The Iconicity of Lengthening and Reduplicating Suffixes in Nuuchahnulth

Abstract

The Wakashan languages are well known for their prodigious array of lexical suffixes. Adding considerably to the complexity of their formal behavior is the lengthening and/or reduplication that many of them cause in the bases to which they attach. Focusing on Nuuchahnulth, I show in this paper that this is by no means arbitrary, comparable to the “hardening” or “softening” properties of suffixes, but is broadly iconic in nature. Their relationship to the aspectual templates of the language is seen to be rather indirect. Both the templates and specific semantic subgroupings of lexical suffixes form “radial categories” around a prototypical aspectual core, with more peripheral, extended meanings projected out stepwise from the core.

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