The consonant inventory of Lake Miwok differs substantially from the inventories found in the other Miwok languages. Where the other languages only have one series of plosives, Lake Miwok has four: plain, aspirated, ejective and voiced. Lake Miwok has also added the affricates č, c, čʼ, cʼ, ƛʼ and the liquids r and ł. These sounds appear to have been borrowed through loanwords from other, unrelated languages in the Clear Lake area, after which they spread to some native Lake Miwok words.[2][3]
Grammar
The word order of Lake Miwok is relatively free, but SOV (subject–object–verb) is the most common order.[4]
Verb morphology
Pronominal clitics
Singular
Dual
Plural
1st person
ka
ʔic
ma, ʔim
2nd person
ʔin
moc
mon
3rd person
non-reflexive
ʔi
koc
kon
reflexive
hana
hanakoc
hanakon
indefinite
ʔan
In her Lake Miwok grammar, Callaghan reports that one speaker distinguishes between 1st person dual inclusiveʔoc and exclusiveʔic. Another speaker also remembers that this distinction used to be made by older speakers.[5]
the Subjective case marks a noun which functions as the subject of a verb. If the subject noun is placed before the verb, the Subjective has the allomorph-n after vowel (or a vowel followed by /h/), and -Ø after consonants. If the noun is placed after the verb, the Subjective is -n after vowels and -nu after consonants.[6]
the Objective case marks a noun which functions as the direct or indirect object of a verb.[10] It has the allomorph -u (after a consonant) or -Ø (after a vowel) when the noun is placed immediately before a verb which contains the 2nd person prefix ʔin- (which then has the allomorph -n attached to the noun preceding the verb; compare the example below) or does not contain any subject prefix at all.[10]
the allative case is -to after a consonant, before the first person dual prefix or the second person singular prefix, or after a vowel if the noun is at the end of the phrase:[13]
the locative case-m gives a less specific designation of locality than the Allative, and occurs more rarely.
the ablative case is -mu or -m depending on the context, and marks direction out of, or away from, a place.
the instrumental case-ṭu marks instruments, e.g. tumáj-ṭu "(I hit him) with a stick".
the comitative case-ni usually translates as "along with", but can also be used to coordinate nouns, as in kaʔunúu-ni ka ʔáppi-ni "my mother and my father".
the vocative case only occurs with a few kinship terms, e.g. ʔunúu "mother (voc)" from ʔúnu "mother".
the Appositive case is the citation form of nouns.
Possessive clitics
Lake Miwok uses pronominal clitics to indicate the possessor of a noun. Except for the 3d person singular, they have the same shape as the nominative pronominal clitics, but show no allomorphy.
Singular
Dual
Plural
1st person
ka
ʔic
ma
2nd person
ʔin
moc
mon
3rd person
non-reflexive
ʔiṭi
koc
kon
reflexive
hana
hanakoc
hanakon
indefinite
ʔan
The reflexive hana forms have the same referent as the subject of the same clause, whereas the non-reflexive forms have a different referent, e.g.:
Callaghan, Catherine A. (1964). "Phonemic Borrowing in Lake Miwok". In William Bright (ed.). Studies in Californian Linguistics. Berkeley: University of California Press. pp.46–53.
Callaghan, Catherine A. (1965). Lake Miwok Dictionary. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Campbell, Lyle (1997). American Indian Languages. The Historical Linguistics of Native America. New York: Oxford University Press.
Callaghan, Catherine A. "Note of Lake Miwok Numerals." International Journal of American Linguistics, vol. 24, no. 3 (1958): 247.
Keeling, Richard. "Ethnographic Field Recordings at Lowie Museum of Anthropology," 1985. Robert H. Lowie Museum of Anthropology, University of California, Berkeley. v. 2. North-Central California: Pomo, Wintun, Nomlaki, Patwin, Coast Miwok, and Lake Miwok Indians
Lake Miwok Indians. "Rodriguez-Nieto Guide" Sound Recordings (California Indian Library Collections), LA009. Berkeley: California Indian Library Collections, 1993. "Sound recordings reproduced from the Language Archive sound recordings at the Language Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley." In 2 containers.
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