The Phonology and Morphology of the Navaho Language, by Edward Sapir and Harry Hoijer, is a compact descriptive linguistic account of the Navaho (Navajo) language. Its focus is exactly what its title indicates: the sound system and the internal grammatical structure of words, rather than a full dictionary, a set of pedagogical lessons, or a broad treatment of syntax and discourse. The work presents Navaho as an Athabaskan language through technical linguistic description, with examples given in a transcription suited to showing phonological and morphological contrasts.
The phonological portion describes the Navaho sound inventory and the organization of sounds in syllables and words. It treats the consonant system, including the several series of stops and affricates, the fricatives, the lateral consonants, and the glides, as well as the vowel system with its contrasts of length and nasality. Tone receives attention as a distinctive feature of the language, and the description considers how tones pattern and how they are affected in combination. The phonology also covers syllable structure, permissible clusters, and the distribution of sounds. A substantial concern is morphophonemics: the changes that occur in consonants, vowels, and tone when stems and prefixes are brought together. These alternations are important in Navaho because the language builds complex word forms through prefixation and stem combination, so the phonology is closely tied to the morphology.
The morphological portion describes the major word classes and the structure of inflected and derived forms. Navaho nouns are treated in relation to nominal stems and possessive inflection, and the description includes the pronominal and postpositional elements that function in the grammar. Postpositions, which correspond in function to English prepositions but follow their objects, are described with their pronominal inflection. Independent pronouns and the pronominal prefixes that occur in verbs and postpositions are part of the morphological system.
The verb is the most elaborate part of the grammar, and the book gives it central attention. It describes the Navaho verb as a stem preceded by a string of prefixes that mark pronominal categories, mode and aspect, adverbial and directional meanings, and classificatory information. The analysis is concerned with the order of these prefixes, their formal shape, and the morphophonemic changes that occur at their boundaries. Verb stems are not treated as invariant roots; the book describes stem variation and the relation between stem form and grammatical categories such as mode and aspect. It also treats derivational formations and the distinction between active and stative or neuter verb types. Alongside the verb, the morphology covers adverbs, particles, and other minor word classes, showing how they function in the language’s grammatical inventory.
Throughout, the book is synchronic and descriptive: it analyzes Navaho as a system of contrasts and formal patterns rather than tracing the history of the language or comparing it extensively with related languages. Its examples are used to illustrate phonological oppositions and morphological structure, and the account is organized around the categories of sound pattern and word formation. The result is a technical grammar of Navaho phonology and morphology, valuable for its precise treatment of the language’s sound system, its morphophonemic complexity, and its prefixing verb morphology.
The book’s analytical emphasis falls on conditioning and distribution. Phonological elements are treated not as an isolated inventory but as elements whose occurrence and shape depend on position, neighboring segments, and morphological boundaries; the morphophonemic discussion accordingly presents alternation as a regular property of connected forms rather than as a collection of irregularities. In the morphology, the description is built around the formal behavior of stems and prefixes: it attends to the order in which prefixes occur, the categories they mark, and the ways their shapes change when combined. This makes the grammar especially useful for seeing how Navaho word forms are constructed as layered sequences and how phonological processes recur across different morphological contexts.
The book also has significance as a descriptive document because it keeps analysis and exemplification close together: forms are cited to establish contrasts and to display structural patterns. Its treatment of the verb presents the language’s grammatical categories as part of a single formal system, with prefixal material and stem variation analyzed in relation to one another rather than as separate topics. The result is a grammar whose value lies in its internal coherence as a synchronic account—one that makes Navaho phonology and morphology mutually illuminating and provides a detailed model for describing a language of this formal complexity.
