Biloxi () is an extinct Siouan language formerly spoken by the Native American Biloxi tribe in present-day Mississippi, Louisiana, and southeastern Texas.
Biloxi is an Ohio Valley, or Southeastern, Siouan language. It is related to Ofo and Tutelo.
The Biloxi tribe first encountered Europeans in 1699, along the Pascagoula River. By the mid-18th century, they had settled in central Louisiana. Some Biloxi were also noted in Texas in the early 19th century.
By the early 19th century, their numbers had already begun to dwindle. By 1934, the last native speaker, Emma Jackson, was in her eighties. Morris Swadesh and Mary Haas spoke with her in 1934 and confirmed that she knew the language.
Multiple possible inventories have been suggested. This article follows that of Einaudi (1976).
Along with contrastive nasalization, Biloxi also has phonemic vowel length.
Dorsey & Swanton (1912) postulated phonemic vowel length, which Haas and Swadesh verified in speaking with Emma Jackson in 1934. Their findings appeared in Haas (1968).
Also, there may still be some uncertainty about whether certain words contain /ÃÂ / or /an/.
Biloxi may also have a phonemic aspiration distinction for some segments.
Syllable structure is (C)(C)(C)V(C) or (C)V(C)(C). However, three-consonant clusters are rare.
Most words end in a vowel. The others usually end in /k/ or /x/ as a result of deletion: from ("he fell").
Few consonant clusters end syllables. Most exceptions are caused by vowel deletion: from ("horse").
The following consonant clusters are observed:
There are a few three-consonant clusters, all of the form C+s+stop or C+x+glide and some with alternate forms:
There are many verb roots and two mode markers with the morphophonemically-conditioned alternation e~a~i (underlying <u>E</u>):
The alternation depends on the following morpheme:
Nouns and verbs whose stems end in or change to before the plural marker :
That may occur with ("to eat") also:
The rule may optionally also apply in compounds and across word boundaries if the next element starts with CV:
Nouns that end in and can undergo pluralization change to : + â ("their father").
Verbs whose stems end in , , or optionally lose their before the plural marker:
||k(i)|| â x/___k occurs optionally across morpheme or word boundaries.
The rule may cause the previous vowel to denasalize.
Verbs whose stems end in or may optionally change to before the negative mode marker :
Stems ending in optionally become .
The dative marker becomes before a vowel.
(However, Einaudi cites one counterexample, + â ("they were drinking it for him"), perhaps with a glottal stop inserted.)
The following rule is optional in compounds and across word boundaries and obligatory everywhere else:
V<sub>1</sub>V<sub>1</sub> â V<sub>1</sub>
V<sub>1</sub>V<sub>2</sub> â V<sub>2</sub>
However, there are a few words with two adjacent vowels, such as ("day") and ("be sick").
Two morphophonemically identical syllables may not appear contiguously, but the former is dropped.
Einaudi finds one counterexample: + â ("she wanted to hit him").
C<sub>1</sub>C<sub>1</sub> â C<sub>1</sub>
The following rule optionally applies to compounds:
XV#CY â XCY
That may lead to otherwise-disallowed clusters, including geminates:
The following rule applies to compounds:
Vn#C â Vè#C
The following rules are conditioned by person markers on nouns and verbs:
Stems beginning with and some beginning with undergo the following (obligatory for h-stems but optional for Y-stems): â or ,
However, that does not apply for y-initial (rather than Y-initial) stems:
The following rule applies before roots and the dative marker : âÂÂ
â (optionally or )
â (optional except before and for unless it was covered by the previous rule)
â followed by a vowel
Optionally, â ~ followed by or
â followed by a consonant
â ~~ followed by a vowel
The use of different allomorphs in free variation is attested for some verbs.
The next four rules combine personal affixes and so apply only to verbs:
+ â followed by a consonant
+ â followed by a vowel
+ âÂÂ
||ay + nk|| â /yàk/ (which may undergo further changes as described above)
The subjunctive mode marker undergoes the following rule:
â after i or ï
The habitual mode marker optionally undergoes the following rule:
â after a vowel
The auxiliary undergoes the following rule:
âÂÂ
The three word classes in Biloxi are verbs, substantives (nouns and pronouns), and particles. Only the first two take affixes.
Verbs are always marked for person and number and may also take dative, reciprocal, reflexive, and/or instrumental markers as well as mode markers, the object specifier, and auxiliaries. They are at or immediately before the end of clauses.
