Nominal Contact in Michif 9780198795339, 0198795335
This book explores the results of language contact in Michif, traditionally considered a mixed language that combines a
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OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 3/11/2017, SPi
Nominal Contact in Michif
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 3/11/2017, SPi
O X F O R D S T U D I E S O F E N D A N G ER E D LA N G U A G E S : Stephen R. Anderson, Yale University : W. F. H. Adelaar, University of Leiden; Peter Austin, School of Oriental and African Studies; Jonathan David Bobaljik, University of Connecticut; Claire Bowern, Yale University; David Bradley, La Trobe University; Sandra Chung, University of California, Santa Cruz; Alice C. Harris, University of Massachusetts, Amherst; K. David Harrison, Swarthmore College; Larry Hyman, University of California, Berkeley; Christian Lehmann, University of Erfurt; Osahito Miyaoka, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig; Pamela Munro, University of California, Los Angeles Kayardild Morphology and Syntax Erich R. Round The Clause-Typing System of Plains Cree Indexicality, Anaphoricity, and Contrast Clare Cook Tone and Accent in Oklahoma Cherokee Hiroto Uchihara Archi Complexities of Agreement in Cross-Theoretical Perspective Edited by Oliver Bond, Greville G. Corbett, Marina Chumakina, and Dunstan Brown Nominal Contact in Michif Carrie Gillon and Nicole Rosen Surmiran A Swiss Rumantsch Language Stephen R. Anderson Adjectives and Adverbs in Inuktitut Richard Compton Isolating Grammar Predication, Case, and Argument Structure in Niuean Diane Massam Head Marking in Yucatec Maya Elisabeth Norcliffe The Phonology and Morphology of Modern South Arabian Janet C. E. Watson
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Nominal Contact in Michif CARRIE GILLON AND NICOLE ROSEN WITH VERNA DEMONTIGNY
1
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Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, , United Kingdom Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries © Carrie Gillon and Nicole Rosen The moral rights of the authors have been asserted First Edition published in Impression: All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by licence or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press Madison Avenue, New York, NY , United States of America British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Control Number: ISBN –––– Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, Links to third party websites are provided by Oxford in good faith and for information only. Oxford disclaims any responsibility for the materials contained in any third party website referenced in this work.
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General Preface The volumes in this series bring original material from endangered languages to bear on a range of issues in our understanding of the nature of human language. The importance of the study of endangered languages for linguistic theory is widely acknowledged, as is the need to document linguistic structures that are in danger of disappearing from view in the near future. Similarly, the importance of recording and preserving the diverse range of human languages for broader cultural and ethical reasons is undeniable. Unfortunately, difficult problems are posed by the desire to satisfy the twin goals of comprehensive description on the one hand and of highlighting the theoretical significance of specific areas of a language’s structure on the other in a single work of manageable size. As a result, linguists approaching the documentation of the world’s many endangered languages face something of a dilemma. Many researchers have collected important information on some areas of the languages they work on without being in a position to produce a full grammar, or perhaps in the presence of other literature that accomplishes that basic descriptive goal adequately but without detailed attention to specific points of unusual structure. Furthermore, comprehensive grammars tend to be very large and expensive to produce, while having a limited audience. Oxford Studies of Endangered Languages aims to support the publication of theoretically informed work on endangered languages, while striking a balance among these concerns. Books in the series do not attempt to provide full grammars, but rather combine the documentation of portions of (one or perhaps more) endangered languages with sophisticated analysis that establishes the theoretical interest of the facts described. In the process, they contribute to the explication of the role endangered languages can play in enhancing our understanding of the diversity of the human language faculty. The series intends to cover all areas of linguistic structure from phonetics and phonology through morphology and syntax to semantics and pragmatics. It is open to work produced in a variety of theoretical frameworks, the only requirements being that the analysis be explicit and make testable claims within some framework of assumptions about the nature and organization of language, while being based in substantial part on material whose publication serves the goal of enhancing the documentation of the language(s) under investigation. The present volume addresses the grammatical structure of Michif, a language spoken by Métis in Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and North Dakota. Michif has been described in the literature as a central example of a ‘mixed language’, combining the grammar and lexicon of noun phrases in French with the grammar and lexicon of
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General Preface
verb phrases from Plains Cree. Gillon and Rosen show lucidly and in detail that this is incorrect: Michif should rather be seen as an Algonquian language that has borrowed heavily from French, and whose structure has changed in some respects to accommodate the borrowed material, but not a language whose grammar is genuinely ‘mixed’. While providing a wealth of descriptive information about this under-documented and endangered language, they illuminate a wide range of more general issues. The book will be of great interest for scholars working on language contact, on creoles, on native American (and especially Algonquian) languages, as well as on the general structure of the DP and its components. Stephen R. Anderson
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Acknowledgements We would like to thank first and foremost our primary Michif language consultant Verna Demontigny, who worked with us throughout the process, and who read over all the Michif examples and discussed many details to help us understand the Michif language as best we can. Other speakers have also contributed their knowledge throughout the years through other work and other publications, and we are deeply grateful to them: Rita Flamand†, George Fleury, Norman Fleury, Victoria Genaille†, Harvey Pelletier, and in particular Grace Zoldy. We would also like to thank the audiences at many conferences, including the Algonquian Conference, CLA, the Gender, Class, and Determination Conference, WAIL, and WSCLA, as well as audiences at Indiana University, the University of Arizona, and the University of Chicago. The syntax reading group at Arizona State University, Amy Dahlstrom, Elly van Gelderen, Helene Ossipov, and Will Oxford were also useful sounding boards for our ideas when developing this project. Olivia Sammons contributed valuable Michif data and transcriptions, which helped us better understand Michif semantics. Jesse Stewart and Arok Wolvengrey also provided insightful discussion of and examples for Media Lengua and Plains Cree, respectively. We would also like to thank Verónica Loureiro-Rodríguez for providing grammaticality judgements for Spanish, and Gabriela Albiou for Romanian. This work was partially funded by SSHRC Aboriginal Grant Word-building in Michif (–) and Canada Research Chair in Language Interactions, awarded to Nicole Rosen. We would like to thank the anonymous reviewers of the proposal and the anonymous reviewer of the manuscript. All helped us sharpen the discussion of the issues in this book. All remaining errors are ours. Thanks also to our editor, Vicki Sunter, who has guided us through this process. Finally, we’d like to thank our families. Nicole would like to thank Dave, Oscar, and Leo, for championing her in all her endeavours, and for their steadfast love and support. Carrie would like to thank Chris for being her best cheerleader, and for helpful artistic advice.
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List of Figures and Tables Figure .
Map of localities where Michif is spoken
Tables . Plains Cree demonstratives
. Michif demonstratives
. French-derived vs Algonquian-derived features
. Classic diagnostics for mass/count
. Mass/count systems
. Quantifiers and French-derived nominals
. French-derived nominals and mass/count diagnostics
. Quantifiers and Algonquian-derived nominals
. Mass/count diagnostics
. Mass/count vs non-mass/count languages in Chierchia ()
. Criteria for inflectional vs non-inflectional plurality
. Criteria for inflectional vs non-inflectional plurality applied to lii
. Criteria for inflectional vs non-inflectional plurality applied to -a/-ak
. Animacy distinctions across Algonquian languages
. Examples of Algonquian animacy
. Plains Cree demonstratives
. Examples of French gender
. Plains Cree animacy
. Examples of Plains Cree gender
. Michif articles
. Michif possessive articles
. Michif possessive marking
. Michif demonstratives
. Verbal animacy marking in Michif
. Gender/animacy marking in Michif
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xiv
List of Figures and Tables
. The gender system of Michif
.
Michif articles
.
Michif demonstratives
.
Plains Cree demonstratives
.
French demonstratives
A. Independent order, inanimate intransitive verbal paradigm
A. Conjunct order, inanimate intransitive verbal paradigm
A. Independent order, animate intransitive verbal paradigm
A. Conjunct order, animate intransitive verbal paradigm
A. Independent order, transitive inanimate verbal paradigm
A. Conjunct order, transitive inanimate verbal paradigm
A. Independent order, transitive animate verbal paradigm
A. Conjunct order, transitive animate verbal paradigm
A. Independent order, transitive animate verbal paradigm, st and nd persons
A. Conjunct order, transitive animate verbal paradigm, st and nd persons
B.
Independent order, inanimate intransitive verbal paradigm
B.
Conjunct order, inanimate intransitive verbal paradigm
B.
Independent order, animate intransitive verbal paradigm
B.
Conjunct order, animate intransitive verbal paradigm
B.
Independent order, transitive inanimate verbal paradigm
B.
Conjunct order, transitive inanimate verbal paradigm
B.
Independent order, transitive animate verbal paradigm
B.
Conjunct order, transitive animate verbal paradigm
B.
Independent order, transitive animate verbal paradigm, st and nd persons
B. Conjunct order, transitive animate verbal paradigm, st and nd persons
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List of Abbreviations
first person
/
first/second person
second person
third person
’
obviative third person
absolutive
accusative
animate
aP
adjectival phrase
applicative
article
causative
classificatory element
complementizer
conditional
conjunctive
determiner
double
definite
demonstrative
derivational morpheme
determiner
diminutive
direct
distal
DivP
division phrase
dP
little d phrase (adjectival position)
DP
determiner phrase
different subject
durative
emphatic
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xvi
List of Abbreviations
epenthetic morpheme
epistemic
exclusive
assertion of existence
feminine
final
FP
functional phrase
future
genitive
gender
habitual
immediate
imperative
imperfective
impersonal
inanimate
indefinite possessor
indefinite
independent order
infinitive
instrument
intensifier
intransitive
inverse
invisible
iterative
locative
masculine
medial
neuter
negation
neutral
nominalizer
nP
nominal phrase
NP
noun phrase
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List of Abbreviations NumP
number phrase
obviative
partitive
past tense
plural
possessive
preverb
proximal
question particle
reduplicant
reflexive
reinforcer
relativizer
relative case
singular
same subject
subjunctive
topic
animate intransitive verb
validator
inanimate intransitive verb
vP
little v phrase (verbal phrase)
VP
verb phrase
volitional
transitive animate verb
transitive inanimate verb
xvii
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Pronunciation Guide: A Note on Michif Orthography There are three primary orthographies (as well as many individual orthographies) found in Michif documentation today, and this section is intended to serve as a guide to translate between them. These three orthographies are: Turtle Mountain orthography, the Flamand–Papen orthography, and what we will call the Manitoba orthography. Note that there are published works of Michif which do not use any of these three orthographies, but given the idiosyncrasies and personal writing systems of some publications, it is impossible to include all systems. We have chosen to include three that are most recent, most used, and best known to the authors. The first writing system we include here is the orthography of the Turtle Mountain Michif Dictionary, written by Ida Rose Allard and Rose Laverdure, edited by John Crawford in Turtle Mountain, North Dakota in . This orthography was written to conform as much as possible to English spelling, and although it has not been adopted by many other more recent Canadian publications (though Fleury (, ) and some others have been written in a version of it), the fact that it is such an important Michif document makes it necessary to include it here. The Flamand–Papen system was developed primarily by Rita Flamand†, a Michif translator and writer, with input from linguist Robert Papen (Papen ). In this system, long vowels are represented with double vowels, and nasalization is represented by a single ñ, while a consonantal ‘n’ is represented by ‘n’. Flamand adapts what is often called the ‘double vowel system’ that is used in Ojibwe to include the Michif sounds, and her work is published using this system (Flamand translated a number of children’s books as well as other material). The Michif in this book is written in what we are calling the Manitoba orthography, but this name belies the fact that it was developed over a decade by a number of Michif speakers, linguists, and language activists, mostly based in Manitoba working for and with the Louis Riel Institute and the Michif Languages Project Manitoba Metis Federation. The most recent amendments to the MMF orthography included the new representation of nasalized sounds with an apostrophe between the vowel and the n to show that the nasalization is on the vowel and that the consonant is unpronounced. The previous version of the MMF orthography was close to the Flamand system, with ñ to designate the nasalization and n for the consonant, but ultimately it was decided that it was too difficult to type this on a computer, and so the ’n representation was agreed upon and adopted in a Louis Riel Institute Michif
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Pronunciation Guide: A Note on Michif Orthography
language meeting held in January with Nicole Rosen and five elders, Verna Demontigny, Norman Fleury, Victoria Genaille†, Harvey Pelletier, and Grace Zoldy. This represents the most recent way that nasalization has been represented in Michif. This writing system is used in the version of the Piikishkweetak aa’n Michif! language manual (Rosen and Souter ). It should be noted that although we attempted to be as complete as possible with respect to correspondences in the pronunciation guides, in probably all Michif documents, there are places where words are not spelled exactly as given here. Furthermore, in some cases, differences in pronunciation can entail potential orthographic differences: for instance, some speakers sometimes use ‘y’ /j/ for /h/ or /w/. When using other sources and the spelling differences are due to pronunciation differences, we have left the example as written in the original.
Vowel pronunciation guide -
i
i
i
yootin, itweew
/ɪ/
‘i’ in sit
ii
ii
ee
iitii, niiya
/i/
‘ee’ in see
e
e
en, bet
/ɛ/ ‘e’ in set
ee
ee ay
eekwa, itweew
/e/ ‘ay’ in say
o
o
oo
oo oo
poo, diloo
/o/ ‘oa’ in boat
œ
œ
œ
sœr
/œ/ n/a
eu
eu eu
feu
/ø/ n/a
a
a
api, wiipach
/a/ similar to ‘a’ in father, though somewhat shorter
aa
aa aw
aahkoshiw
/aa/ similar to ‘a’ in father
ou/u dorii, oshitaan
a
aa’n añ awn taaa’nt, taaa’n
/ɔ/ ‘o’ in pot or ‘u’ in put
/ã/ n/a
ae’n eñ en
prae’ntaaa’n, ae’n /ɛ̃/ n/a
oo’n oñ en
moo’n
ii’n
iñ een ohii’n, chiii’n
/ɔ̃/ n/a /ĩ/
n/a
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Pronunciation Guide: A Note on Michif Orthography
Consonant pronunciation guide -
p
p
p
peer, mishpon
/p/
‘p’ in spin.
b
b
b
baa, barb
/b/
Like an English ‘b’.
hp
hp
hp
pahpi
/hp/ n/a
t
t
t
taanshi
/t/
‘t’ in stun
d
d
d
dwee
/d/
Like an English ‘d’.
ht
ht
ht
teehtapi
/ht/ n/a
k
k
k
kataen, shiikahoo
/k/
‘k’ in skin
g
g
g
galet, magazae’n
/g/
Like an English ‘g’.
hk
hk
hk
teepiyaahk
/hk/ n/a
f
f
f
frimii, Michif
/f/
Like an English ‘f ’.
v
v
v
vyaa’nd, avik
/v/
Like an English ‘v’.
s
s
s
soo’n, rasin
/s/
Like an English ‘s’.
z
z
z
zaef, freez
/z/
Like an English ‘z’.
sh
sh
sh
shikahoo, kishiteew /ʃ/
Like the ‘sh’ in she
zh
zh
zh
zhur, boo’nzhor
/ʒ/
Like the ‘s’ in pleasure.
h
h
h
hash, wiichihin
/h/
Like an English ‘h’.
ch
ch
ch
cheeshkwa
/tʃ/ ‘ch’ in cherry
hch hch shch ohchi
/ʃtʃ/ the two sounds ‘sh’ and ‘ch’ together, like in ‘hush child’
j
j
j
jis, jig
/dʒ/ ‘j’ in jig
m
m
m
meetawee, lom
/m/ Like an English ‘m’.
n
nn/n n
nipaa, ana
/n/
Like an English ‘n’.
l
l
l
lii, balee
/l/
Like an English ‘l’.
r
r
r
rob, sasoer
/r/
n/a.
w
w
w
wii, awa
/w/ Like an English ‘w’.
