melody](https://bliptext.com/articles/melody) in last or occasionally second-last syllable of a word.\nThe melodies are high, low, rising, falling, and falling-rising.\nVowels may appear only following or preceding [consonants](https://bliptext.com/articles/consonants), never adjacent to one another.\nAlso, /i/, /a/, and /u/ may appear in any position, but the others appear only in syllables with stress.\nVowels do not typically occur at the end of a phrase, and when any vowel precedes n in the same syllable, it becomes [nasalized](https://bliptext.com/articles/nasalized).\n\n## Consonants\nThe [transcription](https://bliptext.com/articles/transcription-linguistics) style (represented in bolded symbols below) is based on Mary Haas' work Tunica Language.\nThe IPA symbols are in brackets next to each consonant.\nThe consonants /p/, /t/, /k/, and /t͡ʃ/ are always fairly [aspirated](https://bliptext.com/articles/aspiration-phonetics) unless they occur before a /ʔ/, when they are completely un[aspirated](https://bliptext.com/articles/aspiration-phonetics).\nMeanwhile, /b/, /d/, and /g/ do not occur frequently, as is the case with /f/.\nThe fricatives /s/ and /š/ are pronounced with a stronger hiss than in English, and /ʔ/ is said to have a very strong closure.\nThe semi-vowels /j/ and /w/ are always [voiced](https://bliptext.com/articles/voiced), as is the [nasal](https://bliptext.com/articles/nasal-stop) /m/.\nOn the other hand, /n/, /l/, and /r/ can be voiced or [voiceless](https://bliptext.com/articles/voiceless).\nThe /l/ and /r/ are voiced between vowels or before /ʔ/ or continuants.\nHowever, they are voiceless before voiceless consonants except /ʔ/ or at the end of a phrase: ši'lka \"blackbird,\" ši'hkal \"stone.\"\nSimilarly, /n/ is voiced between vowels or before /ʔ/ and is voiceless at the end of a phrase or before voiceless consonants except /ʔ/.\n\n## Prosody\nTunica has both stressed and unstressed syllables, and stressed syllables can have a higher [pitch](https://bliptext.com/articles/pitch-music) than other syllables, depending on the position of the syllable in a phrase.\nThe first stressed syllable of a phrase is typically spoken with a slightly higher pitch than the following syllables are.\nThe exception is the last syllable when the high or the falling melody is used or the last syllable during the use of the low or the rising melody.\nThe phrase-final melody then determines much of the stress in the rest of the phrase.\nWhen there is use of the high melody, the last syllable is about a minor third higher pitch than the second-last syllable.\nThe first syllable with stress is usually a major second higher than the following syllables are except for the last.\nAll other syllables may not be spoken with any kind of pitch, and the same goes for other unstressed syllables.\nFor example, ta'čiyak ʔura'pʔikʔahčá \"You will kill the squirrel\" shows the melody.\nta'- is a major second higher than the syllables that follow it except for -ča, which is a minor third higher than any syllable that comes before it other than ta'-.\nThe falling melody causes the last syllable to start at a minor third higher than the second-last syllable: it goes down quickly: ʔa'hkiš ma'rʔikî \"Go back!\"\nThe low melody that occurs as the last syllable is lower than the last stressed syllable, which is a little higher than the syllables that it immediately follows.\nAll unstressed syllables between the last stressed syllable and the last syllable take on the same stress as the latter.\nUnless it is also the last stressed syllable, the first stressed syllable is higher than any following syllable except that last stressed syllable: ʔu'riš ma'rʔuwa'nì \"He went back home, they say.\"\nWhen the rising melody occurs, the last syllable starts lower than the last stressed syllable and goes upward quickly by about a minor third.\nElsewhere in the phrase, the tone is like a low melody: lɔ'ta wiwa'nǎn \"Do you want to run?\"\nThe falling-rising melody is a fast drop by a fourth, followed by a fast rise by a minor third.\nHowever, only one word uses it: hőn \"Yes.\"\n\n## Phonological processes\nEvery syllable in Tunica begins with a single consonant.\nSometimes, double or triple consonants may occur in the middle of words or phrases, but no more than two consonants in a row occur at the end of a phrase.