The purpose of this thesis is to contribute to our understanding of how stress is assigned in SENCOTEN (a dialect of North Straits Salish). The stress system of the Salish languages has been traditionally thought of as being highly morpho-lexical. Montler (1986: 23) states that in SENCOTEN, roots and affixes are lexically specified for their stress properties. He claims that these roots and affixes are in a hierarchical relationship and compete with each other for stress assignment. However, in this thesis, I show that there is much less morpho-lexical stress in SENCOTEN than previously thought. The stress pattern of a high number of polymorphemic words, namely those that contain lexical suffixes, can be accounted for without resorting to a morphological hierarchy of stress. Instead, using an Optimality Theory analysis inspired by the work of Dyck (2004) and Kiyota (2003), I show that it is the weight distinction between full vowels and schwa that determines where stress will be assigned. In addition, I am able to show that metrical feet are grouped into trochees and that these trochaic feet are aligned to the right edge of the word.

The resultive and actual (imperfective) aspects in SENCOTEN, a dialect of North Straits Salish, have been previously considered to contain two separate actual and resultive morphemes (Montler 1986). In contrast, it is argued here that the SENOTEN resultive construction is a complex construction, built on an actual base by prefixation of stative [s-]. Both morphophonological evidence and morphosyntactic evidence for this claim are considered: resultives and actuals exhibit the same non-concatenative allomorphy, and they appear to be in complementary distribution with respect to argument structure. This thesis also considers the semantic aspectual properties of resultives, and suggests that the morphologically complex resultive is semantically compositional: it contains a [durative] feature contributed by the actual morpheme and a [static] feature contributed by the stative prefix.

This thesis represents a human history of Tl’chés (Discovery and Chatham Islands) roughly between the mid-19th and mid-20th centuries. It presents Songhees and Settler life on the archipelago, as well as the dispossession of Songhees lands. Detailing processes of colonialism, as well as Songhees resistance to it, this thesis represents a microcosm of colonialism as it unfolded in the lands now called British Columbia. / Graduate

This thesis conducted the first acoustic analysis on Lekwungen (aka Songhees, Songish) (Central Salish). It studied the acoustic correlates of stress on vowels and the effects of consonantal coarticulatory effects on vowel quality. The goals of the thesis were to provide useful and usable materials and information to Lekwungen language revitalisation efforts and to provide an acoustic study of Lekwungen vowels to expand knowledge of Salishan languages and linguistics. Duration, mean pitch, and mean amplitude were measured on vowels in various stress environments. Findings showed that there is a three-way contrast between vowels in terms of duration and only a two-way contrast in terms of pitch and amplitude. F1, F2, and F3 were measured at vowel onset (5%), midpoint (50%), and offset (95%), as well as a mean (5%-95%), in CVC sequences for four vowels: /i/, /e/, /a/, and /ə/. Out of five places of articulation of consonants in Lekwungen (alveolar, palatal, labio-velar, uvular, glottal), uvular and glottal had the most persistent effects on F1, F2, and F3 of all vowels. Of the vowels, unstressed /ə/ was the most persistently affected by all consonants. Several effects on perception were also preliminarily documented, but future work is needed to see how persistence in acoustic effects is correlated with perception. This thesis provides information and useful tips to help learners and teachers in writing and perceiving Lekwungen and for learners learning Lekwungen pronunciation, as a part of language revitalisation efforts. It also contributes to the growing body of acoustic phonetic work on Salishan languages, especially on vowels. / Graduate / 0290