Because obvious similarities in
morphology are prevalent throughout all of the languages in the Athabaskan family, Proto-Athabaskan has an extensive reconstructed proto-morphology. Like all Athabaskan languages, it is morphologically complex.
Verb template The actual verb template of Proto-Athabaskan has not been reconstructed yet, as noted by Edward Vajda. In fact, Krauss notes that one morpheme present across multiple languages, the distributive, cannot be reconstructed for Proto-Athabaskan. Keren Rice, in her book
Morpheme order and semantic scope, presented a general template for the order of verb elements, taking into account cross-language diversity and divergence. Hoijer's proposal is missing several elements which were described in detail later, but Kibrik's is not terribly different from Rice's. Kibrik only gives the zones rather than individual positions where the distinction matters. In addition, Kibrik did not give the domains and boundaries which have been added here for comparison. A major distinction between the Kibrik and Rice versions is in the terminology, with Kibrik's "Standard Average Athabaskan" maintaining much of the traditional Athabaskanist terminology – still widely used – but Rice changing in favor of aspectual descriptions found in wider semantic and typological literature. The terminology in comparison: • Rice "viewpoint aspect" = conventional "mode" •
Position: a point or slot the verb template which hosts some number of morphemes which never cooccur. Some affixes may occur in multiple positions which are usually adjacent, but most morphemes are found in a single position. Kari gives the Ahtna mode prefix and the qualifier as examples of multipositional morphemes. •
Floating position: a position which seems to move around depending on the appearance or lack of other morphemes in the verb. Kari cites the Ahtna third person plural subject pronominal as occurring in three different locations "under highly constrained conditions". technically makes the classifier a zone, but it is monomorphemic and often treated like a single position in the analysis of documented languages. Tlingit has a classifier approaching a zone although it is morphologically a single unit, and Eyak has a true classifier zone with two phonologically separate prefixes. •
Domain: an area of zones and positions which is grouped together as a phonological unit. •
Stem domain: a domain including the verb root and suffixes, and usually including the classifier. •
Conjunct domain: a domain spanning from the classifier (may or may not be included) leftward to the object prefixes. •
Disjunct domain: a domain spanning from the incorporated nouns to the preverbs, and not including any bound phrases that are considered to be word-external. •
Boundary: a morphological division between zones or domains. Each boundary has an associated conventional symbol. Not all researchers describe all the boundaries for every language, and it is not clear that there is total agreement on the existence of all boundaries. •
Disjunct boundary (
#): the boundary between the disjunct and conjunct domains. Found in most Athabaskan descriptions. •
Qualifier-pronominal boundary (
=/
%): the boundary between the qualifiers and the outer pronominals (3 subjects, objects, etc.). Kari proposed using = but since that symbol is often used for clitics, many authors The classifier is found in no other language family, although may be present in the
Yeniseian family per Vajda. It is an obligatory prefix such that verbs do not exist without the classifier. Its function varies little from language to language, serving as an indicator of
voice and
valence for the verb.
Terminology The name "classifier" implies a classificatory function that is not obvious.
Franz Boas first described a classifier for Tlingit, saying "it is fairly clear that the primary function of these elements is a classificatory one", a not inaccurate statement given that it does enter into the classificatory verb system. Previously
Edward Sapir had noted it in his seminal essay on the Na-Dene family, calling it a "'third modal element'". He described it as indicating "such notions as transitive, intransitive, and passive" (id.), thus having voice and valency related functions. Once it was realized that the Tlingit and Athabaskan morphemes were functionally similar, Boas's name for the Tlingit form was extended to the Athabaskan family. However, the classifier has only some vestiges of a classificatory function in most Athabaskan languages, so in this family the name is unsuited. Because of the confusion that occurs from the use of the term "classifier", there have been a number of proposals for replacement terms.
Andrej Kibrik has used the term "transitivity indicator" with the gloss abbreviation TI, Keren Rice has used "voice/valence prefix" abbreviated V/V, and for Tlingit, Constance Naish and Gillian Story used "extensor". None of these alternatives has gained acceptance in the Athabaskan community, and Jeff Leer describes this situation:
Reconstruction Jeff Leer offers an early reconstruction of the Proto-Athabaskan classifier. This surfaces as an additional "I-component", which was represented in Proto-Athabaskan as the presence or absence of a
palatal nasal. ==See also==