\nThe smallest phonetic group in Tunica is a [phrase](https://bliptext.com/articles/phrase), but a word and a [phrase](https://bliptext.com/articles/phrase) can be differentiated by certain processes.\nThose that affect grammatical elements that merge to form words are vocalic [contraction](https://bliptext.com/articles/contraction-grammar), vocalic [assimilation](https://bliptext.com/articles/assimilation-linguistics), vocalic [syncope](https://bliptext.com/articles/syncope-phonetics), consonantic [syncope](https://bliptext.com/articles/syncope-phonetics), [haplology](https://bliptext.com/articles/haplology), and patterns in stress.\nThose that affect words that combine into phrases are vocalic [apocope](https://bliptext.com/articles/apocope), consonantic [apocope](https://bliptext.com/articles/apocope), [amalgamation](https://bliptext.com/articles/amalgamation-linguistics), and stress losses.\nMore specific information and basic examples are detailed below:\n\n# Morphology\nThe morphology of Tunica is as follows.\n\n## Inflection\nNouns can be divided into the categories of in[determinative](https://bliptext.com/articles/determinative) and [determinative](https://bliptext.com/articles/determinative).\nThe indeterminative nouns have a [stem](https://bliptext.com/articles/word-stem) without any [affixes](https://bliptext.com/articles/affixes), and the determinative nouns are distinguished by the articular [prefix](https://bliptext.com/articles/prefix) or the pronominal [prefix](https://bliptext.com/articles/prefix).\nDeterminative nouns belong are definitive, non-definitive, and locative, which may be distinguished by different prefixes or suffixes.\nThe articular prefix is similar to the definite article in English and appears as ta'- before all stems not beginning with /ʔ/ or /t/.\nThe prefix appears as t- before stems beginning with /ʔ/, and it is omitted by haplology before stems beginning with /t/: te'tiha'yihta \"on the road\"; te'ti \"the road\" < te'ti \"road\"\nAll proper nouns, unless their stems begin with /t/, must begin with the articular prefix.\nFor instance, ta'wišmi'li \"Red River\" is ta'- + wi'š(i)mi'li \"red water\".\nThe pronominal prefixes signify possession when they attached to a noun and preclude the need for articular prefixes with the same stem.\nSome stems, called inalienably-possessed noun stems, cannot be used without a pronominal prefix.\nThey include those of kinship, body parts, and miscellaneous terms.\nKinship terms are those such as -e'si \"father\" or '-gači \"mother.\"\nBody part terms are those such as -e'sini \"head\" or -e'neri \"horns.\"\nFinally, miscellaneous terms can be nouns like -e'htiwa'hkuni \"breechcloth\" or -e'tisa \"name.\"\nGender-number suffixes can be used only in the definitive case of the determinative category so whenever one is used, there must also be a determining prefix attached to the stem.\nBelow is a table showing the gender-number suffixes:\nSometimes, gender-number suffixes are put on an inflected verb form to convert it to a relative clause.\nIt could be that a noun has the appropriate suffix, and the verb of the clause then takes the same one.\nOther times, only the verb takes the suffix.\nExamples of the use of the gender-number suffixes follow:\nFinally, there are three possible [locative](https://bliptext.com/articles/locative) suffixes to put nouns in the [locative](https://bliptext.com/articles/locative) case.\nThe nouns will also have a determining prefix attached.\nGender-number suffixes and locative suffixes are mutually exclusive, but a locative noun may have a number.\nAlso, locative suffixes can take stems and convert them into [adverbs](https://bliptext.com/articles/adverbs) and [postpositions](https://bliptext.com/articles/postpositions).\n-ši is the most commonly used locative suffix, and its meaning is comparable to the English \"in, into\" or \"on, over,\" but in Tunica, it is used as \"at, to.\"\nThat can be seen in the sentence \"He stayed at home,\" which breaks down into ʔu'riš ʔunanì < \"at his house\" ʔu'riš(i) < ʔuhk- + ri- \"house\" + ši.\n-štihki \"toward, in the direction of\" is the second suffix.\nUsually, it is used with the names of directions: ta'sapʔaraštihk \"to the west\" < ta- +sa'pʔara \"west\" + -štihki.\nThe final locative suffix is -hat \"on, onto.\"\nIt is typically used only with ta'hali \"the ground.\"\nIt can be seen in the sentence \"He spat on the ground\" as ta'haltǎn, ču'hʔuhkɛ'nì; ta'halta < ta'- + ha'l(i) \"ground, land\" + -hat.