y
y
y
yootin, shyae’n
/j/
‘y’ in you
xxi
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1 Introduction . Brief history of Michif and the Métis The Michif language was created by the Métis people, the descendants of (primarily) French fur traders and Cree women who married in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries in what is today the Canadian West. The children of these unions emerged as a new identity by the early nineteenth century in the Red River Settlements in Manitoba, with a new set of traditions taken from both parents. The Métis, born multicultural and having grown up multilingual, were in a position of privilege in the changing Red River region in the mid s. Many had access to a European education, but also knew the local traditional ways where they could move seamlessly between settler and First Nations communities (Sealey and Lussier ), and they had good relations with both. The Bois Brules, through their Indian blood, are friendly with many North-Western tribes; and being good trappers, and gay and easy-going in spirit, keep on pleasant terms with the white rovers. (Aimard : )
Multilingual, the Métis often served as interpreters and guides. They were . . . exceptionally apt linguists. Most of them spoke at least two languages, French and Cree, and many quickly added other Indian tongues and English . . . Their own patois, still spoken by them throughout the West, is a mixture of French and Cree or Chippewa [Ojibwe] with some English words. (Howard : –)
Although Métis people spoke many languages in their interactions with others, they are reported to have spoken a different, in-group language at home, which has been called many things—French Cree, Chippewa Cree, not-the-real Cree—but today is usually called Michif. Perhaps the earliest written record we have of the Michif language comes in from Le Métis, the first newspaper in Ste Boniface to give a local French voice in Manitoba. on a dû remarquer b’en souvent, surtout les Métis français qui, en parlant Crie entre eux, ont pris l’habitude d’y mêler une foule de mots français—A vrai dire ils forment leurs phrases, moitié français et moitie Crie—c’est en quelque sorte une autre langue, qui parait bien risible à
Nominal Contact in Michif. First edition. Carrie Gillon and Nicole Rosen. © Carrie Gillon and Nicole Rosen . First published by Oxford University Press
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Introduction
ceux qui n’y sont pas habitués. Ordinairement on se sert du Crie pour les verbes, les adjectifs— et du français pour les substantifs. v.g. ki ki wabamaw tchi, mon cheval? As-tu vu mon cheval? Kispin ki wi-miyin mon fusil nista mon couteau ki ka miyitin, ‘si tu veux me donner ton fusil, je te donnerai mon couteau’. (Le Métis, November ) we have often remarked that, especially the French Métis, when speaking Cree amongst themselves, have taken on the habit of mixing in a ton of French words. If truth be told, they form their sentences half in French and half in Cree—it’s in some sense another language, which seems laughable to those who are not accustomed to it. Normally they use Cree for verbs and adjectives, and French for nouns. e.g. ki ki wabamaw tchi, mon cheval? Have you seen my horse? Kispin ki wi-miyin mon fusil nista mon couteau ki ka miyitin, ‘if you want to give me your gun, I’ll give you my knife’.1
Although the Métis spoke a number of different languages, the examples and description given in Le Métis clearly refer to the language which we discuss in this book; this French-Cree mixed language is also documented in Bakker’s () volume. For discussion of its genesis and background on the language and related Métis languages, we refer the reader to Bakker’s work, and for examples of a resource written in three different Métis languages, see Burnouf et al. (). In this book, we will be discussing the mixed language Michif as spoken today, rather than focusing on its genesis. This chapter has the following structure. In §., we discuss the current status of Michif. In §., we provide an overview of the issues of language contact, including the major types of languages involved: pidgins, creoles, and mixed languages. In §., we provide an overview of the Michif DP. In §., we discuss a few issues concerning the verb that are necessary as background for understanding the rest of the book. In §., we provide an overview of the rest of the book.
. Current status of Michif The Canadian Census lists speakers of Michif, of whom are in Manitoba and Saskatchewan (Statistics Canada ). Figure . maps where different Michif varieties are spoken to the best of our knowledge. Census numbers are unreliable, however, as Métis people speak different languages in different communities, and many of these languages are referred to as Michif. Therefore, this number could refer either to a Métis variety of Cree, a Métis variety of French, or the mixed language described in this chapter (see Burnouf et al. for an overview of these three different varieties). This means that the census questionnaire is inadequate for research purposes, and that there are likely far fewer than fluent Michif speakers alive today of the specific 1 Appreciation to Michael Iannozzi for finding this excerpt and bringing it to our attention. Translation by Nicole Rosen, with authors’ added emphasis.
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. Current status of Michif
Michif varieties Mixed Michif Michif Cree
Wood Buffalo
Michif French Unknown variety of Michif
ALBERTA
MANITOBA SASKATCHEWAN Buffalo Narrows Île-à-la-Crosse Beuval
Stanley Mission La Ronge
Lac la Biche Bonnyville Meadow Lake Edmonton
Lloydminster
Prince Albert
Wetaskiwin North Battleford Lacombe Red Deer
Muskowekwan
Cochrane Calgary
Beechy
Swift Current
Duck Bay Camperville Mountain Boggy Creek Yorkton Roblin Dauphin
Swan River
Saskatoon
Peepekisis
Regina
St.Clements Saint Laurent Binscarth Portage Woodlands la Prairie Winnipeg Moosomin Rivers Virden
Brandon Killarney Turtle Mountain
FIGURE . Map of localities where Michif is spoken Note: For Alberta, we cannot conclusively say whether there are any mixed Michif speakers in the province, and census data is uninformative, as ‘Michif ’ is the only possible response. Source: Adapted from Mazzoli (in press).
Michif variety we describe here. It is a severely endangered language, and should be placed in category A, or Moribund, along the Expanded Graded Intergenerational Disruption Scale (Lewis et al. ), as it is primarily those in the grandparent generation who use it, and despite some earnest revitalization efforts, it is no longer being transmitted at home by parents. It is important to note however that there is enthusiasm for the language, with a number of language initiatives taking place, including resource-building and language teaching. These community efforts are mostly organized through the Gabriel Dumont Institute in
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Introduction
Saskatchewan and the Louis Riel Institute in Manitoba, but also by a handful of academics and speakers. The Michif language data in this book is drawn from a number of speakers from different communities that Rosen has worked with over the last nearly years, including Verna Demontigny, Rita Flamand†, Norman Fleury, George Fleury, Victoria Genaille†, Harvey Pelletier, and Grace Zoldy. Flamand and Zoldy are both from Camperville, MB, and Norman Fleury was raised in Ste Lazare, MB but now lives in south-western Manitoba. George Fleury was born in the Métis community of Ste Madeleine, MB a few years before its inhabitants were displaced in to make way for community pasture. His family then moved to a road allowance near Binscarth, to a place called Fouillard Town. Demontigny, Genaille, and Pelletier are also all from families that were displaced from Ste Madeleine, all growing up near Binscarth, MB. We have also used examples from the Michif Turtle Mountain dictionary, which is written by two Turtle Mountain, North Dakota Michif speakers (Laverdure and Allard ). Despite using a wide range of resources, our principal language consultant is Verna Demontigny, mentioned above, from a place known as The Corner, near Binscarth, MB. Born in , Demontigny is today one of the younger speakers of Michif; she has been teaching the language for over a decade, from preschool to university levels, and has created many resources for teaching and learning. It is important to note that each Michif community, and indeed, each speaker, varies somewhat in the way they speak Michif. For instance, speakers from Camperville (Zoldy, Flamand) may use more Ojibwe/Saulteaux words due to their geographical proximity to Duck Bay and the Pine Creek Ojibwe reserve, than speakers from Binscarth. That said, the variability does not affect mutual intelligibility, and Michif people from the various communities (Binscarth, San Clara, Camperville, Turtle Mountain, etc.) all recognize the differences and understand each other; they simply don’t use all the same exact vocabulary and structures. it really depends where you are and who you’re with. Honest . . . For instance, sa prã cɪ-sɪpwe: hte:ja:n for ‘I have to go.’ I’ll say that to some of the people here. But with some people I will say pigo cɪsɪpwe:hte:ja:n . . . You know what kind of language they use, and how it fits in. You just do it automatically, you know. They’re all Métis, but they talk different, you know. (Suzanne, in Bakker : )
Given the variability of Michif, it is possible that not all speakers use the same structures as those that we present in this book. We also note that Demontigny does not use a number of the words or structures published elsewhere. We have prioritized using Demontigny’s native speaker intuitions in this book over examples found elsewhere to maintain coherence and confidence in our claims for Michif.
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. Issues of language contact
. Issues of language contact It could be argued that all languages are subject to language contact and language contact effects, but particular social circumstances where two or more languages are in intense contact can result in the creation of a completely new language which takes structure and/or vocabulary from each. These contact languages are often split into three primary types: pidgins, creoles, and mixed languages. Trade languages and lingua francas also result from language contact, but because they are generally spoken alongside other languages, simply for communicative purposes, we do not discuss them here. Pidgins, creoles, and mixed languages share certain characteristics: they are all new languages, they are formed abruptly out of particular sociohistorical circumstances, and they can all be traced back to having more than one parent language. Before discussing the category of mixed language, we will take some time to define and differentiate these three types of languages, according to the literature. .. Creoles Creoles are often described as having one lexifier language and a number of other source (or substrate) languages that contribute structure (Thomason and Kaufman ; Thomason ). They often share a history of slavery or some other subjugation by a small elite group. In these social circumstances, there were speakers of many different languages that had to acquire a ‘Means of Interethnic Communication’ (MIC, Baker ) in order to communicate together. Thus, creoles are often described as being born out of communicative needs (Muysken ; Golovko ; Meakins ). Creoles prototypically are argued to have one lexifier language, meaning most of the lexical items (words) come from a single language (often European), and the underlying grammatical structure does not come from that same language, but rather from one or more substrate languages (Meakins ). Haitian Creole, for example, is a French lexifier language; many of the words may be traced to French, while the grammar cannot. The grammar is usually claimed to be from a number of African languages, brought over with the slave trade. We will revisit this definition of creole languages in Chapter . .. Pidgins Pidgins are defined by a number of socio-historical and structural criteria (see Winford , for an overview). Like creoles, they typically emerge in situations of forced slavery and trade, and are associated with European colonization. Pidgins differ from creoles in that they are reduced forms of language, not used as the native language of a speech community. They develop for communicative purposes in order that different groups can speak to each other. They are characterized by reduced
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Introduction
vocabulary and structure, usually with one or more languages as a lexifier, but with very few grammatical or structural features. Pidgins have been described as a type of ‘language which has been stripped of everything but the bare essentials necessary for communication’ (Romaine : ). .. Mixed languages While we have seen that pidgins and creoles both tend to be derived from a number of languages, mixed languages are defined generally as having two clear and often equal parents (Meakins ). Bakker () argues that mixed languages take most of their vocabulary from one language and most of their grammar from the other. Two such languages are Media Lengua and Copper Island Aleut. Media Lengua, still spoken in a few communities in Ecuador, has mainly Spanish vocabulary and mainly Quechua grammar. In (), the Spanish-derived elements are in italics and the Quechua-derived elements are in bold. () Media Lengua (Stewart ) si no aseti-ta okupa-kpika uebo-ka saɾten-pi-mi pega-ʃpa keda-n if not oil- use-. egg- pan-- stick-. remain- ‘If you don’t use oil, the egg will stick to the pan.’ Example () shows that the lexicon comes primarily from Spanish (in italics), while the morphological elements all come from Quechua (in bold). Similarly, Copper Island Aleut has two source languages: it has a mainly Russian lexicon and an Aleut grammar. In (), the Russian-derived elements are in italics and the Aleut-derived elements are in bold. () Copper Island Aleut (Golovko and Vahktin: ) aba-qalí-l-a-ya kada vuyána-x tin ayug-ní-l work-begin--- when war- . begin-- i vot ya man akíta-x abá-yu and so I here up.to-. work- pénsiya-m kuga ú-yu, i vs’o ravno ya abá-yu pension- on.it be- and all the.same I work- ‘I began to work when the war broke out. And so since that time I work. I receive my pension, and nevertheless I work.’ Bakker calls this mixing of the lexicon of one language with the grammar of another ‘intertwining’. ‘Code mixing occurs in communities where bilinguals wish to belong to both groups whose languages they speak; language intertwining occurs if they want to belong to neither’ (Bakker : ). Bakker represents this intertwining as in (). The bound elements all come from one language, and the free lexical items come from the other. The grammatical free morphemes can come from either language.
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. Issues of language contact ()
Intertwining (Bakker 1997: 210) Meaningful elements Bound A
Free Grammatical
Lexical
A/B
B
The bound morphology from one language is found on vocabulary from another. Thus, for him ‘intertwined languages must be taken as languages that defy genetic classification’ (Bakker : ). The particular social circumstances in which mixed languages normally form see more equal social standing of the two groups mixing than in the case of creoles and pidgins. Mixed languages tend to arise out of the formation of new ethnicities, often due to mixed marriages. Also different from creoles and pidgins, they tend to mark identity rather than fill a communicative need (Meakins : ). Michif falls into this category, as the Métis people are a new nation resulting from mixed marriages between (primarily) Cree women and French men. They were multilingual, and Michif was used as a home language with other Métis people; it was not a language used for communicating with others. Furthermore, mixed languages combine the grammar of languages to varying degrees. Michif is thought to be an example of one of the more mixed types, far along the continuum, where ‘both source languages contribute significant amounts of grammar’ (Meakins : ). The characterization is that the division of grammatical labour is fairly evenly split, with the morphosyntactic frame, including verbal grammar, attributed to Cree, while French contributes the DP grammar, such as adjectival agreement and plural marking. We will show in the upcoming chapters, however, that this DP grammar is minimally French in origin. Instead, Michif follows Cree grammar much more closely, or else has developed innovative structural features independent of either source language. The question then arises as to how much grammar is required from each source language to maintain the ‘mixed language’ designation—and what does this designation give us? For example, the question has been raised as to whether English should be thought of as a potential example of a mixed language, with French-derived lexical items and a Germanic grammar (Bailey and Maroldt ). However, Bakker argues that English is a Germanic language with considerable French borrowing. This is in fact what we argue for Michif: that upon careful study, we find that both source languages in Michif do not contribute a significant amount of grammar, and that it is better thought of as an Algonquian language with considerable French borrowing. This borrowing, in turn, has triggered some other minor changes in the grammar, but to
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Introduction
characterize the language as having two grammars does not hold under careful examination of the facts.
. Overview of the Michif DP We now turn to the structure of the Michif DP, which is usually characterized as being structurally French. As we show, even in this brief outline, that characterization is too simplistic. .. History of the vocabulary We begin with an overview of the history of the vocabulary. In Michif, most nominal elements come from French, and most verbal elements come from Plains Cree. In (), the French-derived vocabulary is in plain type; the Cree-derived vocabulary is italicized.2 () a. Li kofii for pi ka=maachishpak-wak ni-miyoiht-en. .. coffee strong and =tastes.bad.- -like.-/ ‘I like strong, bitter coffee.’ b. Sae’nk lii sheezh five .pl chair ‘I have five green chairs.’
ver green
n-dajaa-n. -have.-/
However, the situation is more complicated than this. First, Michif vocabulary mainly comes from four sources: French, Plains Cree, Ojibwe, and English (with the vast majority from the first two). Nouns can come from any of the four languages. () a. French-derived noun fiiy ‘girl’ c. Ojibwe-derived noun yaamoo ‘bee’
b. Plains Cree-derived noun takweminaan ‘chokecherry’ d. English-derived noun tii ‘tea’
Second, within the DP, there are elements from both French and Plains Cree. Some parts of the DP appear to be truly French only. First, the articles are all Frenchderived. Li, la, lii, ae’n, en developed from the French articles le, la, les, un, une.
2
We use this convention throughout the book; French- and English-derived vocabulary are in plain type, and the Algonquian-derived vocabulary is italicized.
