Consonants

Takelma has 22 phonemic consonants which occur in normal speech. In addition, there are two consonants of restricted use:^[10]

Two consonants do not occur in normal everyday speech: voiceless alveolar lateral fricative /ɬ/ and voiceless alveopalatal fricative /ɕ/. In the narration of myths, /ɬ/ is the "grizzly-bear prefix" which can be prefixed to any word in the reported speech of the grizzly bear, symbolizing the animal's coarseness; and /ɕ/ is the "coyote prefix", prefixed to words in the reported speech of the coyote; thus /kʷìti/ "where?" (normal speech), /ɬkʷìti/ (grizzly bear speaking), /ɕkʷìti/ (coyote speaking).^[11]

Consonants /s/ and /ts’/ have optional alveopalatal allophones [ɕ] and [tɕ’], which occur mainly in word-initial position before a vowel, and intervocalically.^[12]

Semivowels /w/ and /y/ are vocalized in syllable-final position, for example:^[13]

/piliw-átʰ/ [piliwátʰ] "you jump" vs /piliw-tʰɛʔ/ [piliutʰɛʔ] "I jump"

/ka:y-àʔtʰ/ [ka:yàʔtʰ] "he will grow" vs /ka:y-kʰ/ [ka:ikʰ] "he grew"

Vowels

Takelma has six vowel qualtities, with contrastive length: /a ɛ i o ʉ u/ and /a: ɛ: i: o: ʉ: u:/. The vowel /ɛ/ is open, /o/ is close.^[14] Sapir also notes the existence of close /e:/, as in [la:le:tʰam] "you became", [kane:hiʔ] "and then", which he considers to be an (apparently unconditioned) allophone of /i:/.^[15]

Pitch-accent

Stressed syllable are pronounced with a pitch-accent, as described by Sapir:^[16]

1. a simple pitch distinctly higher than the normal pitch of unstressed speech;
2. a rising inflection that starts at, or a trifle above, the normal pitch, and gradually slides up to the same higher pitch referred to above;
3. a falling inflection that starts at, or generally somewhat higher than, the raised pitch of (1) and (2), and gradually slides down to fall either in the same or immediately following syllable, to pitch somewhat lower than the normal [high pitch].

The rising pitch (2) is clearly a conditioned realization of the high pitch (1) that occurs with syllables containing a long vowel, or syllables which end in a resonant /m n l w y/.^[17] High pitch can thus be said to be phonetically realized on the latter part of a long vowel, or on a syllable-final resonant:^[18]

There is no pitch in words that are pronounced without stress. As Sapir comments, "it not infrequently happens that the major part of a clause will thus be strung along with-out decided stress-accent until some emphatic noun or verb-form is reached", as in the sentence:

"All that precedes the main verb form /pʰɛlɛ̀xaʔ/ 'they went out to war' is relatively un-important, and hence is hurried over without anywhere receiving marked stress [or pitch]".^[19]

Sapir's transcription

The transcription system used by Sapir (1909, 1912) is the then current version of the Americanist phonetic notation, which has long since been superseded. Its use in the publications of Sapir and other linguists working in the late 19th and early 20th centuries now impedes accessibility to the modern linguist. Below is a table pairing Sapir's notations with the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). Note especially Sapir's idiosyncratic way of marking pitch.

(Phones marked with * occur in interjections and in sound-symbolic forms, but not in normal speech; [ə] is also epenthetic.)

Tense

Takelma has 6 different "tenses" listed below with the first (aorist) being the basic tense which is equivalent to the immediate future, present, and past.

1. Aorist
2. Potential
3. Future
4. Inferential
5. Present Imperative
6. Future Imperative

Person and possession

In Takelma, possession is marked by a set of affixes. Most of them are suffixes but there is one prefix. Below is a table of the four declensional sets.

Set I is only ever used with terms of kinship. For example:

Set II is used with bare stems or stems having the formant. For example:

Alternations between –t and –tʰ in set II and set IV is regular and predictable.

Set III is used with stems having other formants. For example:

Set IV is used in locative constructions. For example:

^[20]

^[21]

Object markers

Takelma has a complex system of verbal pronominal suffixes and is also accompanied by the loss of case markers on nouns. This represents a complete shift to full head marking. In the 3rd person object marker in Takelma, the suffix –kʰwa which is realized on the verb. However the distribution of –kʰwa is very restricted.

For the 1st and 2nd person objects overt marking is required with clear difference between singular and plural. For 3rd person there is no difference between singular and plural and there is also alternation between the suffix –kʰwa and zero suffix.

The zero variant occurs with animates as well as inanimate, covert pronouns, and overt nominals.

However –kʰwa occurs in three distinct environments. First, when the subject is also 3rd person. Second, it is always used when the object is higher in animacy than the subject. This means that the object refers to a human also a mythic animal that is thought of as a human being. The third situation is when the subject and object are of equal animacy but the object outranks the subject in topicality.^[22]

Numerals

These are listed by Sapir as follows:^[23]