\n\n# Syntax\nThe syntax of Tunica is as follows.\n\n## Sentence parts\nThe possible word classes that are found in Tunica include independent personal [pronouns](https://bliptext.com/articles/pro[nouns](https://bliptext.com/articles/nouns)), [nouns](https://bliptext.com/articles/nouns), interrogative-indefinite [pronouns](https://bliptext.com/articles/pro[nouns](https://bliptext.com/articles/nouns)), quantificatives, [postpositions](https://bliptext.com/articles/postpositions), [adjectives](https://bliptext.com/articles/adjectives), comparatives, adverbs, [auxiliary verbs](https://bliptext.com/articles/auxiliary-verbs), active verbs, static verbs, sentence [connectives](https://bliptext.com/articles/connectives), and exclamatives and imitatives.\nSyntactic elements of a sentence are made up of words, phrases, or clauses acting in one of the following: predicative words, independent subjects, independent objects, subject or object modifiers, predicate modifiers, predicate complements, or sentence connectives.\nThe syntactic elements can all be made into clauses that are either main or subordinate, and subordinate clauses can be dependent, complementary, relative, or adverbial.\nThere are three types of sentences that the Tunica language produces: simple, compound, and complex.\nSimple sentences must contain only one predicative word.\nCompound sentences have two or more main clauses.\nComplex sentences have a main clause and one or more of the different types of subordinate clauses that are mentioned above.\nThe following are brief descriptions of possible syntactic elements of a clause:\nmay be words when used as adjectives, comparatives, adverbs, and locatives and may be phrases and clauses when it is adverbial.\nThere are other special constructions that also take place in certain specific environments.\nFor example, quantificatives and nouns can be in apposition to other nouns that independent subjects or objects: ʔuhkʔo'nisɛ'mǎn, ho't ʔaku'hpanʔuhkɛ'nì \"He assembled all (of) his people, it is said\" < \"he assembled, it is said, his people, all.\"\nAdditionally, a possessive [nexus](https://bliptext.com/articles/nexus) can serve in the same syntactical functions that a noun can.\nFor example, ta'čɔhak ʔu'rǐhč, hi'yuhɔ'nì \"The chief's house was (made of) grass\" (ta'čɔhaku \"the chief\", possessor noun, + ʔu'rihči \"his house\", alienably possessed noun, the combination serving as independent subject).\n\n## Syntactic order\nThere are certain rules that are observed to form sentences in the correct order:\nThere are also certain rules in the order of clauses:\n\n## Noun classification\nNoun can belong to one of the following gender-number classes: masculine singular, feminine singular, masculine dual, feminine dual, masculine plural, or feminine plural.\nThere are rules to help determine classification of nouns:\nNouns in Tunica are also classified according to what position they take.\nThere are three positions that are available and that encompass every noun in the Tunica language: horizontal, squatting, and vertical.\nHumans and four-legged non-humans can take any of the positions, but elongated non-human animates (like fish or snakes) always take the horizontal position.\nSmaller non-human animates, like frogs and birds, always take the [squatting position](https://bliptext.com/articles/squatting-position).\nInanimates are always horizontal or vertical: abstract nouns are always horizontal, and inanimate objects that take an erect position, like trees, are vertical.\n\n## Preverbs and postfixes\nThe preverbs are often used with active verb predicative words:\nThere are many postfixes, which express different meanings like certain tenses and negation.\nSometimes, more than one postfix may be attached to one word, and each postfix has its own governing rules.\n\n## Other word classes\nThere are two possible noun categories: the determinative and the indeterminative.\nThe determinative category can be divided into definitive, non-definitive, and locative.\nIndeterminative nouns can be predicative words, subjects of predications, objects of transitive and transimpersonal active verbs and of static verbs, and complements of impersonal and transimpersonal active verbs and of static verbs.\nPersonal pronouns are inflected depending on person, number, and gender, but they do not have special forms that indicate whether they fall into the determinative or indeterminative categories.