Coast Tsimshian Plural Formation

Abstract

In Coast Tsimshian, a language spoken in British Columbia, Canada, and Alaska, the nouns and the verbs form the plurals by means of one/ more than one process. There are words which have two plurals formed by two different processes. These plurals could be the same meaning or have different meanings. The processes for plural formation are reduplication, affixation, suppletives, and isomorphics, of which reduplication is the most common way. Reduplication is classified into four major types according to the structure of the reduplicated syllable and the position where it is attached. The commonest and the most productive type reduplicates CVC-. Many borrowings form their plural by means of this process. Other types of reduplication reduplicate CV-, -CVC, and -CV. The affixes used for plural formation are {qa-} and {ləd-}, the former of which form "distributive" plurals meaning 'each one his/her own____" Some words have phonologically unrelated forms for the singular and the plural (suppletives). Most of the words which belong to this type are intransitiv verbs A number of words have the same form for the singular and the plural (isomorphics). Many of them are nouns referring to natural species. There are a few words whose plurals cannot be explained by any one of these processes.