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. Overview of the Michif DP () French a. la .. ‘the table d. une .. ‘a table’
table table table table
b. le .. ‘the nose’
nez nose
e. un .. ‘a nose’ b. li .. ‘the nose’
nii nose
d. en .. ‘a table’
e. ae’n .. ‘a nose’
nii nose
tab table
c. les tables . tables ‘the tables’
nez nose
() a. la tab .. table ‘the table’
f. des . ‘tables’
tables tables
c. lii tab . table ‘(the) tables’
Note that Michif has lost the distinction between les and des: lii can be used in definite and indefinite contexts. We discuss this in more detail in Chapter . Second, adjectives come from French and English; since Algonquian lacks a separate syntactic adjective category, no adjectives come from Plains Cree or Ojibwe.3 () a. French-derived adjective zhoen ‘young’
b. English-derived adjective smart ‘smart’
However, there are elements that are not derived from French. The demonstratives are all derived from Plains Cree (Table .). The animate plural forms have an additional final /k/, but otherwise the demonstratives are unchanged (Table .). TABLE . Plains Cree demonstratives animate
inanimate
singular plural obviative singular plural proximal awa
ôki
ôhi
ôma
ôhi
medial
ana
aniki
anihi
anima
anihi
distal
nâha
nêki
nêhi
nêma
nêhi
Source: Wolvengrey (a: )
3 Algonquian does have adjective-like prefixes that can be found on nouns (i); however, these behave differently from the French adjectives, which have their own syntactic category.
(i) Plains Cree (Bakker : ) wâpiski-wiyâs white-meat ‘white-skinned person’
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Introduction TABLE . Michif demonstratives animate
inanimate
singular plural obviative singular plural proximal awa
ookik
oohi’n
ooma
oohi’n
medial
ana
anikik
anihi
anima
anihi
distal
naha
nekik
nehi
nema
nehi
Note: We have added the obviative demonstratives to Rosen (), which did not include them. Source: adapted from Rosen (: )
(See Chapter for more discussion of the demonstratives.) And, finally, there are parts of the Michif DP that are derived from both French and Plains Cree. Numerals are all French-derived, with the exception of peeyak ‘one’, which comes from Plains Cree. () a. Plains Cree-derived numeral peeyak ‘one’
b. French-derived numerals deu, trwaa, kaet, . . . ‘two’, ‘three’, ‘four’
Quantifiers come from both French and Plains Cree. ()
a. French-derived quantifiers tout, shaek/shaekun, cheuk, ae’n pchi brae’n ‘all’, ‘each’, ‘some’, ‘a little bit’ b. Plains Cree-derived quantifiers kahkiyuw, mishtahi, pahpeeyak, awtist, apishiish ‘all’, ‘much/many’, ‘one-by-one’, ‘some’, ‘little’
Thus, the DP is not simply French. .. DP morphosyntax A further complication of the simple Cree VP/French DP split comes from the morphosyntax within the DP: French-derived and Algonquian-derived nouns have different patterns.4 French-derived nominals always take an (in)definite determiner, even those with a numeral, quantifier, or demonstrative ()a–c (Rosen ). The only exceptions are a few nouns derived from former French partitives ()d.
For the remainder of this book, we will use ‘French-derived’ for both French and English borrowings, and ‘Algonquian-derived’ for any Plains Cree- or Ojibwe-derived vocabulary. Where the languages involved differ in some feature or syntax, we note the variation. 4
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. Overview of the Michif DP ()
a. trwa *(lii) zhvoo three . horse ‘those three horses’ b. peeyak *(ae’n) one .. ‘one hair’ c. mishtayi *(lii) lots . ‘lots of hair’
anikik ...
zhveu hair zhveu hair
d. mishtayi diloo lots water ‘lots of water’ Algonquian-derived nominals do not require a determiner (with or without numerals, quantifiers, demonstratives). ()
a. anihi (lii) ... (.) ‘all those chokecherries’
takweminaan-a chokecherry-.
b. (li) takwaminaan (..) chokecherry ‘this chokecherry’
ooma ...
c. paayek (ae’n) one .. ‘one stolen good’
kimotiwin loot
d. (li/ae’n) ../.. ‘the/a chokecherry’
takweminaan chokecherry
kakiyaw all
There are other differences between the French-derived and Algonquian-derived vocabulary, which we discuss in more detail in Chapter . There are also ways that Michif has maintained aspects of both French and Plains Cree within the DP. For example, plural marking comes from both French and Plains Cree. The article lii comes from French and the suffix -a/-ak comes from Plains Cree. ()
a. lii . ‘girls’
fiiy girl
b. takweminaan-a chokecherry- ‘chokecherries’
However, the suffix can only attach to Algonquian-derived vocabulary, whereas the article can be found on both French-derived and Algonquian-derived vocabulary. (See Chapter for more discussion of Michif plurality.)
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Introduction
Another way that Michif has maintained aspects of both languages is gendermarking. Michif nouns are associated with two different gender systems: the French-derived sex-based system (masculine/feminine) and the Algonquian-derived animacy system. The Michif articles (and some adjectives) encode masculine or feminine (just like French). This is true for both French-derived and Algonquian-derived vocabulary. () French-derived nouns a. la fiiy b. li .. girl .. ‘the girl’ ‘the boy’
garsoo’n boy
() Algonquian-derived nouns a. ma tahkweminaan ... chokecherry ‘my chokecherry’
b. Moo’n mooshoom sg... grandfather ‘This is my grandfather.’
awa.
Demonstratives encode animacy distinctions (just like other Algonquian languages). This is also true for both French-derived and Algonquian-derived vocabulary. () French-derived nouns a. awa la ... .. ‘this girl’ b. ooma ... ‘this nose’
li ..
fiiy girl nii nose
() Algonquian-derived nouns a. awa ni-mooshoom ... -grandfather ‘this grandfather of mine’ b. ooma takweminaan ... chokecherry ‘this chokecherry’ Animacy can also be encoded via the plural suffix (-a/-ak), but only on Algonquianderived vocabulary. () Algonquian-derived nouns a. otoohtooshim/otoohtooshim-a (her) breast/breast-.
b. shaapomin/shaapomin-ak gooseberry/gooseberry-.
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. Overview of the Michif DP () French-derived nouns a. fraa’nbwaaz/*fraa’nbwaaz-a(k) raspberry
b. freez/*freez-ak strawberry
(See Chapter for more discussion on gender.) .. Weakening features There are two features that appear to be weakening over time. The first comes from Plains Cree: obviation marking. Obviation is still found in the Michif DP, but is reported to be on the decline (Weaver ). In Algonquian generally, third persons are either proximate or obviative (Bloomfield ; Hockett ; Wolfart ). Obviatives are said to be ‘less important’ than proximates, and if there is more than one third person in a clause, only one of them may be proximate. Only animate nouns are marked for obviation in Plains Cree, and obviatives are marked by the suffix -a.5 () Plains Cree (Bakker : ) John kî-wâpam-êw Irene-a. John -see.->’ Irene- ‘John saw Irene.’ Obviation is also used in possession: when a possessed noun has a third person possessor, the obviative marker -(w)a must be used. () Plains Cree (Bakker : ) a. o-mâmâ-wa -mother- ‘his/her mother’
b. *o-mâmâ -mother
In Michif, we have found obviation marking on nouns to be optional and subject to speaker variation. For example, Norman Fleury, Rosen ()’s consultant, did not allow the French-derived la fam ‘the woman’ to be marked as obviative ()a. However, Demontigny has optional obviative marking on la fam ()b. In in ()c, the Algonquian-derived oshisha ‘his/her father-in-law’ requires the obviative marker (for both speakers), but in in ()d, the French-derived ta’nt ‘aunt’ again optionally takes the obviative marker (for Demontigny). Obviation marking is therefore obligatory on Algonquian-derived animate nouns, mostly optional on French-derived animate nouns (and speaker-dependent), but impossible on inanimates, regardless of source language. Crucially, however, it is still operative, complicating the idea that the Michif DP is French. 5 In other Algonquian languages, inanimates can also be marked for obviation (e.g. Innu-aimun; Brittain ).
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()
Introduction a. (adapted from Rosen : ) L-om la fam*(-a) kii=waapam-ew. ..-man .. woman =see.->’ ‘The man saw the woman.’ (N. Fleury) b. L-om la ..-man .. ‘The man saw the woman.’
fam(-a) kii=waapam-ew. woman =see.->’ (Demontigny)
c. (Rosen : ) L-om o-shish-a ..-man -father.in.law- ‘The man saw his father-in-law.’ d. L-om sa ..-man ..poss ‘The man saw his aunt.’
ta’nt(-a) aunt-
kii=waapam-ew. =see.->’ kii=waapam-ew. =see.->’
Following vowels, the form of the obviative marker is -iwa (). ()
a. Piiter li bo’n jeu(-iwa) Peter .. good god- ‘Peter was a disciple of Jesus.’
kii=pimichisahw-eew. =follow.->
b. Piit iva doo’ntii soo’n Pete go.. tame ... ‘Pete is going to tame his horse.’
zhvoo(-iwa). horse-
Finally, the following example, adapted from Bakker (), shows obviative possession marked by a different suffix –iyiw, which Demontigny also uses. ()
Kaah-kiihtwaam ee-wocheem-aat -again -kiss.->’ ‘She repeatedly kissed his brother.’
soo’n ...
frer-iyiw. brother-.
The obviative demonstratives can also be optionally used, as in the examples in (). ()
a. Kii=waapam-eew Nicole ana =see.-> Nicole . ‘Nicole saw that woman.’ b. Kii=waapam-eew Nicole =see.-> Nicole ‘Nicole saw that woman.’
la ..
anihi ..
fam. woman
la ..
fam. woman
We assume that the fact that most nouns are not Algonquian-derived has led to the erosion of the obviative system in Michif for most speakers. That said, it is interesting
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. Overview of the Michif DP
that it has not completely disappeared, and it appears to be optional for a number of speakers, including Demontigny.6 The other feature that appears to be on the decline in Michif is the productive use of sex-based gender. We discuss this in more detail in Chapter . .. Polysynthesis in Michif Another complication to the idea that Michif DPs are mainly French comes from the polysynthetic nature of Michif. Polysynthetic languages often allow the DP to contain only a demonstrative, or for the DP to be elided altogether. Algonquian languages are polysynthetic, and Michif, like the rest of the family, is pro-drop. If the subject or object is already understood in context, the speaker can use a demonstrative to refer to either. In (), anima ‘that’ is used to refer to a pear introduced earlier in the story. () (Sammons, n.d.) Eekoshi shi=poonipay-ik so =stop.-’. ‘And so it stopped, that one.’
anima. ...
Michif also allows for no DP element at all, as the agreement markers on the verb provide information about the object ()a and subject ()b. This is a feature of Algonquian languages, which use overt nouns less frequently than European languages do. ()
a. Anihi lii pchi garsoo’n kii=waapaht-am-wak. those . little boy =see.-- ‘Those little boys, they saw it (the rock).’ b. Eekoshi kii=nee-takoshi-w. so =-arrive.- ‘And so he climbed down (there).’
In ()a, the subject is overt (anihi lii pchi garsoo’n ‘those little boys’), but the object (‘the rock’) is not. Instead, it is understood from the inanimate marking on the verb, and the context. In ()b, there is no overt DP marking the subject; it is only through the verbal marking and context that we know which referent is the subject. .. Summary The Michif DP is much more complicated than simply a ‘French DP’. In the rest of this book, we explore how much more complicated it is. In Table ., we provide all of the issues discussed in this book, and where the relevant elements come from. 6 It is also mostly lost in the verb as well. See Appendices A and B for agreement patterns in Plain Cree vs Michif.
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Introduction
TABLE . French-derived vs Algonquian-derived features -
-
/
obvious mass/count distinction no (obvious) mass/count distinction
lii
-a/-ak
sex-based
animacy
all French-derived
n/a
none
all Algonquian-derived
roots
nPs
One of Bakker’s main claims is that Michif should have Cree grammar, and that French nouns should be able to co-occur with Cree nominal morphology. However, the situation is far more complex than that. First, much of the Cree nominal morphology can be found on the Algonquian-derived nouns. The Algonquianderived nouns can take the plural suffix ()b, repeated below, the possessive marking (both suffixes and prefixes) ()–(), obviation marking (), the diminutive marker (but only if derived from verbs) (), the deceased marker (), prefixed adjectives (), and deverbalizers (). ()
b. takweminaan-a chokecherry- ‘chokecherries’
() o-mooshoom-a -grandfather- ‘his/her grandfather’ ()
kaah-kiihtwaam ee-wocheem-aat -again -kiss.->’ ‘She repeatedly kissed his brother.’
soo’n ...
frer-iyiw. brother-.
() pooyoo-shk-ish quit-- ‘quitter’ () koohkom-ipan7 grandmother-deceased ‘your deceased grandmother’
7
Koohkom is a frozen form with second person possessive marking on it.
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. Overview of the Michif DP ()
mii kishchi-graa’nper .. great-grandfather ‘my ancestors’
() (Bakker : ) a. li weepin-ikee-win .. throw-- ‘garbage’ b. en .. ‘a quitter’
pooyoo-shk quit-
French-derived nouns, on the other hand, can take Cree possessive suffixes (but never the prefixes) (), obviation suffixes ()–() (for some speakers), adjectival prefixes (), and the deceased suffix (). ()
a. tii liivr-inaan .. book- ‘our (incl.) books’
b. moo’n liivr-inaan ... book- ‘our (excl.) book’
c. sii liivr-iwaawa .. book-. ‘their (pl.) books’ ()
%sa ... ‘his/her aunt’
taa’nt-a aunt-
()
%John soo’n frer-iwa John .. brother- ‘John’s brother is sleeping.’
()
mii kishchi-graa’nper .. great-grandfather ‘my ancestors’
()
moo’n noo’nk-ipan ... uncle-deceased ‘my deceased uncle’
nipa-yi-w. sleep.--
The French-derived nouns cannot co-occur with the plural suffix (), repeated below. () French-derived nouns a. fraa’nbwaaz/*fraa’nbwaaz-a(k) raspberry
b. freez/*freez-ak strawberry
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Introduction
They also cannot occur with a deverbalizer, since, for the most part, verbs were not borrowed into Michif. Further, some of the Cree morphosyntax has been replaced by French vocabulary, as in the locative suffix -ihk, which has been replaced by daa’n (derived from French dans ‘in’). Compare the Plains Cree examples in () to the Michif examples in (). () Plains Cree [examples from http://atlas-ling.ca/] a. pimihâwikamikw-ihk chî isi ka-kî-itohtah-in? airport- towards --take.-> ‘Can you take me to the airport?’ b. sakâ-hk bush- ‘in the bush’ c. mêskanâ-hk road- ‘on the road’ ()
a. Ki-kashkitaa-n chii’n chi=itohtaa-yan -able-/ Q =go.- ‘Can you take me to the airport?’ b. daa’n lii . ‘in the bush’ c. daa’n li .. ‘on the road’
daa’n
li ..
airport? airport
bwaa stick shimae’n road
Overall, the Cree grammar is more operative in/available to the Algonquian vocabulary, and less so for the French. We cannot simply say that Michif has a Cree grammar with French slotted into it. Instead, it appears that Michif maintains different morphological systems for French and Algonquian (somewhat like English does for Latinate and Germanic stems).
. Overview of the Michif verb Some of the issues we discuss in this book intersect with verb structure in Michif. We provide a very brief outline of the Michif verb here. There are two topics in particular that will become important in later chapters: (i) animacy on the verb and (ii) verb structure.
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. Overview of the Michif verb
.. Animacy Verbs in Algonquian languages are all marked for animacy of either the subject or the object. Intransitive verbs agree in animacy with the subject. For example, the Michif stem paash- ‘be dry’ can occur with the third person intransitive inanimate suffix -teew or an animate suffix, here illustrated by the third person suffix -ow. ()
a. VII Paash-teew. be.dry.- ‘It is dry.’
b. VAI Paash-ow. be.dry.- ‘S/he is dry.’