\nThey substitute for nouns, and they can be used like nouns, except in the locative case.\nThe interrogative-indefinite pronouns are ka'ku \"who, someone, anyone\" and ka'nahku \"what, something, anything.\"\nThey can substitute for nouns when they do not occur in the locative case.\nAlso, ka'nahku does not appear as an independent subject.\nQuantificatives include numerals and others like ho'tu \"all, everything,\" na'mu \"many, much,\" ka'šku \"a few, a little bit,\" ka'škuto'hku \"several, quite a few,\" and ʔa'mari \"enough.\"\nThey can be used as minimal clauses, substitutes for nouns, modifiers of nouns, and modifiers of active verbs.\nPostpositions are used to modify locatives and predicates.\nAdjectives can be used as predicate words, as noun modifiers used as predicative words, or as modifiers of the interrogative-indefinite pronoun ka'nahku.\nComparatives can be used as modifiers of adjectives, static verbs, adverbs, nouns, or quantificative na'mu.\nAdverbs can be used to modify auxiliary and active verbs.\nAuxiliary verbs are always in a predicative word position.\nActive verbs are either finite or infinitive in form.\nFinite verbs take subjective pronominal referentials and are predicative words.\nInfinitives are taken as predicate complements.\nSometimes, they are inflected for an objective referential.\nStatic verbs are always inflected for an objective referential and are always predicative words.\nSentence connectives connect or contrast two sentences or sometimes two words.\nExclamatives and imitatives always appear as minimal clauses.\nThe most predominant exclamatives are hõn \"yes\", ʔahâ \"no\", and dâ \"now; ready.\"\n\n# Proto-language\nGranberry (1994: 507) [reconstructs](https://bliptext.com/articles/linguistic-reconstruction) the following [Proto](https://bliptext.com/articles/proto-language)-Tunica phonemes:","current_revision":null,"created_by":"kACnuQmH5k9Nr5VNVEpVeg7XpvUmMctD","created_at":"2025-01-25T21:29:35.220Z","updated_at":"2025-01-25T21:29:35.220Z","search_vector":"'languag':2 'tunica':1","search_content":" \n**Name:** Tunica \n**Nativename:** Luhchi Yoroni \n**States:** [United States](https://bliptext.com/articles/united-states) \n**Region:** Central [Louisiana](https://bliptext.com/articles/louisiana) \n**Extinct:** December 6, 1948 with the death of [Sesostrie Youchigant](https://bliptext.com/articles/sesostrie-youchigant) \n**Revived:** 60 [L2](https://bliptext.com/articles/second-language) speakers (2023) \n**Ref:** e25 \n**Familycolor:** American \n**Family:** [Language isolate](https://bliptext.com/articles/language-isolate) \n**Iso 3:** tun \n**Map:** Tunica lang.png \n**Mapcaption:** Pre-contact distribution of the Tunica language. \n**Notice:** IPA \n**Glotto:** tuni1252 \n**Glottorefname:** Tunica \n**Ethnicity:** [Tunica people](https://bliptext.com/articles/tunica-people) \n \n\n# \nThe **[Tunica](https://bliptext.com/articles/tunica-people)** or **Luhchi Yoroni** (or **Tonica**, or less common form **Yuron**) language is a [language isolate](https://bliptext.com/articles/language-isolate) that was spoken in the Central and Lower Mississippi Valley in the [United States](https://bliptext.com/articles/united-states) by [Native American](https://bliptext.com/articles/native-americans-in-the-united-states) **[Tunica](https://bliptext.com/articles/tunica-people)** peoples.\nThere are no native speakers of the Tunica language, but there were 32 [second-language](https://bliptext.com/articles/second-language) speakers in 2017, and, there are 60 [second-language](https://bliptext.com/articles/second-language) speakers.\n[Tunica-Biloxi](https://bliptext.com/articles/tunica-biloxi) tribal member William Ely Johnson worked with Swiss ethnologist [Albert Gatschet](https://bliptext.com/articles/albert-samuel-gatschet) to help him document the language in 1886.\nThis initial documentation was further developed by linguist [John R. Swanton](https://bliptext.com/articles/john-r-swanton) in the early 1900s.\nThe last known native speaker, [Sesostrie Youchigant](https://bliptext.com/articles/sesostrie-youchigant), died in 1948.\nIn the 1930s, linguist [Mary Haas](https://bliptext.com/articles/mary-haas) worked with him to describe what Youchigant remembered of the language, and the description was published in A Grammar of the Tunica Language in 1941.\nThat was followed by Tunica Texts in 1950 and Tunica Dictionary in 1953.