The main sources of grammatical information on Nootka are the text analysis of
Sapir (1924); the dissertation on word formation of Swadesh (1933), published in
revised form (1939); the "Grammatical Notes" in Sapir & Swadesh (1939:235-
243), followed by lists of stems (243-316) and suffixes (316-334); and the com
prehensive dissertation of Rose (1981), treating the quite divergent northerly
Kyuquot dialect. An even larger body of texts is provided by Sapir & Swadesh
(1955).
I use for Nootka the orthographic symbols of Sapir & Swadesh (1939), except that
I follow Swadesh's later practice of substituting for o, and for (cf. Sapir &
Swadesh 1955:4). When following w, dorsals (&'s, g's, and x's) are always
labialized (kw, etc); I follow the source in indicating this only when a vowel fol
lows. Sufixes cited in isolation are in morphophonemically underlying form. In
them Vindicates a variable-length vowel, long if in the first or second syllable of
a word, short if in a later syllable, and Vindicates a persistently long vowel, which
resists this shortening (cf. Jacobsen 1979a: 145-146, fn. 3). The following abbrevia
tions are used in the analytic glosses of the examples: ART, article; CAUS, causative;
COMEIMPV, "come" imperative; COND, conditional; DIM, diminutive; DUR, durative;
FIN, finite; FUT INT, future intentive; GR AD, graduati ve; HYP FUT, hypothetic future;
iMPv, imperative; INCEP, inceptive; INDEFREL, indefinite relative; INDIC, indicative;
INFER, inferential; INTER, interrogative; ITER, iterative; MOM, momentaneous; OBJ,
objective; PASS, passive; PAST, past; PL, plural; POSS, possessive; PURP, purposive;
QuoT, quotative; RECIP, reciprocal; REL, relative; REL DUB, relative dubitative; REP,
repetitive; SG, singular; SUB, subordinate; SUBJ, subjective; 1, first person; 2, sec
ond person; 3, third person.
Thus Heath's (1985:100-103, 107) presentation of the dificulty of determining
clause boundaries and hence counting clauses in Australian Ngandi strikes a
responsive chord.
Schachter (1985:11-13) and Anderson (1985b: 155-158) summarize the Nootkan
part-of-speech problem, the latter in terms of cliticization. Rose (1981:10, 31-34,
343-346, and passim) discusses part-of-speech distinctions in (Kyuquot) Nootka.
Schachter (12-13) also points to Tagalog as a language with a weak differentiation
between noun and verb. Myhill (1984:7-8,195-226) notes that strongly verb-initial
languages commonly lack a sharp differentiation between noun and verb, discus
sing languages from several families: Austronesian (including Tagalog), Salishan
(Squamish), Mayan, Celtic, Afro-Asiatic, Oto-Manguean, and Nilo-Saharan.
Hopper & Thompson (1984, especially 745) subsume the weak differentiation of
noun and verb in Nootkan and other Northwest families in their discourse-func
tion-based characterization of the distinction.
Two absolutive main clauses do occur in a quotation in Sapir (1924:79).
Cf. Swadesh (1939:83): "Tense is an optional category in Nootka, the tense being
expressed or not according to the need of the context."