All nominal affixes may also be used with verbs, but nouns use a subset of the verbal affixes. They may not use dative, reciprocal, reflexive, or instrumental markers, or mode markers, or auxiliaries.
Particles serve many functions, including noun phrase marking and acting as adverbials.
Nouns may be inflectable or, as most are, non-inflectable.
The former group inflects for person and number. It contains names of body parts and kin terms, which must inflect, and a few other personal possessions, with optional inflection. The person markers are for the first person, for the second person, and for the third person.
They may be pluralized with the marker . The noun's number itself is not marked explicitly.
Examples of inflected nouns are below:
Here are examples of optionally inflected nouns:
Personal pronouns are formed by inflecting the root for person and number. (It may also have been done once by the demonstratives and .) Pronouns are always optional and emphasized. Singular pronouns may occur as the subject or the object, but the plurals are always subjects (see ).
Biloxi has two common demonstratives: ("this") and ("that"). They may be marked for plurality as and , but that is very rare since they are used if plurality is unmarked elsewhere, and it is marked on the verb in noun phrases with classificatory verbs:
Verbs inflect for person (1st, 2nd, 3rd), number (singular vs. plural), and mode (many possibilities, including some less understood mode markers).
Morphemes within verbs have the following order:
Verbs may either be classificatory or normal. Classificatory verbs specify the subject's position (sitting, standing, etc.) and differ from normal verbs in that the first person is not inflected for person.
Inflection for person and number is identical to inflected nouns:
Because of the rules determining the surface manifestations of some combinations of person markers, 2nd-person-on-1st and 3rd-person-on-1st forms are identical, e.g. ("you hit me, he hit me"). Also, 2nd-person-subj., 2nd-person-on-3rd, and 3rd-person-on-2nd are identical; for example, ("you see" / you see him" / "they see you").
marks animate plurality (except with some motion verbs).
However, is not used:
Some (but not all) verbs of motion mark plurality with the prefix inserted directly before the root:
But there are counterexamples (even ones derived from the same roots):
The morpheme marks plural objects when they are not specified elsewhere. It comes after and before all mode markers.
There are two examples of being reduced to :
may be added to some verb roots to mark an unspecified indefinite object:
There are many mode markers in Biloxi. Some are common and well understood, while others are infrequent and have elusive meanings.
Nouns may be derived either through nominalizing verbs or by compounding.
Verbs are nominalized via the prefix :
Compound nouns may be formed by combining two nouns or a noun and a verb. (Some morphophonemic rules are involved, see above.)
noun + noun:
noun + verb:
For the personal pronoun , see above. may be used as a reflexive pronoun. It is possible that both of these, and perhaps the reflexive pronoun (see below) are derived from a root .
A number of interrogatives come from the prefix (with vowel elision following morphophonemic rules):
Some are derived from pronouns:
Verbal derivation may occur by root derivation (reduplication and compounding) or stem derivation (thematic prefixes, dative markers, reciprocals, reflexives, and instrumentals).
Reduplication, common in Biloxi, is used for intensification or distributiveness. Usually, the first CVC of the root is reduplicated, but sometimes it is only the first CV:
Verbal compounds may be noun + verb or verb + verb.
It seems that most noun-verb compounds are formed by using the verb ë ("do, make"):
Examples of verb-verb compounds:
Some of the above compounds end up having adjacent vowels, since syncope in compounds is optional.
Thematic prefixes come after person markers and before dative markers and instrumentals.
The dative marker ( before vowels) is used after thematic prefixes.
It is peculiar in that it may be used if someone else's body parts are the direct object (the "dative of possession").
It appears as before ("do, make") and gives it a benefactive gloss; for example, ("he made for them"). (It should not be mistaken for .)
The reduplicated marks reciprocity. The plural marker is then optional.
(or , perhaps because of the denasalizing morphophonemic rule above) marks reflexives. It normally comes immediately after person markers, but in some third-person cases, may come before it:
Instrumentals serve to mark how the event was carried out and immediately precede the root.
Adverbs may be derived from connectives, pronouns, verbs, and particles via a number of affixes:
There are various instances of derived connectives:
("and (?), the aforesaid (?)")
("so") (probably derived itself, see above)
Derived numbers contain predictable vowel syncope (see above).