Transitive verbs agree in animacy with the object. For example, mow- ‘eat (an.)’ must take an animate object and miichii- ‘eat (inan.)’ must take an inanimate one. ()
a. VTI Mow-eew. eat.-> ‘He’s eating it (an.).’
b. VTA Miichii-w. eat.- ‘He’s eating it (inan.).’
Animacy marking on the verb will be revisited in Chapter . .. Verb structure The structure of verbs in Algonquian is quite complicated, and there is a fair amount of research on the topic (Bloomfield ; Goddard ; Oxford ; Wolfart ; Brittain , among many others). We do not go into great detail here, but we provide a basic outline of the structure of (Algonquian-derived)8 verbs in Michif. Verbs consist of up to four main parts: preverbs, prefixes, the stem, and suffixes (Rosen ). Only the stem and suffixes are obligatory. The third person stems are the least marked, normally with just a suffix, as in (), while first and second persons take a prefix and a suffix as in (). () Ihtohtee-w. go.- ‘S/he is going.’ () N-itohtaa-n. -go.-/ ‘I am going/planning to go’
8 Some speakers use a small number of French-derived verbs in Michif (e.g. a copula derived from être ‘to be’), but they are not common, and we do not focus on them here.
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Introduction
The verb stem itself can be complex. Algonquian verb stems can be made up of up to three parts: the initial, medial, and finals (Bloomfield ; Goddard ). This terminology is normally used in Algonquian studies, but we can also think of the initial as the root of the verb, with the medial and final as types of derivational suffixes. Only the root (initial) is obligatory as part of the stem, as in (). () Nipaa-w. sleep.- root-suffix ‘He’s sleeping.’ Verbs can also consist of a root and a final (), or a root, medial and final (). () Miyo-pay-in. good-move.- root-final-suffix ‘It works well.’ () Ni-teewi-shtikwaan-aa-n. -pain-head--/ prefix-root-medial-final-suffix ‘I have a headache.’ Most crucially for this book, some finals can be used to denominalize a root noun. For example, the final -iwi- ‘be an X’ is used to create denominal verbs.9 This final is used with French-derived nouns (and adjectives), and is a strategy to create verbs out of borrowings. () (Bakker : ) a. li tan kaa-li-rwe-hiwi-t .. time =..-king-.- ‘the time when he was king’ b. la-brem-iw-an. ..-fog-.- ‘It is foggy.’ There are other finals that can occur with non-Algonquian nouns/adjectives: -ihkee‘make’, -inaakw- ‘look like’, -imaakw- ‘smells (inan)’, -ihkaasho- ‘pretend’, and, in each case, they create verbs out of borrowings. 9
It can also be used to verbalize adjective-like roots.
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. Overview of the book
() (Bakker : ) a. miina ka=li-budae-ihkee-w.10 again =..-sausage-.- ‘She will be sulky again.’ (lit. She will make sausage again) b. dilet-inaakw-an. milk-look.like.- ‘It looks milky.’ c. la-gres-imaakw-an. ..-grease-smell.- ‘It smells greasy.’ d. li-bos-ihkaasho-w. ..-boss-pretend.- ‘S/he acts as if s/he is the boss.’ These finals—as well as the definite articles inside these verb stems—will be addressed in Chapter .
. Overview of the book In Chapter , we investigate the mass/count distinction and how it plays out in a language with two different language types: one with an obvious mass/count distinction (French) and one without (Algonquian). Although we conclude that there is a difference between the French-derived and Algonquian-derived vocabulary, ultimately a simple DP/VP split cannot explain this difference. In Chapter , we argue that the two different exponents of plurality (lii and -a/-ak) occupy two different positions and express two different meanings. Once again, while the behaviour of the French-derived vocabulary differs from that of the Algonquianderived vocabulary, the DP/VP split cannot account for the difference. In Chapter , we explore how gender works in this system. Michif has both a sexbased gender system and an animacy-based gender system. We analyse both as being housed on the nominalizing head n (following Kramer ). We show that the animacy system is stronger than the sex-based system, as animacy is marked on the verb, and sex-based gender is mostly only marked on the article. Thus, Michif behaves more like an Algonquian language than like French, even within the DP. 10 Note that although Bakker glosses this example as from French boudin ‘blood sausage’, we believe it comes from French bouder ‘to pout, sulk’ instead, which does not necessitate literal and figurative meanings. Both the ‘sulk’ and ‘blood sausage’ meanings are available in Michif for the lexical item, according to Demontigny.
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Introduction
In Chapter , we investigate the syntax and semantics of the French-derived article system, and show that the singular definite articles are used to Algonquianize nonAlgonquian vocabulary. Thus, although the articles come from French, they no longer behave like French articles. This is further evidence the Michif DP is more Algonquian than it is French. In Chapter , we investigate the syntax and semantics of demonstratives, showing that they behave more like Algonquian demonstratives than like French ones. Once again, we find evidence that the Michif DP is more like Algonquian than French. Finally, in Chapter , we discuss the implications of our findings for contact languages in general. We argue that contact does not create whole new categories of language. Instead, contact creates changes within a structure that already exists. Within the Michif DP, adjectives and masculine/feminine gender (via articles) were added, but otherwise, the structure remained mainly Algonquian. We then extend this idea to other ‘mixed’ languages and creoles.
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2 Mass/count . Introduction It is an ongoing question as to whether Algonquian languages distinguish between mass and count nouns.1 At least superficially, they do not appear to make a distinction (Rhodes ; Wiltschko ; however, see Gillon , ; Mathieu a for counterarguments). ()
()
Ojibwe (Mathieu a: ) a. waabigan/waabigan-ag clay/clay-.
b. bkwezhgan/bkwezhgan-an bread/bread-.
Blackfoot a. (Frantz and Russell : ) aaapan/aaapa-istsi blood/blood-
b. (Frantz and Russell : ) isstsskáán/isstsská-ístsi dust/dust-
English and French, on the other hand, do distinguish morphologically between count and mass nouns (Jespersen ; Doetjes ; Chierchia , among many others). ()
a. clay/*clays2 c. blood/*bloods e. oil/*oils
b. bread/*breads d. dust/*dusts f. ink/*inks
()
a. argile/*argiles clay/clays c. le sang/*les sangs blood/*bloods e. huile/*huiles oil/oils
b. pain/*pains bread/breads d. poussière/*poussières dust/*dusts f. l’encre/*les encres ink/*inks
1
This chapter is adapted from Gillon and Rosen (). Some of these allow the ‘kind’ reading ‘oils’ = ‘types of oil’; French plural mass nouns also sometimes allow kind readings. These readings are unavailable in Algonquian languages (Mathieu a; Gillon a), as we discuss in §... 2
Nominal Contact in Michif. First edition. Carrie Gillon and Nicole Rosen. © Carrie Gillon and Nicole Rosen . First published by Oxford University Press
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Mass/count
Given that Michif has vocabulary from both types of languages, the question arises whether it takes after French and English or after Cree and Ojibwe when it comes to the mass/count distinction. That is, does it freely allow plural mass nouns like Algonquian languages, or are plural mass nouns dispreferred, like French and English (as Croft claims)? There is a third option: that the French-derived nouns display a mass/count distinction and the Algonquianderived nouns do not. This would make Michif ‘mixed’—although not in the Bakker sense.3 We show that the third option is the correct one. Michif is mixed with respect to mass and count. This raises issues for the acquisition of such a system. It also raises questions about how such a mixed system works. The nouns must in some sense carry their history on their sleeves. This chapter has the following structure. In §., we provide the traditional diagnostics for the mass/count distinction, as well as a discussion of coercion in French and English. In §., we show that the traditional diagnostics fail to show a mass/count distinction in three Algonquian languages (Ojibwe, Blackfoot, and Innuaimun). In §., we compare the French-derived nouns to the Algonquian-derived nouns in Michif, showing that the two sets of nouns pattern differently with respect to the mass/count distinction. In §., we discuss some issues that arise with respect to a split mass/count system.
. Overview of the mass/count distinction In this section, we describe the traditional diagnostics for mass/count distinctions in English and French, as well as mass-to-count and count-to-mass coercion processes. .. Mass/count diagnostics In English and French, there are a number of grammatical processes that distinguish between mass and count nouns (Jespersen ; Doetjes ; Chierchia ). Specifically, mass and count nouns differ in their ability to be pluralized, the (in)ability to occur with numerals without a measure phrase, and the (in)ability to occur with certain determiners or quantifiers (Chierchia ). The facts in French and English vary a little, so we will separate the two languages here. English count nouns can be pluralized; when mass nouns are pluralized, they must be coerced into a count noun (via the universal sorter or the universal packager; see §.. for more discussion). 3 This would be more akin to English maintaining different morphological systems for Latinate vs Germanic words.
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. Overview of the mass/count distinction ()
count: car, cars, table, tables, etc. mass: blood, bloods (types of blood), ink, inks (types of ink), beer, beers (amounts of beer), etc.
In French, a similar phenomenon occurs. Count nouns may be freely pluralized; some mass nouns can be pluralized, but they are coerced via the universal packager or the universal sorter. ()
count: l’auto, les autos, la table, les tables, etc. mass: le sang, les sangs (=types of blood), l’encre, les encres (=types of ink), etc.
English count nouns can co-occur with numerals without a measure phrase; mass nouns may only occur with a numeral with a measure phrase when they have been coerced via the universal sorter or the universal packager. ()
count: one car, two cars, one table, two tables mass: one blood (=one type of blood), two beers (=two amounts of beer), one ink (=one type of ink), two waters (=two amounts of water)
French count nouns can co-occur with a numeral without a measure phase; mass nouns may only occur with a measure phrase unless they have been coerced via the universal sorter. ()
count: une auto, deux autos, une table, deux tables mass: un sang (=one type of blood), deux sangs (=two types of blood), un encre (=one type of ink), deux encres (=two types of ink)
Some determiners and quantifiers only occur with count nouns, while others only occur with mass nouns (). If mass nouns occur with the count determiners/ quantifiers, they may only do so after being coerced to count; if count nouns occur with the mass determiners/quantifiers, they may only do so after being coerced to mass (see §..). ()
a. count: une auto, plusieurs autos, plusieurs tables, quelques tables a car, many cars, many tables, some tables mass: un sang (a type of blood), plusieurs sangs (many kinds of blood), *quelques sangs4 a blood (a type of blood), many bloods (many types of blood), some bloods (some types of blood) b. count: *little car, *much car mass: little blood, much blood
4 Note that pluralizing sang ‘blood’ gets a figurative reading used primarily as ‘mixed bloods’ or ‘pure bloods’, referring to pureness or mixing of race.
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Mass/count TABLE . Classic diagnostics for mass/count
no
yes
/ yes
no
/
yes
In Table ., we list the classic diagnostics for the mass/count distinction. English and French make a grammatical distinction between count and mass nouns; this grammatical distinction is not mapped from the semantic distinction in a one-to-one fashion. In languages like English and French, most mass nouns do not denote individuals. However, there are some mass nouns which are inherently countable and do denote individuals. Doetjes () makes a distinction between mass–mass nouns (inherently uncountable) and count–mass nouns (inherently countable). ()
a. mass–mass nouns: oil, water, mud, blood, . . . (non-individuated) b. count–mass nouns: furniture, hair, change, corn, . . . (individuated) c. count–count nouns: cat, dog, human, table, chair, . . . (individuated)
That is, there is a mismatch between the individuation of the nouns in ()b and their mass syntax. Furniture, for example, is semantically count (it refers to individuals), but syntactically mass. Note that these mismatches vary from language to language. In French, for example, meuble ‘furniture’ is a count noun. In Italian, consiglio ‘advice’ is also count. There are also words that can behave as count or mass (e.g. light or rock). () a. John threw a rock. b. The wall is made of rock.
(count) (mass)
We assume (following Bale and Barner ) that these are underlyingly mass/ non-individuated, but can be made count/individuated via the syntax (in this case via the addition of the indefinite article a). Because of a potential syntax/semantics mismatch, and the existence of ambiguous examples like rock, we try as much as possible to focus on mass–mass nouns such as ‘water’, which refer to substances which have no atomic structure. There are also some nouns which refer to non-substances (e.g. hair), but are treated as mass in the source language. The mass–mass nouns (and perhaps those count–mass nouns that are treated as mass in the source language) are most likely to be treated as mass nouns in the Michif syntax, if a mass/count distinction exists. For Michif nouns, we use ‘mass’ to refer to those nouns that are likeliest to be mass, if a distinction exists, and ‘count’ for those likely to be count.
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. Mass/count in Algonquian
.. Coercion In languages like English, nouns can be coerced from count to mass, or mass to count. The ‘universal grinder’ (Pelletier ; ascribed to David Lewis) creates mass nouns out of count nouns, as in (). ()
There is banana in this smoothie.
Here, banana does not refer to an object, but rather ‘banana stuff ’. Doetjes () argues that any noun describing a physical object can undergo the ‘grinder’, but that abstract nouns cannot. As we do not focus on count-to-mass shifts, we set this aside. More importantly for this chapter, there are two ways to create count nouns out of mass nouns: the ‘universal sorter’ (Bunt ) and the ‘universal packager’ (Jackendoff ). The ‘universal sorter’ provides ‘kinds’ ()a, whereas the ‘universal packager’ provides portions ()b. ()
a. I ordered oils. b. I ordered beers.
(types of oil) (bottles/glasses of beer)
Doetjes () argues that mass-to-count coercion is unpredictable, and that each noun is coerced in a different way. Not all languages allow coercion to the same degree, and languages also vary with respect to which nouns are coercible (Doetjes ). In French, mass nouns often may be coerced via the universal sorter and/or the universal packager. ()
French5 Tu veux gouter un ou deux chocolats? want taste one or two chocolates ‘You want to taste one or two chocolates?’ (either types or amounts)
Mass-to-count coercion should therefore be possible in Michif too, by either the universal sorter or the universal packager. However, as we show, even with respect to coercion, the source language matters.
. Mass/count in Algonquian In this section, we apply the traditional mass/count distinctions to three Algonquian languages (Ojibwe, Blackfoot, and Innu-aimun). We also discuss the (in)availability of coercion processes in Algonquian.
5
We thank an anonymous reviewer for this example.
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Mass/count
.. The diagnostics applied to Ojibwe, Blackfoot, and Innu-aimun Michif draws most heavily from Plains Cree grammar, making Plains Cree arguably its nearest relative, but as far as we know, there has been no research undertaken on the Plains Cree mass/count distinction. There is research on related languages Ojibwe (Rhodes ; Mathieu a), Blackfoot (Wiltschko ), and Innu-aimun (Gillon , ), a member of the Cree dialect continuum (MacKenzie ). All three languages behave similarly, with one slight difference. Most mass nouns can be pluralized in Ojibwe (Rhodes ; Mathieu a). All (known) mass nouns can be pluralized in Innu-aimun (Gillon a) and Blackfoot (Wiltschko ). On the surface, it looks as though Algonquian languages lack a mass/count distinction. Researchers are split as to whether this is true. Rhodes () argues that Ojibwe lacks a grammatical distinction, as does Wiltschko () for Blackfoot. In Ojibwa there is no grammatical distinction like the mass/count distinction of IndoEuropean. Thus mkwam can equally mean ‘ice’ or ‘piece of ice’. Nbiish can mean ‘water’ or ‘an amount of water’. (Rhodes : )
However, Mathieu (a) argues that Ojibwe does have a grammatical mass/count distinction, as does Gillon (, ) for Innu-aimun. Recall that we try as much as possible to focus on the most likely candidates for mass nouns: those that refer to substances/are straightforwardly non-atomic (mass– mass nouns). In Ojibwe, some nouns that are likely candidates for mass nouns cannot be pluralized (); however, many other likely candidates for mass nouns can be (). ()
()
Ojibwe (Mathieu a: –) a. *bimide-n oil-. c. *doodooshaaboo-n milk-.
b. *(a)niibiishaaboo-n tea-. d. *miskwi-n blood-.