\nBy the 17th century, the people had suffered a high rate of fatalities from Eurasian infectious diseases, warfare, and social disruption.\nThe reduced [Tunica tribe](https://bliptext.com/articles/history-of-the-tunica-people) lived close to the [Ofo](https://bliptext.com/articles/mosopelea) and [Avoyelles](https://bliptext.com/articles/avoyel) tribes, in present-day Louisiana.\nThey communicated by [Mobilian Jargon](https://bliptext.com/articles/mobilian-jargon) or [French](https://bliptext.com/articles/french-language).\nThe small population and the use of a jargon made Haas note that the eventual deterioration of the Tunica language was inevitable.\n\n# Classification\nAlthough Tunica is usually classified as a [language isolate](https://bliptext.com/articles/language-isolate), Granberry (1994) suggested that Tunica was related to [Calusa](https://bliptext.com/articles/calusa-language), with [Calusa](https://bliptext.com/articles/calusa-language) possibly being relatively a recent arrival from the [lower Mississippi region](https://bliptext.com/articles/mississippi-alluvial-plain).\nAnother possibility was that similarities between the languages were derived from long-term mutual contact.\n\n# Language revitalization efforts\nIn 2010, the [Tunica-Biloxi](https://bliptext.com/articles/tunica-biloxi) tribe formed the Tunica Language Project in partnership with the Linguistics Program at [Tulane University](https://bliptext.com/articles/tulane-university) in a continuing effort to revitalize the Tunica language.\nTribal members read from a new children's book in Tunica at a 2010 pow wow.\nOnly about half of the tribal members live within 75 miles of the reservation, in [Avoyelles Parish](https://bliptext.com/articles/avoyelles-parish-louisiana).\nThe Tunica-Biloxi Language & Culture Revitalization Program uses webinars to teach the language to those who do not live near the reservation.\n\n# Phonology\nThe phonology of Tunica is as follows.\n\n## Vowels\nTunica has seven [vowels](https://bliptext.com/articles/vowels), all of which are usually short but may be lengthened in [stressed syllables](https://bliptext.com/articles/stressed-syllable), and all of which are voiced completely, except if a /u/ is at the end of a phrase in a word with stress on the second-last syllable, when it is unvoiced after a /k/ or /hk/.\nVowels are paired with a certain [melody](https://bliptext.com/articles/melody) in last or occasionally second-last syllable of a word.\nThe melodies are high, low, rising, falling, and falling-rising.\nVowels may appear only following or preceding [consonants](https://bliptext.com/articles/consonants), never adjacent to one another.\nAlso, /i/, /a/, and /u/ may appear in any position, but the others appear only in syllables with stress.\nVowels do not typically occur at the end of a phrase, and when any vowel precedes n in the same syllable, it becomes [nasalized](https://bliptext.com/articles/nasalized).\n\n## Consonants\nThe [transcription](https://bliptext.com/articles/transcription-linguistics) style (represented in bolded symbols below) is based on Mary Haas' work Tunica Language.\nThe IPA symbols are in brackets next to each consonant.\nThe consonants /p/, /t/, /k/, and /t͡ʃ/ are always fairly [aspirated](https://bliptext.com/articles/aspiration-phonetics) unless they occur before a /ʔ/, when they are completely un[aspirated](https://bliptext.com/articles/aspiration-phonetics).\nMeanwhile, /b/, /d/, and /g/ do not occur frequently, as is the case with /f/.\nThe fricatives /s/ and /š/ are pronounced with a stronger hiss than in English, and /ʔ/ is said to have a very strong closure.\nThe semi-vowels /j/ and /w/ are always [voiced](https://bliptext.com/articles/voiced), as is the [nasal](https://bliptext.com/articles/nasal-stop) /m/.\nOn the other hand, /n/, /l/, and /r/ can be voiced or [voiceless](https://bliptext.com/articles/voiceless).\nThe /l/ and /r/ are voiced between vowels or before /ʔ/ or continuants.\nHowever, they are voiceless before voiceless consonants except /ʔ/ or at the end of a phrase: ši'lka \"blackbird,\" ši'hkal \"stone.\"\nSimilarly, /n/ is voiced between vowels or before /ʔ/ and is voiceless at the end of a phrase or before voiceless consonants except /ʔ/.\n\n## Prosody\nTunica has both stressed and unstressed syllables, and stressed syllables can have a higher [pitch](https://bliptext.com/articles/pitch-music) than other syllables, depending on the position of the syllable in a phrase.