11-19 are derived via the formula ("X sitting on Y") ("Y X-axehe").
20-99 are derived via the formula ("X sitting on Y Zs") ("Z Y X-axehe")
Ordinal numerals (1st, 2nd, 3rd) are not attested. To express 'once', 'twice', 'three times', etc., use the verb ("to go") before cardinal numbers:
To form multiplicatives, use ("to double") before cardinal numbers:
Biloxi is a left-branching SOV language.
Its lexical categories include interjections (I), adverbials (A), subjects (S), objects (O), verbs (V), and connectives (C).
The three types of phrases are:
There are dependent and independent clauses as well as major and minor sentences. (see below)
Interjections may be:
Vocatives are almost always unmarked:
There are only three exceptions:
Adverbials most often appear directly before the verb, but they may also act as subjects and objects. They may not follow verbs or precede connectives in sentence-initial position.
Adverbials may be:
Some particles:
(Also, see "adverbs", above.)
Usage examples:
(For vowel elision, see above.)
Almost all of the above allow following or . has the expected meaning ("here") or ("this"), while may be glossed ("the") or ("yonder").
Prepositions are sometimes used without modifying a noun, becoming adverbial:
Subjects and objects are formed almost identically, except that the nominal particle may only be used after objects.
A subject or object must include a simple noun, and may optionally also include a verb, nominal particle, and/or demonstrative pronoun, in that order.
If the noun is a personal pronoun, it may only (optionally) be followed by either a demonstrative pronoun or a nominal particle, but not both. Other pronouns (e.g. ("this")) may not be followed by anything.
noun-verb
noun-nominal particle
noun-demonstrative pronoun
noun-verb-nominal particle
noun-verb-demonstrative pronoun
noun-nominal particle-demonstrative pronoun
noun-verb-nominal particle-demonstrative pronoun
Possession in subjects and objects is expressed by the possessor followed by the possessed, followed by nominal particles.
Two subjects may be juxtaposed with reciprocal verbs:
Additives may be expressed by juxtaposition followed by the nominal particle , but this is not used often due to ambiguity (it might be interpreted as a possessive phrase):
Alternatives are expressed with juxtaposition followed by the particle ha (otherwise a nominal particle):
Biloxi has many nominal particles, and for the most part their function is unclear.
A non-exhaustive list:
For the most part it's unclear what conditions the use of a particular np (or â ), but the following can be said:
Simple verbs (not causatives or expanded verbs, see below) must contain a person marker, root, and number marker, and optionally the following:
Prefixes:
Suffixes:
Biloxi contains a defective auxiliary verb / ( is used in singular, for plural). By itself, it may mean "to be" or "to stay", but with another verb, it lends durativity. The plural marker is not used with since the defective form itself already serves to mark number.
When the auxiliary construction is used, both the main verb and the auxiliary are inflected.
Examples:
Generally, to express the negative, the stem is negated, rather than the auxiliary:
Biloxi contains five classificatory verbs, which indicate duration and position of the subject: (See above for morphophonemic explanation of becoming .)
These classificatory verbs may be used alone as verbs ( ("when it was lying high")) but often reinforce synonymous roots:
They are used mostly with animates.
Classificatory verbs are only inflected for second person when used as auxiliaries.
~ is used as the plural form for all five classificatory verbs (even optionally for and , which have their own plural forms ~ and ):
The causative verb comes after (uninflected) stems to form a causative construction. In first and second person, (sometimes if followed by a vowel, see 3.1 above) is inserted between the stem and .
Examples:
Serial verb constructions occur with two or three verbs in sequence. All are of the same person and number, but only the final stem has suffixes:
Connectives may be coordinating or subordinating:
All subordinating connectives end the clause. is the most common by far and may be related to its nominal particle counterpart.
Clauses may end with no more than one clause final connective. Subordinating connectives are used to create dependent clauses.
In clauses, the following order generally holds: (Connective) (Subject) (Object) (Adverb) Verb (Connective). There are occasional examples of subjects and/or objects occurring after the verb, always with animates. The object rarely precedes the subject, possibly for emphasis.
Direct objects always precede indirect objects: ("the chief gave him the woman").
Full sentences always end in independent clauses. Embedded sentences are not usually marked, but the hortatory marker can be used if the embedded action has not yet occurred, and can be used if the action was not performed. (or ) is used for mistaken ideas.