Ojibwe (Mathieu a: ) a. maandaamin/maandaamin-ag corn/corn-. c. aninaatig/aninaatig-oog maple/maple-. e. (a)ki/(a)ki-in earth/earth-. g. bkwezhgan/bkwezhgan-an bread/bread-.
b. waabigan/waabigan-ag clay/clay-. d. mashkosiw/mashkosiw-ag grass/grass-. f. azhashki/azhashki-in mud/mud-. h. aasaakamig/aasaakamig-oon moss/moss-.
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. Mass/count in Algonquian
In both Blackfoot and Innu-aimun, all known mass nouns can be pluralized. ()
()
Blackfoot (Wiltschko : ) a. aaapan/aaapa-istsi blood/blood- c. aiksinoosak/aiksinooosak-iksi bacon/bacon-
b. kokóto/kokóto-istsi ice/ice- d. isttsiksipoko/isttsikisípoko-istsi salt/salt-
Innu-aimun (Gillon a: ) a. mîtshim/mîtshim-a food/food-. c. uâpitsheushkamiku/uâpitsheushkamiku-a moss/moss-.
b. kûn/kûn-at snow/snow-. d. miku/miku-a blood/blood-.
Some (but not all) mass nouns in Ojibwe, Blackfoot, and Innu-aimun can co-occur with a numeral. ()
Ojibwe (Mathieu a: )6 bezhig azhashki one mud ‘one chunk of mud’
()
Blackfoot (Wiltschko : –) a. nitoohkoonimh niisitoyi miistsís. nit-ohkooni-m-hp-yi niisitoyi -find.->-- five ‘I found five pieces of wood.’
miistsís wood
b. naato’kayi a’apannists iihtsokina. nááto’k-ayi aáápan-ists iiht-sokin-aa two blood- -treat.- ‘There were two blood (bags) used to treat him.’ Consultant’s comments: you can say this in the hospital c. *nitohkoohnimh niisitoyi kóónssko nit-ohkooni-m-hp-yi nisitoyi -find.->-- five (intended: I found five snow)
kóónssko snow
6 Mathieu does not provide examples of mass nouns that cannot occur with a numeral, but he implies that those that cannot be pluralized also cannot occur with a numeral.
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()
Mass/count Innu-aimun (Gillon a: –) a. nishtu nîpîsh-a three tea-. ‘three cups of tea’ b. nishtu shûminâpui-a three wine-. ‘three glasses/bottles of wine’ c. *nishtu kûnat three snow. (intended: three events of snowing or three piles of snow) d. *nishtu mikua three blood. (intended: three amounts of blood)
Many mass nouns in Ojibwe, Blackfoot, and Innu-aimun may be modified by the same determiners or quantifiers used for count nouns. ()
Ojibwe (Mathieu a: ) a. gakina baagan b. gakina azhashki every nut every mud ‘every nut’ ‘every piece of mud’ c. gakina gwiizens every boy ‘every boy’
()
d. gakina ziinzibaakwad every sugar ‘every piece of sugar’
Blackfoot (Wiltschko : ) a. nitohkanaissimatoo’p annihkayi aohkíí. Nit-ohkan-a-simatoo-’p anni-hka-yi -all--drink--/> --. ‘I drank (up) all of that water.’
aohkíí water
b. nitohkannainowayi anniksisk pookááiks. Nit-ohkan-a-ino-aa-yi ann-iksi pookáá-iksi -all--see.-- - child- ‘I saw all the children.’ ()
Innu-aimun (Gillon ) a. mîtshet atiku-at lots/many caribou-. ‘many caribou’
b. mîtshet tûtûshinâpui lots/many milk ‘lots of milk’
c. mîtshet namesh-at lots/many fish-. ‘many fish’
d. mîtshet mishkumî lots/many ice ‘lots of ice’
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. Mass/count in Algonquian
Ojibwe has some evidence for a mass/count distinction: some mass nouns cannot be pluralized. However, the other diagnostics do not disambiguate in Ojibwe. None of the diagnostics straightforwardly disambiguate in either Innu-aimun and Blackfoot.7 One possible analysis of Algonquian nouns is to say that Algonquian nouns are ambiguous between individuated or non-individuated interpretations, and that plurality/numerals force an individuated reading on nouns. However, not all mass nouns in Ojibwe can be pluralized, as shown in (), and not all plural mass nouns in Innu-aimun are individuated (Gillon a). For example, in Innu-aimun mît ‘wood’ can be pluralized, but the interpretation it receives is not individuated. This same word also cannot occur with a numeral nishtu ‘three’ (because it has not been individuated). ()
Innu-aimun (Gillon a: ) a. mît-a b. *nishtu mît-a wood-. three wood-. ‘lots of wood’ ≠ ‘sticks’
Thus, it appears Algonquian nouns cannot be freely interpreted as (non-)individuated. Instead, most mass nouns can be coerced, as we discuss in §... .. Coercion in Algonquian Recall that there are two types of mass-to-count conversion: the ‘universal packager’ and the ‘universal sorter’. The ‘universal sorter’ is not available for plural mass nouns; pluralized mass nouns never receive a ‘kind of ’ reading (see Rhodes and Mathieu a for Ojibwe; Gillon a for Innu-aimun). Plural mass nouns often receive ‘amounts of ’ readings, as we would expect if they were coerced by the ‘universal packager’. As Mathieu (a) points out, however, the packager does not always give ‘conventionalized units’ of measurement, as we might expect. (For example, in English, beers refers to the conventionalized unit of bottles of beer or glasses of beer.) It is unclear what the unit of measurement would be in (), for example. ()
Ojibwe (Mathieu a: ) aasaakamig-oon moss-. ‘mosses’
Regardless, these nouns are undergoing some kind of partitioning. We expect that Michif only allows coercion via the ‘universal packager’ in the Algonquian part of the
7 However, quantifiers do appear to disambiguate in one way in Innu-aimun: count nouns can be pluralized when they occur with a quantifier, while only some mass nouns can (Gillon , ). See also the discussion of mishtayi ‘lots’ in §....
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Mass/count
TABLE . Mass/count systems -
no
no
most
yes
yes
- (/)
no
no
yes
yes
yes
yes
yes
no
no
no
‘ ’
yes
yes
no
??8
no
vocabulary, and not the ‘universal sorter’, since Algonquian only seems to allow the former for mass-to-count conversion via the plural. .. Summary Ojibwe, Blackfoot, and Innu-aimun look very different from English and French with respect to the presence or absence of a mass/count distinction. While we remain agnostic as to the presence/absence of a mass/count distinction in Algonquian, mass nouns display different behaviours in English/French vs Ojibwe/Blackfoot/Innu-aimun. We summarize these differences in Table .. In the next section, we compare Michif to these five languages, using pluralization, co-occurrence with a numeral, and disambiguation of quantifiers as diagnostics for the French type of system vs the Algonquian type of system.
. Mass/count in Michif Does Michif look more like French and English or like Ojibwe, Blackfoot, and Innuaimun with respect to the mass/count distinction? Can mass nouns be freely pluralized in Michif, co-occur with numerals, and co-occur with the same quantifiers as count nouns (like they can be in Ojibwe, Blackfoot, and Innu-aimun), or do they resist pluralization, not co-occur with numerals, nor co-occur with the same quantifiers as count nouns (like they do in French and English)? Before we discuss the data in detail, a few things must be kept in mind. First, the mass/count distinction (or lack thereof ) could come from the nominals themselves or the nature of the morphosyntactic elements that are commonly associated with the distinction (plurality, numerals, determiners, and quantifiers). We will show that in some cases, the lack of distinction comes from the morphosyntactic elements 8 Wiltschko does not give the relevant data, though we assume Blackfoot behaves like the other two Algonquian languages in this respect.
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. Mass/count in Michif
(in particular, most of the quantifiers). However, in some cases, a distinction is upheld in part of the grammar via the morphosyntax. Second, recall that some vocabulary in Michif comes from French (and English) historically, and some comes from Cree (and Ojibwe). There are three possible patterns in Michif: (i) there is an obvious mass/count split throughout the vocabulary, regardless of history, (ii) there is a lack of an obvious mass/count split, regardless of history, and (iii) French-derived nouns display a mass/count distinction along French lines, whereas Algonquian-derived nouns do not display an obvious mass/ count distinction along Algonquian lines. We will show that Michif displays a split system, as in the third option. .. French- and English-derived nouns As will become clear, it is important to look at the history of the morphosyntax as well as the history of the nouns. The French-derived morphosyntax always disambiguates between mass and count; the Algonquian-derived morphosyntax does not always disambiguate. ... Plural French-derived count nouns can be pluralized via the plural article lii (), but French-derived mass nouns cannot (). ()
a. li .. ‘the boy’
garsoo’n boy
b. lii garsoo’n . boy ‘(the) boys’
()
a. li .. ‘the food’ c. li .. ‘the wind’ e. diloo water ‘water’ g. li .. ‘the moss’
maa’nzhii food
b. *lii maa’nzhii . food
vaa’n wind
d. *lii vaa’n . wind f. *lii diloo . water
mos moss
h. *lii mos . moss
Thus, lii disambiguates between count and mass within the French-derived vocabulary. Another way to mark plurality is via plural demonstratives. French-derived count nouns can take singular or plural demonstratives. When the demonstrative is plural, the article matches in number.
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()
Mass/count a. li .. ‘this bed’
lii bed
ooma ...
b. lii lii oo’nhii’n bed ... ‘these beds’ The French-derived mass nouns do not combine with plural demonstratives, only singular. ()
a. *diloo oo’nhii’n water ... (intended: these waters)
()
a. *li/lii zheu oo’nhii’n ../ juice ... (intended: these juices) b. li zheu .. juice ‘this juice’
()
ooma ...
a. *li/lii fwe’n ../. grass (intended: these grasses) b. li fwe’n .. grass ‘this grass’
b. diloo ooma water ... ‘this water’
oo’nhii’n ...
ooma ...
The demonstratives therefore disambiguate between count and mass within the French vocabulary. The French vocabulary in Michif follows the French pattern with respect to plural marking: only count nouns can be pluralized. ... Indefinite marking French-derived count nouns can co-occur with the indefinite marker ae’n/en (), but French-derived mass nouns cannot (). ()
a. ae’n .. ‘a boy’
garsoo’n boy
()
a. li fwee’n .. grass ‘grass’ c. li maa’nzhii .. food ‘(the) food’
b. en .. ‘a girl’
fiiy girl
b. *ae’n ..
fwee’n grass
d. *ae’n ..
maa’nzhii food
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. Mass/count in Michif f. *ae’n ..
e. li mos .. moss ‘(the) moss’
mos moss
The indefinite articles ae’n and en therefore disambiguate between count and mass within the French vocabulary. The French vocabulary in Michif follows the French pattern. ... Numerals ()
French-derived count nouns can co-occur with numerals.
a. trwaa lii zhvoo three . horse ‘the three horses’
b. *trwaa ae’n three .. ‘three horses’
zhvoo horse
c. trwaa lii garsoo’n three . boy ‘the three boys’
d. *trwaa ae’n three .. ‘three boys’
garsoo’n boy
French-derived mass nouns cannot occur with numerals. This is expected, since they also cannot be pluralized. If the mass nouns cannot be individuated via plural, we expect that they cannot be individuated via a numeral either.9 ()
a. *trwaa three
lii .
fwae’n straw
b. *trwaa three
lii .
maa’nzhii food
Note that () cannot be rescued by deleting lii. ()
a. *trwaa three
b. *trwaa three
fwae’n straw
maa’nzhii food
If French-derived mass nouns occur with a numeral, they must also occur with some kind of measure. ()
a. deu botey diloo two bottle water ‘two bottles of water’ b. (Rosen : ) ae’n ver .. glass ‘a glass of juice’
di part
zheu juice
9 In fact, we assume that numerals require individuation to have already been performed and that numerals have an atom-accessing function (following Kang ; Krifka ; Wilhelm ). Individuation—at least in some languages—is performed by plurality. In Chapter , however, we show that lii does not individuate. Instead, both numerals and lii require the noun to already be individuated.
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Mass/count
There is (at least) one exception to this pattern. Wil ‘oil’ can occur with a numeral; in this case, it receives a ‘kind’ reading, like English and French mass nouns (and unlike Algonquian pluralized mass nouns). ()
trwaa wil10 three oil ‘three oils’ = ‘three bottles of oil’ (universal packager) = ‘three kinds of oil’ (universal sorter)
It also does not occur with the plural article; it is unclear why this should be the case. This appears to be the only exception to the requirement that French-derived nouns occur with an article (aside from frozen partitives). The numeral peeyak ‘one’ also disambiguates between mass and count. Frenchderived count nouns can co-occur with peeyak (), but French-derived mass nouns cannot (). ()
a. peeyak li one .. ‘one boy’
()
a. *peeyak one
li ..
garsoo’n boy fwae’n grass
b. peeyak li one .. ‘one horse’ b. *peeyak one
li ..
zhvoo horse maa’nzhii a
Note that peeyak is derived from Cree, and yet it disambiguates in the same way that the French-derived numerals do. It also behaves the same as the indefinite articles (§...). Thus, the history of the numerals does not matter here; all numerals in Michif, regardless of history, require individuation. (See also Chapter for more discussion of the role of individuation for numerals.) The numerals disambiguate between mass and count within the French vocabulary. Most of the French vocabulary in Michif follows the French pattern. ... Quantifiers Most quantifiers do not disambiguate between mass and count French-derived nouns. For example, mishtayi ‘lots’ can combine with any Frenchderived noun, regardless of ontological status. ()
a. mishtayi diloo lots water ‘lots of water’
b. mishtayi lots ‘lots of oil’
li ..
wil oil
10 A reviewer notes that ‘three (plates of ) food’ should be more plausible than ‘three oils’, and yet trwaa wil ‘three oils’ is acceptable; *trwaa (lii) maa’nzhii ‘three foods’ is not. A similar pattern is found in Innuaimun: pimîa ‘oils’ can refer to barrels of oil, but mîtshima ‘foods’ can only refer to ‘lots of food’, not ‘plates/ amounts of food’ (Gillon a). See Chapter for more discussion of the interpretation of plural marking in Algonquian in general.
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c. mishtayi lii zaa’nfaa’n lots . child ‘lots of children’ This is expected because of the meaning of mishtayi (‘lots’). However, mishtayi does disambiguate in one way: it requires the plural article lii when it combines with a French-derived count noun, and a singular article with the French-derived mass nouns.11 ()
a. *mishtayi lots c. *mishtayi lots
lii diloo . water li zaa’nfaa’n .. child
b. *mishtayi lots
lii .
wil oil
In these cases, the French part of the grammar (lii) disambiguates, but the Algonquian does not (mishtayi). Another quantifier that does not disambiguate is ae’n pchi brae’n ‘a little bit/few’. It can occur with a count noun sigaret ‘cigarette’ or a mass noun kawndee ‘candy’. ()
a. (Laverdure and Allard : ) Ae’n pchi brae’n lii .. small bit . ‘I have a few cigarettes.’
sigaret cigarette
d-ayaww-awak. -have.->
b. (Laverdure and Allard : –) Mohchi yaa’nk ae’n pchi brae’n li kaandii only just .. little bit .. candy miy-in. give.-> ‘Just give me a wee bit of candy!’ This quantifier is French-derived, but the same pattern is found as with mishtayi: the quantifier itself does not disambiguate, but once again the count nouns occur with the plural lii, and the mass nouns occur with a singular article. One quantifier that unambiguously disambiguates is the Algonquian-derived paahpeeyak ‘one by one’.12 French-derived count nouns can combine with this quantifier (), but French-derived mass nouns cannot (). ()
Kii=mow-ew anihi lii pom kakiyaw paahpeeyak. =eat.-> ... . apple all one.by.one ‘He ate all those apples one by one.’
