[7] Graczyk cites the reservation community as the reason for both the high level of bilingual Crow-English speakers and the continued use and prevalence of the Crow language.
Daily contact with non–American Indians on the reservation for over one hundred years has led to high usage of English.
Crow and Hidatsa are not mutually intelligible, however the two languages share many phonological features, cognates and have similar morphologies and syntax.
Stops in a consonant cluster with h as the initial radical (hp, ht, hk) are unaspirated and lax.
Intervocalic single, nongeminate stops are lax, unaspirated, and generally voiced.
The phoneme k has a palatalized allophone [kʲ] that occurs after i, e, ch and sh, often word-finally.
Word finally, only a (in a diphthong), o, and u (allomorphs of the plural suffix) can occur after a long vowel.
In word initial syllables, accented short vowels in a word initial syllable are generally followed by a consonant cluster, while accented long vowels are generally followed by a single consonant.
Monosyllabic stems have long vowels or diphthongs, e.g., bií, 'stone, rock'; bía, 'woman'.
An exhaustive list of nominal suffixes: Prefixes will render a relative clause into a derived noun.
Noun-noun compounds often involve a whole-part relationship: the first noun refers to the whole and the second to the part.
íimouth++bilíwater==íi-wilisalivaíi + bilí = íi-wilimouth + water = salivaáaliarm++ísshicontainer==áal-isshisleeveáali + ísshi = áal-isshiarm + container = sleeveNoun-verb compounds consist of a noun plus a stative verb.
Personal names constitute a distinct morphological class of nouns in Crow.
Crow has three pronominal forms: bound; emphatic and contrastive; and interrogative-indefinite pronouns.
Bound Pronominal Stems: Verbal derivational morphology is composed of prefixes, suffixes, one infix (chi, 'again; possessive reflexive') and reduplication, which expresses an "iterative, distributive, or intensive sense to the meaning of the stem.
In a relative clause, the subject of a stative verb is marked with m or in elevated discourse, dak.
The following table demonstrates simple constructions of active-state intransitive and transitive verbs based on the first person.
Following is a concise list of the rank ordering of each type element: Crow is a subject–object–verb (SOV) language; it is a verb-final and head marking.
In noun phrases, the order is possessor–possessum, with the person marker of the possessor identified by a prefix to the possessum.
There is no distinct category of adjectives; instead, stative verbs function as noun phrase modifiers.
Crow is an active–stative language, with verbs divided into two classes, active (both transitive and intransitive) and stative, largely on semantic grounds.
[[bíakaategirlshoop-úu]-mfour-PL-DEThúulee-shyesterday-DETaw-ákee]-sh1A-see-DET[[bíakaate shoop-úu]-m húulee-sh aw-ákee]-shgirl four-PL-DET yesterday-DET 1A-see-DET'the four girls I saw yesterday'Relative Clauses: N' → [s...N' head...] [iisáakshi-myoung.man-DETbúupchee-shball-DETak-ataalée]-shREL-steal-DETaw-ákaa-k1A-see-DECL[iisáakshi-m búupchee-sh ak-ataalée]-sh aw-ákaa-kyoung.man-DET ball-DET REL-steal-DET 1A-see-DECL'I saw the young man who stole the ball'Genitive Clauses: N' → NP N' [Clara-shClara-DET[is-íilaalee]]3POS-carsapéenwhoataalí-?steal-INTERR[Clara-sh [is-íilaalee]] sapéen ataalí-?Clara-DET 3POS-car who steal-INTERR'who stole Clara's car?
hinnethisbía-shwoman-DET[[hileenthese[bachée-sh]]men-DETxaxúa]alláxpa-mmarry-DShinne bía-sh [[hileen [bachée-sh]] xaxúa] áxpa-mthis woman-DET these men-DET all marry-DSthis woman married all these menThe second class is a stative verb that may function as a nominal modifier.
The relativizers are bound, with many exception, but they are generally prefixed to the word that contains the verb of the relative clause.
Relative clauses can also be marked with the indefinite determiner marker /-m/; generally this is used to imply that the referent is being introduced into the discourse for the first time.