However, there is very little in the way of productive derivational morphology. There are 22 consonant and 6 vowel phonemes in Tol, as well as one suprasegmental phoneme of stress. There is also a pervasive system of vowel-harmony governed by vowel height. Morphological processes include vocalic ablaut and apocope, prefixation, infixation, and suffixation, as well as shift of stress, and these are associated with an extensive set of morphophonemic variations, especially within the verbs. In addition to the lexical stem, verb-forms in Tol are marked only for subject and tense.
Many nouns have variant forms as subject and as object.
There is a separate category of adjectives, which follow their associated nouns. There is also a large set of postnominal particles which specify case-relationships and express locational notions. He is also Secretary-Treasurer of the Endangered Language Fund. His research on Native American languages has primarily focussed on Honduras, where he has also done extensive work on the Pech language. This book provides a characterisation of the sound system of the Tsishaath Nootka language as spoken in the vicinity of Port Alberni, British Columbia, Canada.