\nThe first stressed syllable of a phrase is typically spoken with a slightly higher pitch than the following syllables are.\nThe exception is the last syllable when the high or the falling melody is used or the last syllable during the use of the low or the rising melody.\nThe phrase-final melody then determines much of the stress in the rest of the phrase.\nWhen there is use of the high melody, the last syllable is about a minor third higher pitch than the second-last syllable.\nThe first syllable with stress is usually a major second higher than the following syllables are except for the last.\nAll other syllables may not be spoken with any kind of pitch, and the same goes for other unstressed syllables.\nFor example, ta'čiyak ʔura'pʔikʔahčá \"You will kill the squirrel\" shows the melody.\nta'- is a major second higher than the syllables that follow it except for -ča, which is a minor third higher than any syllable that comes before it other than ta'-.\nThe falling melody causes the last syllable to start at a minor third higher than the second-last syllable: it goes down quickly: ʔa'hkiš ma'rʔikî \"Go back!\"\nThe low melody that occurs as the last syllable is lower than the last stressed syllable, which is a little higher than the syllables that it immediately follows.\nAll unstressed syllables between the last stressed syllable and the last syllable take on the same stress as the latter.\nUnless it is also the last stressed syllable, the first stressed syllable is higher than any following syllable except that last stressed syllable: ʔu'riš ma'rʔuwa'nì \"He went back home, they say.\"\nWhen the rising melody occurs, the last syllable starts lower than the last stressed syllable and goes upward quickly by about a minor third.\nElsewhere in the phrase, the tone is like a low melody: lɔ'ta wiwa'nǎn \"Do you want to run?\"\nThe falling-rising melody is a fast drop by a fourth, followed by a fast rise by a minor third.\nHowever, only one word uses it: hőn \"Yes.\"\n\n## Phonological processes\nEvery syllable in Tunica begins with a single consonant.\nSometimes, double or triple consonants may occur in the middle of words or phrases, but no more than two consonants in a row occur at the end of a phrase.\nThe smallest phonetic group in Tunica is a [phrase](https://bliptext.com/articles/phrase), but a word and a [phrase](https://bliptext.com/articles/phrase) can be differentiated by certain processes.\nThose that affect grammatical elements that merge to form words are vocalic [contraction](https://bliptext.com/articles/contraction-grammar), vocalic [assimilation](https://bliptext.com/articles/assimilation-linguistics), vocalic [syncope](https://bliptext.com/articles/syncope-phonetics), consonantic [syncope](https://bliptext.com/articles/syncope-phonetics), [haplology](https://bliptext.com/articles/haplology), and patterns in stress.\nThose that affect words that combine into phrases are vocalic [apocope](https://bliptext.com/articles/apocope), consonantic [apocope](https://bliptext.com/articles/apocope), [amalgamation](https://bliptext.com/articles/amalgamation-linguistics), and stress losses.\nMore specific information and basic examples are detailed below:\n\n# Morphology\nThe morphology of Tunica is as follows.\n\n## Inflection\nNouns can be divided into the categories of in[determinative](https://bliptext.com/articles/determinative) and [determinative](https://bliptext.com/articles/determinative).\nThe indeterminative nouns have a [stem](https://bliptext.com/articles/word-stem) without any [affixes](https://bliptext.com/articles/affixes), and the determinative nouns are distinguished by the articular [prefix](https://bliptext.com/articles/prefix) or the pronominal [prefix](https://bliptext.com/articles/prefix).\nDeterminative nouns belong are definitive, non-definitive, and locative, which may be distinguished by different prefixes or suffixes.\nThe articular prefix is similar to the definite article in English and appears as ta'- before all stems not beginning with /ʔ/ or /t/.\nThe prefix appears as t- before stems beginning with /ʔ/, and it is omitted by haplology before stems beginning with /t/: te'tiha'yihta \"on the road\"; te'ti \"the road\" < te'ti \"road\"\nAll proper nouns, unless their stems begin with /t/, must begin with the articular prefix.\nFor instance, ta'wišmi'li \"Red River\" is ta'- + wi'š(i)mi'li \"red water\".