This looks like the behaviour of the equivalent quantifier in Innu-aimun (Gillon , ). This is a reduplicated form of the numeral peeyak ‘one’. See Ahenakew and Wolfart () for discussion of the semantics of this reduplication pattern. 11 12
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()
Mass/count a. *Kii=miichii-w li maa’nzhii paahpeeyak. =eat.- .. food one.by.one (intended: ‘S/he ate the food one by one.’) b. *Kii=minihkwe-w diloo paahpeeyak. =drink.- water one.by.one (intended: ‘S/he drank the water one by one.’)
Our consultants Demontigny and Pelletier say that it is not possible to break li maa’nzhii ‘the food’ into parts. The sentences become grammatical only when we add a measure (). ()
a. Kii=minihkwe-w lii ver diloo paahpeeyak. =drink.- . glass water one.by.one ‘S/he drank the glasses of water one by one.’ b. Kii=miichii-w lii zasyet di-maa’nzhii =eat.- . plate -food ‘S/he ate the plates of food one by one.’
paahpeeyak. one.by.one
This is despite the fact that paahpeeyak is Algonquian-derived (just like peeyak ‘one’). We might expect, all things being equal, that the Algonquian morphosyntax would not disambiguate between mass and count. However, this is not the case, suggesting that the difference between mass and count lies in the nominals themselves. In Table ., we summarize the behaviour of quantifiers and French-derived nouns. All three quantifiers disambiguate between mass and count, though only paahpeeyak does so straightforwardly. Mishtayi and ae’n pchi brae’n only disambiguate once we account for number marking. Regardless, all three quantifiers provide us with evidence of a mass/count distinction along French lines. ... Summary The French-derived vocabulary behaves like French: that is, it displays a mass/count distinction. Only count nouns can (i) be regularly pluralized, (ii) combine with a numeral directly and (iii) combine with one of the quantifiers (paahpeeyak ‘one by one’). Also like French, when a mass noun is pluralized, it can sometimes be coerced via the ‘universal sorter’. In Table ., we summarize the results of the classic diagnostics to the French-derived nouns. TABLE . Quantifiers and French-derived nominals ‘’
plural only
singular only
’ ’ ‘ , ’ plural only
singular only
‘ ’
✓
✗
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. Mass/count in Michif
TABLE . French-derived nominals and mass/count diagnostics
a few
yes
yes
no
yes
‘ ’
a few
n/a
.. Algonquian-derived nouns We now turn to the Algonquian-derived vocabulary. Once again, it is necessary to pay attention to the history of the morphosyntax as well as the history of the nominals. ... Plural Recall that there are two different plural markers in Michif: the French-derived lii and the Plains Cree-derived -a/-ak. We discuss the semantics of these in Chapter . For the purposes of this chapter, the semantics of each plural does not matter: neither plural disambiguates in the Algonquian-derived part of the vocabulary. Further, both exponents of plurality entail individuation; plural mass nouns are never associated with a lexical plural reading (as in the waters in the sea).13 Algonquian-derived count nouns may be pluralized with the suffix -a (inanimate) or -ak (animate). ()
a. takwaminaan/takwaminaan-a chokecherry/chokecherry-. c. shaapomin/shaapomin-ak gooseberry/gooseberry-.
b. otoohtooshim/otoohtooshim-a breast/breast-.
Algonquian-derived count nouns may also be pluralized with the article lii. ()
lii takwaminaan . chokecherry ‘(the) chokecherries’
Algonquian-derived count nouns can also be pluralized both ways at the same time. ()
lii takwaminaan-a . chokecherry-. ‘(the) chokecherries’
13
See Chapter for more discussion of lexical plurals.
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Mass/count
The two Cree-derived mass nouns we were able to find (so far) can be pluralized with the suffix -a. ()
a. kimotiwin loot ‘loot, bounty’
b. kimotiwin-a loot-. ‘amounts of stolen goods’
c. tominikan oil ‘oil/grease’
d. tominikan-a oil-. ‘amounts of oil/grease’
They can also be pluralized with lii or both lii and -a/-ak simultaneously. ()
a. lii kimotiwin . loot ‘amounts of stolen goods’
b. lii kimotiwin-a . loot-. ‘amounts of stolen goods’
c. lii tominikan . oil ‘amounts of oil/grease’
d. lii tominikan-a . oil-. ‘amounts of oil/grease’
Recall also that mass nouns in Algonquian can only receive the ‘universal packager’ reading, not the ‘universal sorter’ reading. The plural Cree-derived mass nouns also only receive a ‘packaged’ reading, not a ‘sorter’ reading. ()
a. lii kimotiwin-a . loot-in. ‘amounts of stolen goods’ ≠‘kinds of stolen goods’
b. lii tominikan-a . oil-. ‘amounts of oil/grease’ ≠‘kinds of oil/grease’
As with the French-derived count nouns, Cree-derived count nouns can also be pluralized via a plural demonstrative. The nouns must simultaneously be pluralized via the -a/-ak suffix or with both lii and the -a/-ak suffix. ()
a. (li) takwaminaan .. chokecherry ‘this chokecherry’ b. (lii) takwaminaan-a . chokecherry-. ‘these chokecherries’
ooma ... oo’nhii’n ...
Cree-derived mass nouns can also co-occur with either singular or plural demonstratives. When the mass nouns occur with a plural demonstrative, they must also be marked with the -a/-ak suffix.
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. Mass/count in Michif ()
()
a. kimotiwin-a oo’nhii’n loot-. ... ‘these stolen goods’ (i.e. )
b. kimotiwin ooma loot ... ‘this stolen good’
c. tominikan-a oo’nhii’n oil-. ... ‘these oils’ (i.e. bottles)
d. tominikan ooma oil ... ‘this (amount of) oil’
a. *kimotiwin loot
b. *tominikan oil
oo’nhii’n ...
oo’nhii’n ...
The Algonquian-derived vocabulary follows the Algonquian pattern, where mass nouns can often/always be pluralized. ... Indefinite marking indefinite article ae’n. ()
Algonquian-derived count nouns can occur with the
ae’n takwaminaan .. chokecherry ‘a chokecherry’
Algonquian-derived mass nouns can also occur with the indefinite article ae’n. ()
a. ae’n kimotiwin .. loot ‘one stolen good’
b. ae’n tominikan .. oil ‘one bottle of oil’
The Algonquian-derived vocabulary follows the Algonquian pattern. Although Algonquian languages lack indefinite articles, we expect to see no disambiguation with ae’n/en. Since mass nouns can be individuated via plural, they should also be individuated via indefinite articles. Further, as we see in §..., the numerals do not disambiguate either, and ae’n ‘a’ and peeyak ‘one’ pattern together (as we saw in §.). ... Numerals ()
Algonquian-derived count nouns may co-occur with numerals.
trwaa (lii) koohkom three . grandmother ‘three grandmothers’
Algonquian-derived mass nouns may also co-occur with numerals. Recall that pluralized mass nouns in Algonquian can only receive an ‘amount’ interpretation (the ‘universal packager’ reading), not a ‘kind’ reading (the ‘universal sorter’ reading). When the Algonquian-derived mass nouns co-occur with numerals, they only receive a ‘universal packager’ reading, as predicted. This is true even with peeyak ‘one’.
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()
Mass/count a. peeyak kimotiwin one loot ‘one stolen good’ ≠‘one kind of stolen goods’
b. peeyak tominikan one oil ‘one amount of oil’ ≠‘one kind of oil/grease’
When Cree-derived mass nouns occur with a numeral, plural marking is dispreferred. ()
a. trwaa kimotiwin b. ?? trwaa three loot three ‘three stolen goods’ ≠‘three kinds of stolen goods’
lii .
kimotiwin-a loot-.
c. ?? trwaa three
lii .
kimotiwin loot
kimotiwin-a loot-.
d. ?? trwaa three
We do not know why this is so, though recall that Blackfoot allows mass nouns to occur with numerals without plural marking ()a. Unlike the French-derived vocabulary, pluralized mass nouns can only be interpreted as an amount, not a kind. The universal sorter cannot be used. The Algonquian-derived nouns in Michif therefore pattern like Algonquian nouns. ... Quantifiers Quantifiers do not disambiguate between mass and count nouns. Recall that mishtayi ‘lots’ only co-occurs with plural count nouns and singular mass nouns within the French part of the vocabulary. However, in the Algonquian part of the vocabulary, plurality is optional for both mass and count nouns. ()
a. mishtayi (lii) shaapomin(-ak) lots (.) gooseberry(-.) ‘lots of gooseberries’ b. mishtayi (lii) takwaminaan(-a) lots (.) chokecherry(-.) ‘lots of chokecherries’ c. mishtayi (lii) lots (.) ‘lots of loot’ d. mishtayi (lii) lots (.) ‘lots of oil’
kimotiwin(-a) loot(-.) tominikan(-a) oil(-.)
Ae’n pchi brae’n ‘a little bit/few’ is similar. ()
a. ae’n pchi brae’n .. little bit ‘a few chokecherries’
(lii) (.)
takwaminaan(-a) chokecherry(-.)
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b. ae’n pchi brae’n (lii) tominikan(-a) .. little bit (.) oil(-.) ‘a little bit of oil’ Count nouns can combine with the quantifier paahpeeyak ‘one by one’. ()
Kii=mow-ew anihi takweminaan-a kakijaw paahpeeyak. =eat.-> ... chokecherry-. all one.by.one ‘He ate all the chokecherries one by one.’
The Cree-derived mass nouns can also combine with paahpeeyak ‘one by one’. This quantifier does not disambiguate between mass and count Cree-derived nouns (although recall that it does for the French-derived nouns). Paahpeeyak ‘one by one’ forces individuation on mass nouns. ()
a. Gii wawapahten anihi kimotiwin-a paahpeeyak. ni-ki=wa-waapaht-een anihi kimotiwin-a -=-see.-/ ... loot-. paahpeeyak. one.by.one ‘I saw the stolen goods one by one.’ b. Kii mishkam tominikan-a paahpeeyak. kii=mishk-am tominikan-a paahpeeyak. =find.- oil-. one.by.one ‘He found the barrels/bottles of oils/lotions one by one.’
In Table ., we summarize the behaviour of quantifiers and the Cree-derived nouns. The Cree-derived vocabulary follows the Algonquian pattern: no quantifier disambiguates between count and mass nouns, not even paahpeeyak ‘one by one’, which disambiguated in the French-derived vocabulary. .. Summary In Table ., we summarize the findings of this section. Based on our diagnostics, Michif has a mixed mass/count system. The French-derived nouns display an obvious mass/count distinction and the Algonquian-derived nouns do not. TABLE . Quantifiers and Algonquian-derived nominals ‘’
✓
✓
’ ’ ‘ /’
✓
✓
‘ ’
✓
✓
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Mass/count
TABLE . Mass/count diagnostics
no
yes
no
yes
yes
no
yes
no
yes
no
yes
no
‘ ’
yes
no
yes
no
. Implications We have found evidence that Michif is a syntactically mixed language: with respect to mass/count distinctions, Algonquian-derived nouns behave like nouns in Algonquian, while European-derived nouns behave like nouns in French or English. Syntactic features for distinguishing mass and count have not been generalized over the whole vocabulary, either in favour of a European system or an Algonquian system. This is interesting for three reasons. First, Croft () claimed that Michif lacked a mass/count distinction altogether. We have shown that this is not the case. Second, Rosen (, ) claims that Michif phonology patterns similarly regardless of source language, while we have found that this is not the case for (at least part of) the syntax. This is perhaps less surprising than it seems on first blush: lexical items differ with respect to their syntactic information in all languages (e.g., intransitive vs transitive verbs vary with respect to the number of arguments they take), and it could be expected that lexical items in a new language would be incorporated along with this syntactic information. Finally, nouns in Michif wear their history on their sleeves, in a sense. An example of this is the Michif word zhveu ‘hair’. The French word for hair cheveux is a count noun, whereas hair is mass in English. Zhveu remains count in Michif. ()
a. Mishtayi lii zhveu lots . hair ‘She has lots of hair.’ b. Peeyak ae’n one .. ‘She has one hair.’
zhveu hair
ayaa-w. have.- ayaa-w. have.-
French-derived vocabulary items maintain their count or mass status in Michif, i.e. the mass/count distinction is preserved in part of the Michif vocabulary.
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. Implications
Algonquian-derived nouns, on the other hand, appear to behave like Algonquian nouns, meaning that any Algonquian-derived noun can be pluralized freely or occur with numerals or quantifiers. The ‘universal sorter’ is also only available to the French-derived part of the vocabulary, not the Algonquian-derived part. This is particularly remarkable given that Algonquian-derived nouns are rare, and Algonquian-derived mass nouns are but a small subset of these nouns. Even given the rarity of these nouns, they maintain their syntactic features and the French features are not generalized over them. Note that it does not matter for the analysis of Michif nouns whether the Algonquian language family in general has a mass/count distinction. If it turns out that Algonquian lacks a mass/count distinction, then the ability for Algonquian-derived mass nouns to be ‘coerced’ to count is completely expected. This would not really be an instance of coercion, but rather just an expected interpretation of nouns that refer to substances. (However, recall that while most mass nouns can receive individuated interpretations in both Ojibwe and Innu-aimun, not all mass nouns can.14 This suggests that coercion/ambiguity between individuated and non-individuated interpretations is not the correct generalization.) However, if it turns out that Algonquian has a mass/count distinction after all, the ability for Algonquian-derived mass nouns to be coerced would still be expected, since at least some mass nouns in Algonquian can be coerced (and more mass nouns in Algonquian can be coerced than in English or French). We predict that the two Algonquian-derived mass nouns were originally freely able to be pluralized and individuated in their source language. This appears to be true: in current Plains Cree, both kimotiwin ‘stolen goods’ and tôminikan ‘oil, grease’ can be pluralized. ()
Plains Cree (Arok Wolvengrey p.c.) a. kimotiwin/kimotiwin-a stolen.goods/stolen.goods-.
b. tôminikan/tôminikan-a oil/oil-.
These nouns are also able to co-occur with pâh-pêyak ‘one-by-one’. ()
Plains Cree (Arok Wolvengrey p.c.) a. pâh-pêyak kimotiwin-a kî-môsahkin-am. -one stolen.goods-. -pick.up.- ‘He picked up the stolen goods one by one.’ b. pâh-pêyak tôminikan-a kî-wâh-wâpaht-am. -one -.pl --see.- ‘He saw the oils one by one.’
