1. Linguistic overview. Typical of the Salishan languages, Coeur d'Alene has a large inventory of consonants, most of which are articulated in the back of the vocal tract. Like all Salishan languages, Coeur d'Alene lies toward the polysynthetic end of the morphological spectrum, having complex words often composed of many isolable formatives, including prefixes, suffixes, infixes, reduplication, and some affixes with lexical content. As are most languages of Northwest North America, Coeur d'Alene is verb‑initial, though the subject‑verb‑object pattern does occasionally occur in natural texts. The language shows elements of ergativity with a pattern of three‑way subject marking in main clauses with transitive subjects, intransitive subjects, and objects each indicated differently. More on grammatical relations in Coeur d'Alene can be found in Doak 1997, from which this brief sketch has been extracted, and in the other references in the bibliography.
Grammatical sketch
Adapted from the first two chapters of Coeur d'Alene Grammatical Relations by Ivy Doak, 1997
Overview
Phonology
Morphology
Morphophonology
Morphosyntax
Syntax
Bibliography