Phonology
Consonants
The consonant inventory of Miluk can be tabulated as follows, based on Douglas-Tavani (2024): * may also range to uvular inVowels
* is pronounced between [] and [], but it tends towards the latter. Jacobs, Melville. (1939). ''Coos narrative and ethnologic texts''. University of Washington publications in anthropology (Vol. 8, No. 1). Seattle, WA: University of Washington. *// is pronounced somewhere between [] and [], likely often pronounced centrally as [Grammar
Syntax
Verb - Argument Order
Miluk verbs have a tendency to be clause-initial.Order Variation in Presentational Constructions
Miluk often uses a presentational construction when telling stories or recounting an event to bring attention to the subject of the story. As a result of this, the affected noun phrase is fronted in the sentence and often appears clause-initially. The following examples are of the presentational construction, with the presented construction bolded.Possessive Order
In Miluk, the possessive noun phrase precedes what is possessed. The possessed noun takes no article but instead is marked with the oblique əMorphology
There are two articles in Miluk, kʷə and ʎə. ʎə is used with nouns that are closer to the speaker, while kʷə is used for nouns which are more distant. These articles do not reflect a gender of a noun and both articles have been found in use for the same noun in discourse. Verbs have intransitive, imperfect, and perfect marker. Verbs which are intransitive take the -u suffix, while the imperfect tense takes the -ʔi suffix and the perfect tense takes the -t suffix.Morphosyntactic Alignment
Miluk has an ergative–absolutive distinction, expressed morphologically; the suffix ''-x'' denotes the ergative case in Miluk, and the absolutive case is unmarked. In the following examples, the ergative argument comes before the absolutive argument. Miluk allows for the opposite to occur, as we see the absolutive argument precede the ergative argument.Gender, Number, Person
Miluk does not have a masculine/feminine gender distinction, but it does have reflexives of an old gender system. The language reflects this old system in two instances: with a suffix that follows articles (-č) and in lexical items for male and female people throughout life. The suffix -č has been seen to be optional but occurs in three instances: # following a feminine noun, # referring to a young person, and (the most common) # referring to elders. The second place where Miluk holds on to an older gender system is when referring to males or females. Words for males often begin with /t/, while the female words often begin with /hu/ and /w/. Miluk has no marked third person clitic on verbs. This is flouted as presentational fronting occurs whenever a new argument is introduced, which are the sentences most likely to have two third-person arguments, and sentences uttered after this argument has been introduced that have two third-person arguments will only express the defocused one through an overt noun phrase, while the other is understood through context within the discourse rather than through a co-indexed clitic. Miluk has an inclusive and exclusive distinction when it comes to the dual possessive. In the first person dual inclusive, the words receive the circumfix s=nə-, while the first person dual exclusive receives the prefix nə-.Space, Time, Modality
There are two morphemes which can be added to a verb to mark tense. The morpheme ''han'' indicates the prospective tense, which describes that an event is going to occur. The other morpheme that can be added to a verb is ''hanƛ'', which marks the future tense. The future tense is distinguished from the prospective tense and has appeared irrealis marker a ̆x. The order in which the morphemes appear are the pronominal clitics, followed by mood, tense and then aspect. In the following examples, "han" indicates that an event is going to occur.Obliques
The morpheme tə marks an oblique or possessive, which occurs throughout the Salish language family. The following two example reveals -tə acting as the oblique marker.Status
The Miluk language is now extinct. The last speakers were two sisters, Lolly Hotchkiss and Daisy Wasson Codding. The two worked with a linguist in 1953 to record words from the language but the two were not fluent in adulthood, and had trouble remembering words. The last native speaker was Annie Miner Peterson, who knew both Miluk and Hanis. Annie Peterson's first language was Miluk, and in 1930, Annie Miner Peterson began working with Melville Jacobs and the two produced two volumes of texts in both dialects of Coos. ''Coos Narrative and Ethnographic Texts'' and ''Coos Myth Texts'' were the two publications were published, but the two publications did not have any linguistic analysis. The books only provided English translations to the texts.References
*Wurm, Mühlhäusler, & Tryon, 1996. ''Atlas of languages of intercultural communication in the Pacific, Asia and the Americas'', p. 1148.Bibliography
* Jacobs, Melville. (1939). ''Coos narrative and ethnologic texts''. University of Washington publications in anthropology (Vol. 8, No. 1). Seattle, WA: University of Washington. * Jacobs, Melville. (1940). ''Coos myth texts''. University of Washington publications in anthropology (Vol. 8, No. 2). Seattle, WA: University of Washington. * Anderson, Troy. (1990). ''Miluk Dictionary''. Stanford Library. Green Library Stacks. PM961 .A53 1990External links
* * * * {{Penutian languages Coosan languages Languages extinct in the 20th century 20th-century disestablishments in Oregon