14 It is unclear whether mass nouns in Blackfoot are always individuated, though it is likely that some nouns cannot be.
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Mass/count
We further predict that if Michif retained any Algonquian-derived mass nouns that were unable to be pluralized in the source language, they should not be able to do so in Michif either. We have so far been unable to find any such cases. It is not only the nouns that maintain their historical features. Unlike French, only one quantifier in Michif straightforwardly disambiguates between mass and count nouns, and only in the French part of the vocabulary (paahpeeyak ‘one by one’). Since the quantifiers are derived from Cree, it is not surprising that most of them do not disambiguate. The meaning of mishtayi ‘lots’ makes no reference to individuals, unlike many in English. (However, mishtayi does disambiguate once number marking is taken into account.) Paahpeeyak ‘one by one’ does disambiguate, which means that it must make reference to individuals. In the Algonquian part of the vocabulary, none of the quantifiers (paahpeeyak, mishtayi, or ae’n pchi brae’n) disambiguate. This is not surprising since the Algonquian-derived mass nouns can be individuated via plural marking, which would allow them to co-occur with paahpeeyak, a quantifier that requires individuation. The fact that number marking is irrelevant for mishtayi and ae’n pchi brae’n in the Cree part of the grammar is somewhat more confusing, but the little distinction that mishtayi/ae’n pchi brae’n made in the French part of the grammar is eliminated here. The fact that quantifiers do not disambiguate in any way in the Cree part of the grammar may be evidence of a lack of a grammatical distinction. However, we remain agnostic here as to whether there is a grammatical distinction or not. Crucially, some quantifiers make reference to individuals, even if they are derived from Algonquian, and mass nouns can be readily individuated in the Algonquian-derived part of the vocabulary, unlike in the French part. The facts in Michif raise questions as to the nature of mass and count. Many researchers claim that there is a split between mass/count and non-mass/count languages (e.g. Chierchia ; Bale and Barner ). Michif poses a problem for these analyses, as Michif looks like both types of languages simultaneously. In fact, Michif is particularly problematic for Chierchia (), who claims that the distinction is categorical. Languages lacking in a mass/count distinction have bare arguments, obligatory classifiers, and display number-neutrality, as in Table .. (Bale and Barner TABLE . Mass/count vs non-mass/count languages in Chierchia () /
/
no (except mass nouns in some languages) yes
no
yes
-
no
yes
English
Mandarin
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. Implications
reduce these to only the last: they claim that languages lacking in mass/count also must display number-neutrality, but the rest of the features are considered irrelevant.) Michif only allows the Algonquian-derived nouns to behave as bare arguments, and it is unclear whether Michif would count as an English-type of language or a Mandarin-type. Further, there are no obligatory classifiers and Michif does not display number-neutrality: a singular noun, in the absence of any other plural marking like numerals, can only refer to a singular entity (or a mass). As many have argued before (Cheng and Sybesma ; Déprez ; Wilhelm ; Bale and Barner , among many others), Chierchia’s () analysis is problematic, so it is unsurprising that Michif does not fit neatly into this categorization. However, any analysis that suggests that languages behave internally the same with respect to the mass/count distinction will have similar problems accounting for Michif. Other researchers have argued that all languages display a mass/count distinction (Doetjes ; Chierchia ). While we have not argued decisively that the Algonquian part of the grammar completely lacks a mass/count distinction, Michif is still potentially problematic for this kind of account. First, there is little, if any, evidence for a mass/count distinction in the Algonquian part of the grammar. What does this mean for an analysis that claims that every language displays a distinction? Michif does, in fact, have a distinction (contra Croft ), but only in part of the grammar. It is not clear how Doetjes () or Chierchia () would handle such a language. Further, even if both parts have a mass/count distinction, the distinction is realized in different ways in each part, which is potentially a problem for a unified analysis of mass/count within a language. Michif is perhaps even more problematic for any analysis of the acquisition of a mass/count distinction. In particular, Bale and Barner () argue that children realize their language has mass/count because their singulars are real singulars, and not number-neutral. At the time of acquisition, the child learning Michif should correctly realize their language has a mass/count distinction. But how are they to learn that either (a) only the French part of the grammar displays that distinction or (b) that the Plains Cree and French halves behave differently? It is not clear how any theory of the acquisition of a mass/count distinction would account for Michif. The behaviour of mass and count nouns is evidence that the split in Michif is not between DP and VP, but rather only between French-derived and Algonquianderived nouns. In the next chapters, we will show more evidence for this kind of split: the French vocabulary does not behave like the Algonquian vocabulary in many ways (e.g. the (non-)optionality of articles and the (in)ability to take multiple plural marking).
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3 Plurality . Introduction Michif has (at least) two ways of marking plural within the DP: the plural article lii () or the plural suffix ().1 () a. li nii .. nose ‘the nose’ c. la .. ‘the girl
fiiy girl
b. lii nii . nose ‘the noses’ d. lii fiiy . girl ‘the girls’
() a. takwaminaan/takwaminaan-a chokecherry/chokecherry-.
b. shaapomin/shaapomin-ak gooseberry/gooseberry-.
Recall from Chapter that Michif mass nouns are split: most French-derived mass nouns cannot be pluralized ()a, but all known Algonquian-derived mass nouns can be pluralized ()b. () a. li maa’nzhi/*lii .. food/ b. tominikan/tominikan-a oil/oil-.
maa’nzhi food
These two plural forms can co-occur, but only with Algonquian-derived nouns (). () lii .
takwaminaan-a chokecherry-.
The fact that there are two different ways to encode plurality seems redundant. In at least one part of the grammar, both plurals can be used simultaneously. This raises two related questions. First, do these two plurals occupy different positions? Second, are they associated with the same semantics? 1 Demonstratives are also marked for number; but since they co-occur with lii and/or -a/-ak, we ignore them here.
Nominal Contact in Michif. First edition. Carrie Gillon and Nicole Rosen. © Carrie Gillon and Nicole Rosen . First published by Oxford University Press
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We use the meaning of plural mass nouns to help answer these questions. We argue that there are two different plurals, in two different positions, with different semantics. ()
NumP
Num
DivP
counting plural
Div
lii
dividing plural
nP n
NP
-a/-ak The counting plural lii can only occur with nouns that are already individuated (count nouns and coerced mass-to-count nouns); the dividing plural individuates nouns (creating count nouns). They each occupy a different position: Div for individuation and Num for counting. This chapter has the following structure. In §., we discuss five hypotheses of plural marking: plural as marker of division or individuation, plural as agreement, plural as a marker of ‘counting’, lexical plurality, and non-inflectional plurality. In §., we discuss plural in two Algonquian languages: Ojibwe and Innu-aimun. In §., we show that lii is a counting plural and -a/-ak is a dividing plural. In §., we discuss other languages with multiple plural marking and show how they fit into our typology. In §., we discuss the implications of this analysis for Michif.
. Theories of plurality There are many competing theories of plurality. Borer () argues that there is only one real type of plural and that it resides in Div. Others argue that there are many different places plurality can occupy (see Butler for an overview); different positions are often associated with different semantics (e.g. Mathieu , , who argues that plural in Num is associated with a different semantics from plural in Div). Ghomeshi () argues that the plural in Persian is derivational and must be licensed by D or Q. In this section, we describe some theories of plurality: what position(s) plural marking can occupy and what semantics that position is associated with. .. Dividing plural Borer () argues that all nominal roots in all languages are underlying neutral (neither mass nor count). Individuation/division is performed by number in some languages (like English), and classifiers in others (like Mandarin).2
2
Originally, Borer labelled this position Cl; in Borer and Ouwayda (), they label it Div, as we do here.
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. Theories of plurality ()
a. mass NP
b. English count DivP
cat/ren (cat-stuff )
c. Mandarin count DivP
Div
NP
Div
NP
-s
cat
ge
ren
She argues that if a DP lacks Div, it will be interpreted as a mass noun. DivP therefore provides the noun with count syntax. She further argues that numerals require count syntax, and therefore require DivP. ()
NumP Num two
DivP Div
NP
-s
cat
Borer’s system predicts that there should only be one position for plural, associated with the same interpretation in all cases (individuation/division). .. Agreement plural Borer and Ouwayda () argue there are two types of plural marking: one ‘real’, and one agreement. The real plural occupies Div (as in §..), and individuates the underspecified noun. However, not all instances of ‘plural’ occupy Div; for them, any non-Div plural would be an instance of agreement. Their evidence comes from Lebanese Arabic, which has a (non-plural) individuating suffix -ah. Certain nouns (what they call ‘batch’ nouns) may be individuated by -ah. The addition of this suffix creates units of the batch noun. For example, in ()b, -ah turns ‘orange’ into ‘an orange’. ()
Lebanese Arabic (Borer and Ouwayda : ) a. ?aSar-t laymuun b. ?aSar-t laymuun-eh squeezed- orange squeezed- orange- ‘I squeezed orange.’ ‘I squeezed an orange.’
They argue that this suffix occupies Div, as it performs individuation in the same way that the ‘real’ plural does. ()
DivP Div
nP
-ah
laymuun
Borer and Ouwayda show that these individuated batch nouns can be pluralized ().
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()
Plurality Lebanese Arabic (Borer and Ouwayda : ) štre-t tlat laymoun-eet bought- three orange-. ‘I bought three oranges.’
They argue that this instance of plural does not occupy Div (because -ah already occupies Div). This instance of plural also does not individuate (again, because that function has already been performed by -ah). Instead, this plural is a type of agreement. They argue that pluralized batch nouns (as in ()) behave differently from other kinds of plurals. In Lebanese Arabic, ‘regular’ plurals can be bare in certain environments ()a, whereas pluralized batch nouns cannot ()b. ()
Lebanese Arabic (Borer and Ouwayda : ) a. šeft Sxuur ?a l-šaTT saw. rock. on the-beach ‘I saw rocks by the beach.’ b. *šeft Saxraat ?a l-šaTT saw. rock.. on the-beach (intended: I saw rocks by the beach.)
Instead, pluralized batch nouns must occur with a numeral () or with a definite determiner (). ()
Lebanese Arabic (Borer and Ouwayda : ) s-samk-eet mush hon the-fish-. not here ‘The fishes are not here.’
Borer and Ouwayda argue that ‘true’ plurality occupies Div, and all other non-Div instances of plurality are instances of agreement instead. They therefore predict that all plural nouns will be individuated: either by plural marking or by some other element in Div. Agreement plurality will only occur with some other element (numerals or the definite article). .. Counting plural Mathieu () agrees with Borer and Ouwayda () that there is a second type of plurality that (i) does not individuate and (ii) does not occupy Div. He also agrees that other elements can occupy Div and perform the division function. However, he does not agree that what Borer and Ouwayda call an ‘agreement plural’ is in fact agreement. Instead, he argues that this second type of plural is a ‘counting plural’, and that it occupies Num.
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His evidence also comes from the ‘batch nouns’ that Borer and Ouwayda discuss, although he refers to them as ‘collective nouns’ instead. He argues that collective nouns are inherently plural and denote groups. As in (), these collective nouns can be made singular (individuated) by what he calls a singulative -ah. ()
Arabic (Mathieu : ) a. burtogaal b. burtogaala(h) oranges orange. ‘oranges’ ‘an orange’
Mathieu argues that the singulative -ah occupies Div. ()
DivP Div
nP
-ah
burtogaal
‘an orange’ These singularized collectives can then be pluralized. ()
Arabic (Mathieu : –) a. burtogaal b. burtogaala(h) oranges orange. ‘oranges’ ‘an orange’
c. burtogaalaat orange.. ‘oranges’
He argues that counting plurals do not divide (as that has already been accomplished by the singularizer), and occupies a higher position, namely, Num. ()
NumP DivP
Num -at
Div
nP
-ah burtogaal ‘oranges’ Therefore, ‘the function of the counting plural is simply to count after division has already been realized’ (Mathieu : ). Mathieu () also shows that a similar pattern can be found in Ojibwe (Algonquian), which we discuss in §... .. Lexical plural As we noted in Chapter , plural mass nouns can be associated with at least three different readings: (i) a universal packager or ‘amount’ reading, (ii) a universal sorter
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or ‘kind’ reading, and (iii) a lexical plural or ‘lots of ’ reading. While Michif lacks a lexical plural, it is important to understand the variety of plurals available in Algonquian to fully understand the pattern in Michif. The first discussion of the third type of reading is Tsoulas (). He notes that some Greek mass nouns can be pluralized, without being coerced into a count noun. ()
Greek (Tsoulas : ) a. To patoma itan gemato the floor was full ‘The floor was full of water.’
nera. water.
b. Me tosa nera ke xomata pos na mi with so.many. water. and earth. how SM not gemisi to spiti laspes. fill. the house mud. ‘With so much water and earth how do you expect not to fill the house with mud.’ As Tsoulas points out, this is a problem for more traditional analyses of plurality. Plurality is usually argued to operate over atoms (either by ruling them out or by creating sums of those atoms). Therefore, mass nouns (which are usually assumed to lack atomic structure) should not be pluralizable. Acquaviva (: ) argues that ‘the interpretation of plural is not necessarily a function of the singular’. The semantics of plural is not always atomic; instead, it can introduce a larger degree along a particular dimension, rather than atomic structure (‘abundance’; see Corbett , who calls this type of plural a ‘greater plural’). For example, waters can describe a large body of water. ()
(Acquaviva : ) the waters in the sea
This type of plural is lexical, rather than inflectional; the lexical plural is not obligatory (unlike an inflectional plural). For example, water and waters (lexical plural) are equally grammatical in (). ()
(Acquaviva : ) the river discharges its water/waters into the lake
Acquaviva argues that the lexical plural and the inflectional plural occupy different positions: inflectional plural occupies Div,3 and the lexical plural occupies n.
3 Following Borer (), Acquaviva uses the label Cl. We have updated this to Div, in keeping with the rest of the discussion.
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DivP
Div
nP
inflectional plural
√
n lexical plural
Alexiadou (, following Acquaviva ) argues that the plural marking on mass nouns in Greek is lexical.4 ()
Greek (Alexiadou : ) a. nero b. nera c. vivlio water water. book ‘a lot of water’
d. vivlia book. ‘more than one book’
According to Alexiadou, plural mass nouns behave somewhat idiosyncratically because the plural is lexical: some mass nouns can only be found in plural form. In these cases, the singular form receives an individuated reading. ()
Greek (Alexiadou : ) a. ksilo b. ksila wood wood. ‘a piece of wood’ ‘wood’ (mass)
She ties these two different types of plural to different locations within the DP from Acquaviva: Alexiadou locates the inflectional plural in Num (rather than Div), and the lexical plural in n. ()
a. NumP Num pl
nP
vivlia ‘books’
b. nP n
√
pl nera ‘lots of water’
This type of analysis predicts that there are at least two different positions available for plural, with very different semantics: a plural in Div that individuates (or a plural in Num that does not, as that function has already been performed), and a plural in n that does not individuate and is compatible with a mass noun interpretation.
4 Plural mass nouns in Greek can also receive a ‘type’ interpretation, as in more than one kind of water.
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.. Non-inflectional plural Wiltschko () argues that there is another type of plural that does not occupy a functional head at all. Instead, there is a type of plural that she calls ‘non-inflectional’ (see also Mithun ; Corbett ), and which adjoins to/modifies the root.5 ()
(adapted from Wiltschko 2008: 675) √ plural
√ root
She provides four criteria to distinguish between inflectional and non-inflectional plural marking, which we provide in Table ..6 The first diagnostic has to do with obligatoriness. Inflectional plurals are obligatory; non-inflectional plurality is not (exactly like lexical plurals in §..). In English, the plural suffix is obligatory when the noun co-occurs with the numeral three (). In Halkomelem, the plural reduplication is not required (). () ()
(Wiltschko : ) a. the three boys
b. *the three boy
Halkomelem (Wiltschko : ) a. te lhíxw swíweles b. te lhíxw swóweles three boy three boy. ‘the three boys’ ‘the three boys’
The second diagnostic is about agreement. Inflectional plurals trigger agreement; non-inflectional plurals do not. In English, these requires plural marking on the TABLE . Criteria for inflectional vs non-inflectional plurality
Y
N
Y
N
N
Y
N
Y
5
Ghomeshi () argues for something similar in Persian, but instead calls it the plural derivational. The plural in Persian must also be licensed by higher functional structure—either D or Q. 6 In fact, Wiltschko provides more diagnostics, but these are the core ones.
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noun, and vice versa (). In Halkomelem, the plural article ye does not require the noun to be marked as plural, and nor does the plural marking on the noun require a plural-marked article (). ()
()
(Wiltschko : ) a. These boys can sing. c. *These boy can sing.
b. *This boys can sing. d. This boy can sing.
Halkomelem (Wiltschko : ) a. t’ílém ye sí:wí:qe b. t’ílém te sí:wí:qe sing . man. sing man. ‘The men are singing.’ ‘The men are singing.’ c. t’ílém ye swíyeqe sing . man ‘The men are singing.’
d. t’ílém te swíyeqe sing man ‘The man is singing.’
