Consonants

The chart below contains the consonants of the proto-Keresan (or pre-Keresan) from Miller & Davis (1963) based on a comparison of Acoma, Santa Ana, and Santo Domingo, as well as other features of the dialects compiled from The Language of Santa Ana Pueblo (1964), Kansas Working Papers in Linguistics (1987), and The Phonemes of Keresan (1946), and the Grammar of Laguna Keres (2005).^[4][5][6][7]

Vowels

Keresan vowels have a phonemic distinction in duration: all vowels can be long or short. Additionally, short vowels can also be voiceless. The vowel chart below contains the vowel phonemes and allophones from the information of the Keresan languages combined from The Language of Santa Ana Pueblo (1964),^[4] The Phonemes of Keresan (1946),^[6] and Kansas Working Papers in Linguistics (1987).^[5]

Notes:

• Western Keres does not have phonemic /oː/ or /o/, though both vowels may occur phonetically.^[7] Eastern Keres words containing /o/ show /au/ in Western Keres.^[8] For instance, the first vowel in the word-sentence Sraúka̠cha̠ – “I see you”:
  • Kotyit Keres: [ʂóːkʰɑ̥tʃʰɑ̥]
  • Kʼawaika Keres: [ʂɑ̌ukʰɑ̥tʃʰɑ̥]

Tones

Acoma Keres has four lexical tones: high, low, falling and rising.^[9] Falling and rising tones only occur in long vowels and voiceless vowels bear no tones:

Syllable structure

Most Keresan syllables take a CV(V) shape.^[7] The maximal syllable structure is CCVVC and the minimal syllable is CV. In native Keresan words, only a glottal stop /ʔ/ ⟨ʼ⟩ can close a syllable, but some loanwords from Spanish have syllables that end in a consonant, mostly a nasal (i.e. /m n/ but words containing these sequences are rare in the language.^[10]

Due to extensive vowel devoicing, several Keresan words may be perceived as ending in consonants or even containing consonant clusters.

• Word-internal cluster: yʼâakạ srûunị ‘stomach’ /jˀɑ̂ːkḁʂûːni/ > [jɑ̂ːkḁʂûːni] ~ [jɑ̂ːkʂûːni]
• Word-final coda: úwàakạ ‘baby’; /úwɑ̀ːkḁ/ > [úwɑ̀ːkʰḁ] ~ [úwɑ̀ːkʰ]

Consonant symbols

Vowel symbols

Vowel sounds are represented straightforwardly in the existing spellings for Keresan. Each vowel sound is written using a unique letter or digraph (for long vowels and diphthongs). However, there are two competing representations for the vowel /ɨ/. Some versions simply use the IPA ⟨ɨ⟩ whereas others use the letter ⟨v⟩ (the sound /v/ as in veal does not occur in Keresan). Voiceless vowels have also been represented in two ways; either underlined or with a dot below (see table).

Sample texts

Word order

Keresan is a verb-final language, though word order is rather flexible.^[8][7]

Verbal morphology

The verb is a central grammatical category in Keres, conveying the most information about events in communicative acts.^[7][8][9] Through its morphemes, Keresan verbs code not only person and number of the initiator of the action (e.g. “Tammy drinks decaf”) as is common in Indo-European languages, but also how the initiator is implicated in the action. For instance, the three verbs that describe Tammy's actions in “Tammy kicked the ball” vs. “Tammy jumped” vs. “Tammy sneezed” require different levels of effort from Tammy, that is when kicking vs. jumping vs. sneezing.

Additionally, the person and number of the undergoer of the action are all coded on the verb (e.g. the word gukacha means “S/he sees her/him”, a full sentence in English). The ways the speaker assesses the action (i.e. evidentiality, as in “I think Tammy arrived from class” vs. “Tammy arrived from class”). Finally, the internal temporal structure of the action (i.e. aspect, as in “Tammy was sneezing in class” vs. “Tammy sneezed in class”) is also coded in Keresan verbs.

According to Maring (1967), the Keresan verb is organized around the following grammatical categories (pp. 39–40)^[9]

• Subject/Object relations
  • Subject of intransitive verbs: marked by a prefix that distinguishes 3-4 persons in the singular (see below).
  • Subject of transitive verbs: marked by a prefix that distinguishes 3-4 persons in the singular (see below).
  • Object of transitive verbs: marked by a prefix that combines with the subject prefix, or by a suffix
• Number relations
  • Singular: usually marked by a prefix
  • Dual: can be marked by a prefix, partial reduplication or by suffixes
  • Plural: can be marked by a prefix, partial reduplication, by suffixes or by suppletive stem forms (i.e. singular and plural forms are not related etymologically)
• Temporal relations
  • Future: is marked on the verb by a series of prefixes that also encode number
• Modality relations
  • Indicative
  • Dubitative
  • Hortative
    • Negative hortative
  • Negative
    • Future negative
• Voice relations
  • Active
  • Passive
  • Reflexive
  • Reciprocal
• Aspect
  • Imperfective
  • Inceptive
  • Repetitive
  • Continuative
  • Habitual
  • Inchoative
  • Perfective

Aspect

Aspect in Keresan is signalled by suffixes.

Time (tense) adverbials

The category of tense is expressed in Keresan via adverbs that indicate when the action about which one is speaking took place.

Numerals

The Keresan numeral system is a base 10 system. Numerals 11–19, as well as those between the multiple of tens, are formed by adding the word kʼátsi (/ kʼátsʰɪ / 'ten') followed by the word dzidra (/tsɪtʂa/ 'more'). Numerals 20 and above are formed by adding a multiplicative adverb (-wa or -ya) to the base number and the word kʼátsi.^[7]

Loanwords from Spanish

European colonizers arriving in the Southwest US brought with them material culture and concepts that were unknown to the peoples living in the area. Words for the new ideas introduced by Spaniards were often borrowed into Keres directly from Early Modern Spanish, and a large number of these persists in Modern Keresan.^[10]