\nThe pronominal prefixes signify possession when they attached to a noun and preclude the need for articular prefixes with the same stem.\nSome stems, called inalienably-possessed noun stems, cannot be used without a pronominal prefix.\nThey include those of kinship, body parts, and miscellaneous terms.\nKinship terms are those such as -e'si \"father\" or '-gači \"mother.\"\nBody part terms are those such as -e'sini \"head\" or -e'neri \"horns.\"\nFinally, miscellaneous terms can be nouns like -e'htiwa'hkuni \"breechcloth\" or -e'tisa \"name.\"\nGender-number suffixes can be used only in the definitive case of the determinative category so whenever one is used, there must also be a determining prefix attached to the stem.\nBelow is a table showing the gender-number suffixes:\nSometimes, gender-number suffixes are put on an inflected verb form to convert it to a relative clause.\nIt could be that a noun has the appropriate suffix, and the verb of the clause then takes the same one.\nOther times, only the verb takes the suffix.\nExamples of the use of the gender-number suffixes follow:\nFinally, there are three possible [locative](https://bliptext.com/articles/locative) suffixes to put nouns in the [locative](https://bliptext.com/articles/locative) case.\nThe nouns will also have a determining prefix attached.\nGender-number suffixes and locative suffixes are mutually exclusive, but a locative noun may have a number.\nAlso, locative suffixes can take stems and convert them into [adverbs](https://bliptext.com/articles/adverbs) and [postpositions](https://bliptext.com/articles/postpositions).\n-ši is the most commonly used locative suffix, and its meaning is comparable to the English \"in, into\" or \"on, over,\" but in Tunica, it is used as \"at, to.\"\nThat can be seen in the sentence \"He stayed at home,\" which breaks down into ʔu'riš ʔunanì < \"at his house\" ʔu'riš(i) < ʔuhk- + ri- \"house\" + ši.\n-štihki \"toward, in the direction of\" is the second suffix.\nUsually, it is used with the names of directions: ta'sapʔaraštihk \"to the west\" < ta- +sa'pʔara \"west\" + -štihki.\nThe final locative suffix is -hat \"on, onto.\"\nIt is typically used only with ta'hali \"the ground.\"\nIt can be seen in the sentence \"He spat on the ground\" as ta'haltǎn, ču'hʔuhkɛ'nì; ta'halta < ta'- + ha'l(i) \"ground, land\" + -hat.\n\n# Syntax\nThe syntax of Tunica is as follows.\n\n## Sentence parts\nThe possible word classes that are found in Tunica include independent personal [pro[nouns](https://bliptext.com/articles/nouns)](https://bliptext.com/articles/pro[nouns](https://bliptext.com/articles/nouns)), [nouns](https://bliptext.com/articles/nouns), interrogative-indefinite [pro[nouns](https://bliptext.com/articles/nouns)](https://bliptext.com/articles/pro[nouns](https://bliptext.com/articles/nouns)), quantificatives, [postpositions](https://bliptext.com/articles/postpositions), [adjectives](https://bliptext.com/articles/adjectives), comparatives, adverbs, [auxiliary verbs](https://bliptext.com/articles/auxiliary-verbs), active verbs, static verbs, sentence [connectives](https://bliptext.com/articles/connectives), and exclamatives and imitatives.\nSyntactic elements of a sentence are made up of words, phrases, or clauses acting in one of the following: predicative words, independent subjects, independent objects, subject or object modifiers, predicate modifiers, predicate complements, or sentence connectives.\nThe syntactic elements can all be made into clauses that are either main or subordinate, and subordinate clauses can be dependent, complementary, relative, or adverbial.\nThere are three types of sentences that the Tunica language produces: simple, compound, and complex.\nSimple sentences must contain only one predicative word.\nCompound sentences have two or more main clauses.\nComplex sentences have a main clause and one or more of the different types of subordinate clauses that are mentioned above.\nThe following are brief descriptions of possible syntactic elements of a clause:\nmay be words when used as adjectives, comparatives, adverbs, and locatives and may be phrases and clauses when it is adverbial.\nThere are other special constructions that also take place in certain specific environments.\nFor example, quantificatives and nouns can be in apposition to other nouns that independent subjects or objects: ʔuhkʔo'nisɛ'mǎn, ho't ʔaku'hpanʔuhkɛ'nì \"He assembled all (of) his people, it is said\" < \"he assembled, it is said, his people, all.