Catawba Morphology in the Texts of Frank Speck and of Matthews and Red Thunder Cloud

Abstract

The Catawba verb morphology revealed in Frank Speck's texts differs somewhat from that described by Matthews and Red Thunder Cloud. The dubitative suffix has a different shape. Sequences of suffixes occur in Speck that are forbidden in Red Thunder Cloud's usage. Object suffixes appear only in Speck. Matthews and Red Thunder Cloud's subject suffixes do not occur in Speck; their future imperfective suffixes seem to be positional variants of the momentaneous, which look like Speck's subject suffixes. First and third plurals have postvocalic variants. Speck also records aspect suffixes not found elsewhere.