\"\nAdditionally, a possessive [nexus](https://bliptext.com/articles/nexus) can serve in the same syntactical functions that a noun can.\nFor example, ta'čɔhak ʔu'rǐhč, hi'yuhɔ'nì \"The chief's house was (made of) grass\" (ta'čɔhaku \"the chief\", possessor noun, + ʔu'rihči \"his house\", alienably possessed noun, the combination serving as independent subject).\n\n## Syntactic order\nThere are certain rules that are observed to form sentences in the correct order:\nThere are also certain rules in the order of clauses:\n\n## Noun classification\nNoun can belong to one of the following gender-number classes: masculine singular, feminine singular, masculine dual, feminine dual, masculine plural, or feminine plural.\nThere are rules to help determine classification of nouns:\nNouns in Tunica are also classified according to what position they take.\nThere are three positions that are available and that encompass every noun in the Tunica language: horizontal, squatting, and vertical.\nHumans and four-legged non-humans can take any of the positions, but elongated non-human animates (like fish or snakes) always take the horizontal position.\nSmaller non-human animates, like frogs and birds, always take the [squatting position](https://bliptext.com/articles/squatting-position).\nInanimates are always horizontal or vertical: abstract nouns are always horizontal, and inanimate objects that take an erect position, like trees, are vertical.\n\n## Preverbs and postfixes\nThe preverbs are often used with active verb predicative words:\nThere are many postfixes, which express different meanings like certain tenses and negation.\nSometimes, more than one postfix may be attached to one word, and each postfix has its own governing rules.\n\n## Other word classes\nThere are two possible noun categories: the determinative and the indeterminative.\nThe determinative category can be divided into definitive, non-definitive, and locative.\nIndeterminative nouns can be predicative words, subjects of predications, objects of transitive and transimpersonal active verbs and of static verbs, and complements of impersonal and transimpersonal active verbs and of static verbs.\nPersonal pronouns are inflected depending on person, number, and gender, but they do not have special forms that indicate whether they fall into the determinative or indeterminative categories.\nThey substitute for nouns, and they can be used like nouns, except in the locative case.\nThe interrogative-indefinite pronouns are ka'ku \"who, someone, anyone\" and ka'nahku \"what, something, anything.\"\nThey can substitute for nouns when they do not occur in the locative case.\nAlso, ka'nahku does not appear as an independent subject.\nQuantificatives include numerals and others like ho'tu \"all, everything,\" na'mu \"many, much,\" ka'šku \"a few, a little bit,\" ka'škuto'hku \"several, quite a few,\" and ʔa'mari \"enough.\"\nThey can be used as minimal clauses, substitutes for nouns, modifiers of nouns, and modifiers of active verbs.\nPostpositions are used to modify locatives and predicates.\nAdjectives can be used as predicate words, as noun modifiers used as predicative words, or as modifiers of the interrogative-indefinite pronoun ka'nahku.\nComparatives can be used as modifiers of adjectives, static verbs, adverbs, nouns, or quantificative na'mu.\nAdverbs can be used to modify auxiliary and active verbs.\nAuxiliary verbs are always in a predicative word position.\nActive verbs are either finite or infinitive in form.\nFinite verbs take subjective pronominal referentials and are predicative words.\nInfinitives are taken as predicate complements.\nSometimes, they are inflected for an objective referential.\nStatic verbs are always inflected for an objective referential and are always predicative words.\nSentence connectives connect or contrast two sentences or sometimes two words.\nExclamatives and imitatives always appear as minimal clauses.\nThe most predominant exclamatives are hõn \"yes\", ʔahâ \"no\", and dâ \"now; ready.\"\n\n# Proto-language\nGranberry (1994: 507) [reconstructs](https://bliptext.com/articles/linguistic-reconstruction) the following [Proto](https://bliptext.com/articles/proto-language)-Tunica phonemes:","revisionCount":0},"hasMore":false,"nextCursor":null}

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