The third diagnostic involves compounding. Inflectional plurality is not found inside of compounds, whereas non-inflectional morphology is found inside compounds. In English, plural marking is not found inside compounds (). In Halkomelem, it is (). ()
(Wiltschko : ) a. tooth-brush *teethbrush b. child-care *children-care
()
Halkomelem (Wiltschko : ) a. tem-qoqo: b. tem-weléxes time-water. time-frog. ‘high water time’ ‘time of frogs’ (= March) c. s-xexp’-í:tsel -stripe.-back ‘chipmunk (with more than two stripes)’
Finally, inflectional plurality is not allowed to occur inside of derivational morphology; non-inflectional plurality is allowed. In English, the derivational suffix -ish cannot attach to a plural marked noun. In Halkomelem, plurality is found inside the derivational prefix s- ‘nominalizer’. ()
(Wiltschko : ) a. dog-ish *dog-s-ish b. mother-ese *mother-s-ese
()
Halkomelem (Wiltschko : ) a. s-p’eq’p’eq’ (*sp’eqsp’eq’) b. s-th’ekw’th’ékw’ -white. -sore. ‘white spots on skin’ ‘lots of sores’
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Thus, English has an inflectional type of plural, and Halkomelem has a noninflectional type of plural. Non-inflectional plurality behaves so differently because it adjoins to something, rather than occupying a functional head. .. Summary There are at least four possible locations for plural: a plural in Div that individuates, a plural in Num that does not individuate (but is still associated with division), a plural in n that does not individuate and is not associated with division, and a plural that modifies the root. There is also the potential for an agreement-type of plural. As we show in §., Michif only has the first two types, but Algonquian languages provide evidence for the first three types of plurality.
. Plurality in Algonquian In this section, we discuss plurality in two Algonquian languages: Ojibwe and Innuaimun. Ojibwe has a counting plural (Mathieu ), and Innu-aimun has both a counting plural and a lexical plural (Gillon a, b). .. Ojibwe Mathieu () argues that Ojibwe has a counting plural and a singulative, just like Arabic. In Ojibwe, the singulative function is performed by gender shift (from inanimate to animate). When a mass noun shifts from inanimate to animate, it is individuated/singularized. For example, zhoonya ‘money’ is an inanimate mass noun, but once it is turned into an animate noun, as in zhoonyag ‘coins’, it becomes count. ()
Ojibwe (Mathieu a: ) a. zhoonya b. zhoonya-g money. money-. ‘coins’ c. mitig wood/forest.
d. mitig tree.
This shift is usually only visible in the plural (or on the verb stem, since Algonquian verb stems are marked for animacy; Wolfart ; chs and ). The noun first undergoes an animacy shift and then plural is added higher in the tree under Num. ()
NumP
DivP
Num pl
Div singulative/animacy
nP
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Mathieu shows that individuation can also occur via diminutive. When the diminutive marker is added to a mass noun in Ojibwe, it becomes a count noun (e.g., mtig ‘wood’ becomes mtigoons ‘stick’). ()
Ojibwe (Mathieu b: ) a. mtig b. mtigoons wood wood. ‘wood’ ‘stick’ c. mkwam ice ‘ice’
d. mkwamiins ice. ‘icicle’
He locates the diminutive in Div, as another instance of division. ()
DivP Div
nP
singulative/diminutive Recall from Chapter that not all mass nouns can be pluralized in Ojibwe (). ()
Ojibwe (Mathieu : ) a. *bimide-n b. *(a)niibiishaaboo-n oil-. tea-. c. *doodooshaaboo-n d. *miskwi-n milk-. blood-.
This means that the counting plural requires assistance in order to pluralize a mass noun. Mass nouns need to be individuated before they can be pluralized by the counting plural. Diminutive and animacy shift can individuate (as in () and ()), but in some cases the division needs to be performed by a null element. For example, azhashki ‘mud’ is not shifted to animate before it is pluralized. ()
Ojibwe (Mathieu : ) a. (a)ki/(a)ki-in earth/earth-. c. bkwezhgan/bkwezhgan-an bread/bread-.
b. azhashki/azhashki-in mud/mud-. d. aasaakamig/aasaakamig-oon moss/moss-.
It is not clear when a mass noun can occur with a null singulative, but it must be available in some instances. Ojibwe has a counting plural which does not individuate on its own. The diminutive, gender shift, or a null singularizer individuate instead.
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.. Innu-aimun Building on Mathieu’s work, Gillon (a, b) argues that Innu-aimun also has a counting plural. Just like in Ojibwe, gender shift individuates in Innu-aimun. This can be seen in () and (), where the inanimate version of each refers to a mass of cut wood, and the animate version refers to an individual tree. ()
Innu-aimun (Mailhot and MacKenzie, : ; cited in Gillon a) a. înnâshtîtaku b. înnâshtîtaku fir.wood. fir.tree. ‘fir wood’ (cut) (mass) ‘dry fir tree’ (count)
()
Innu-aimun (Mailhot and MacKenzie, : ; cited in Gillon a) a. mîtushîtaku b. mîtushîtaku quaking.aspen.wood. quaking.aspen.tree. ‘wood of a quaking aspen tree’ (mass) ‘dry quaking aspen tree’ (count)
Superficially, it is impossible to tell the difference here; the singular is not marked for animacy in Innu-aimun. However, the plural of ()b or ()b would be of the animate form (-at).7 Just as in Ojibwe, the verb would also provide information about the (in)animacy of the noun, since Algonquian verb stems are marked for animacy. She further argues that individuation sometimes occurs via a null singulative. Just like in Ojibwe, it is difficult to tell when the null singulative is allowed, and when it is not. For example, pimî ‘oil’ can be individuated; mîku ‘blood’ cannot. ()
Innu-aimun (Gillon a: ) a. mîku b. mîku-a blood blood-. ‘blood’ ‘lots of blood’, ‘more blood’ ≠ ‘amounts of blood’ c. pimî oil ‘oil’
d. pimî-a oil-. ‘lots of oil’ ‘barrels of oil’
Some mass nouns can only receive a ‘lots of ’ or ‘more’ type reading, which is not individuated. Gillon argues that this second type of plural is a lexical plural, following Acquaviva () and Alexiadou (). Recall that lexical plurals are different from dividing or counting plurals in that they do not individuate nouns.
7 The inanimate forms should also be pluralizable; however, they would take the inanimate form -a, and this plural would be lexical, as in ().
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Innu-aimun (Gillon a: ) a. mîtshim-a b. uâpitsheushkamiku-a food-. moss-. ‘lots of food’ ‘lots of moss’ c. kûn-at snow-. ‘lots of snow’
d. mîku-a blood-. ‘lots of blood’
These plural mass nouns are not individuated. They refer only to a large amount of a substance. This can be seen by the fact that they cannot co-occur with a numeral. ()
Innu-aimun (Gillon a: ) a. *nishtu mîtshim-a b. *nishtu three food-. three c. *nishtu kûn-at d. *nishtu three snow-. three
uâpitsheushkamiku-a moss-. miku-a blood-.
Because Innu-aimun has a lexical plural, all mass nouns can be pluralized without being individuated. And just like Ojibwe, the counting plural cannot occur on just any mass noun (only some mass nouns can be individuated). While Ojibwe only has a counting plural, Innu-aimun has a counting plural and a lexical plural. In both languages, the counting plural can only be used with nouns that have already been individuated (either via a null singulative, gender shift, or the diminutive). In Innu-aimun, the lexical plural is used on non-individuated mass nouns. .. Summary Counting plurals are found in at least two Algonquian languages (Ojibwe and Innuaimun); it is therefore likely that Michif could have one as well. We might also expect to find a lexical plural, since at least one Algonquian language has one,8 but, as we show in §.., Michif lacks a lexical plural.
. Michif plurality In this section, we show that the two different plurals lii and -a/-ak are each associated with a different semantics. .. The basic data Recall that all French-derived nouns require a determiner (even with other functional elements) (). French-derived nouns are always pluralized with lii.
8
Gillon (a) suggests that Blackfoot also has a lexical plural.
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()
a. li .. ‘the boy’
garsoo’n boy
b. lii garsoo’n . boy ‘(the) boys’
As discussed in Chapter , French-derived mass nouns cannot be pluralized. ()
a. li maa’nzhi .. food ‘the food’
b. *lii .
maa’nzhi food
c. li vaa’n .. wind ‘the wind’
d. *lii .
vaa’n wind
e. diloo water ‘water’
f. *lii .
diloo Water
g. li mos .. moss ‘the moss’
h. *lii .
mos moss
The plural suffix -a/-ak is only found on Algonquian-derived nouns. ()
()
Algonquian-derived nouns a. takwaminaan/takwaminaan-a chokecherry/chokecherry-. c. shaapomin/shaapomin-ak gooseberry/gooseberry-. French-derived nouns a. fraa’nbwaaz/*fraa’nbwaaz-a(k) raspberry
b. otoohtooshim/otoohtooshim-a (her) breast/breast-.
b. freez/*freez-ak strawberry
The Algonquian-derived nouns can also co-occur with both markers of plural simultaneously, or just with the plural lii. ()
a. lii takwaminaan-a . chokecherry-. ‘(the) chokecherries’
b. lii takwaminaan . chokecherry ‘(the) chokecherries’
There are at least two exceptions to this pattern. Kookom ‘grandmother’ and mooshom ‘grandfather’ cannot be pluralized via the suffix, even though they are both Algonquian-derived. They can be pluralized via the article lii however. ()
a. koohkom/*koohkom-ak grandmother
b. lii koohkom . grandmother ‘grandmothers’
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d. lii mooshom . grandfather ‘grandfathers’
Finally, recall that there is no known restriction of mass/count on either plural marking within the Algonquian-derived vocabulary. ()
a. kimotiwin loot ‘loot, bounty’
b. kimotiwin-a loot-. ‘(amount of ) stolen goods’
c. tominikan oil ‘oil/grease’
d. tominikan-a oil-. ‘(bottles of ) oil/grease’
e. lii kimotiwin . loot ‘(amount of) stolen goods’
f. lii kimotiwin-a . loot-. ‘(amount of) stolen goods’
g. lii tominikan . oil ‘(bottles of ) oil/grease’
h. lii tominikan-a . oil-. ‘(bottles of ) oil/grease’
To recap, lii is found on both French- and Algonquian-derived nouns. However, it is only found on French-derived count nouns and on any Algonquian-derived noun (regardless of ontological status). The plural suffix is only found on Algonquianderived nouns, and can be used with both mass and count nouns. Neither plural is associated with a lexical plural interpretation. Lexical plurality is therefore not available in Michif. .. Agreement plural As Michif has two plural markers (lii and -a/-ak), it seems plausible that there is only one ‘true’ plural and one that is merely agreeing with something else within the DP, as Borer and Ouwayda () argue for Lebanese Arabic. If this were true, one of the plural markers would only occur in certain circumstances: either with numerals or with a definite article. In Michif, the only possible place that an agreement plural should show up is with numerals;9 however, neither plural marker requires a numeral. ()
a. (Sae’nk) lii sheezh five . chair ‘I have (five) green chairs.’
ver green
n-dajaa-n. -have.-/
9 The other possible co-occurrence would be with definite articles, but Michif lacks a definite plural article (see Chapter ). Further, one of the plural markers is itself an article.
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Plurality b. (Sae’nk) takwaminaan-a five chokecherry-. ‘I have (five) chokecherries.’
n-dajaa-n. -have.-/
We therefore dismiss the ‘agreement plural’ as an option for Michif. Instead, only dividing and counting are possibilities. We now turn to lii and -a/-ak. We investigate the semantics of each plural marking, showing that one must be a counting plural, and the other a dividing plural. .. Lii In this section, we test to see whether lii is either a dividing or counting plural, and show that it must be a counting plural. ... Lii as a dividing plural Recall that dividing plurals should be able to create count nouns out of any mass noun. Also, plural mass nouns should refer to individuated elements rather than undifferentiated stuff. Is lii a dividing plural? This is a plausible analysis of lii: lii could occupy Div, and be associated with division. We would expect a dividing plural to create individuated atoms out of mass nouns, as it appears to do with the Algonquian-derived mass nouns. ()
a. lii kimotiwin . loot ‘(amounts of ) stolen goods’
b. lii tominikan . oil ‘(amounts of ) oil/grease’
However, lii cannot occur with most French-derived mass nouns (). When lii does occur with mass nouns, the plural mass noun is associated with an atomic interpretation, as predicted (). ()
lii wil . oil (i) ‘bottles of oil’ (ii) ‘kinds of oil’
Any French-derived mass nouns that can be pluralized can also occur with numerals; this is expected if the plural provides division. ()
trwaa lii three . ‘bottles of oil’ ‘kinds of oil’
wil oil
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However, the Algonquian-derived mass nouns disprefer lii when they occur with numerals.10 ()
a. trwaa kimotiwin b. ??trwaa three loot three ‘three stolen goods’ ≠‘three kinds of stolen goods’
lii .
kimotiwin loot
The main problem with the analysis of lii as a dividing plural is that lii cannot always divide mass nouns (), repeated below. ()
b. *lii .
maa’nzhi food
c. li vaa’n .. wind ‘the wind’
d. *lii .
vaa’n wind
e. diloo water ‘water’
f. *lii .
diloo water
g. li mos .. moss ‘the moss’
h. *lii .
mos moss
a. li .. ‘the food’
maa’nzhi food
We turn, therefore, to the second possibility: lii as a counting plural. ... Lii as a counting plural Similarly to a dividing plural, a counting plural would always be associated with atomic structure. Unlike a dividing plural, however, the counting plural would not perform division. Instead some other element would occupy Div and perform that function. If lii is a counting plural, it should only be found on (i) count nouns (which are already individuated) and (ii) mass nouns that have been individuated by some other element. That is, we should be able to find some other element that performs division, and that element should co-occur with lii. We do indeed find lii mostly on count nouns (within the French-derived vocabulary; see Chapter ). Unfortunately, Michif lacks a productive diminutive marker within the French-derived vocabulary.11 The They disprefer either plural marking (Chapter ). There is one token of a potential diminutive marker -razh, but it is not productive. We only found one example of it (i). It can also be pluralized (ii). 10 11
(i)
(Papen : ) a. li seuk .. sugar ‘sugar’
b. li ..
seuk-razh sugar-
‘the sweet’ (candy)
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French-derived vocabulary also cannot undergo animacy shift, and so we are unable to test the second prediction. However, the fact that this plural cannot individuate on its own suggests that it is a counting plural, just like the plural in Ojibwe, and one of the plurals in Innu-aimun. .. -a/-ak as a dividing plural Since lii is a counting plural, -a/-ak cannot also be a counting plural too. The two plural markers can co-occur () and so they must occupy different positions. ()
a. lii kimotiwin-a . loot-. ‘(amount of ) stolen goods’
b. lii tominikan-a . oil-. ‘(bottles of ) oil/grease’
Assuming that only Num can host a counting plural, -a/-ak must be associated with a different semantics. This means that the plural suffix must be a dividing plural. This analysis predicts that the plural suffix can individuate mass nouns. This is true: for example, in (), -a divides the mass of ‘loot’ or ‘oil’ into amounts of each. ()
a. kimotiwin-a loot-. ‘(amounts of ) stolen goods’
b. tominikan-a oil-. ‘(amounts of ) oil/grease’
The plural suffix -a/-ak therefore occupies Div. ()
DivP Div
np
-a tominikan ‘bottles of oil’ The plural suffix only occurs on Algonquian vocabulary, which appears to lack a mass/ count distinction (Chapter ). If Algonquian nouns are underlyingly neutral (as Borer argues for all nouns), then this plural suffix would be one way to individuate. As we will discuss in more detail in Chapter , the diminutive marker -(k)ish is found on certain Algonquian-derived nouns. These are predicted to be in complementary distribution with the plural suffix -a/-ak (because the diminutive and the dividing plural both occupy Div). This is indeed borne out:12
(ii) (Rosen : ) lii seuk-razh . sugar- ‘(the) sweets’ 12
They also do not occur with the dividing plural lii, for reasons we cannot explain.
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a. pooyoo-shk-ish quit-- ‘quitter’
b. *pooyoo-shk-ish-ak quit---. (intended: quitters)
()
a. maato-shk-ish cry-- ‘crier’
b. *maato-shk-ish-ak cry---. (intended: criers)
The ungrammatical forms in ()b–()b show that the dividing plural cannot co-occur with diminutive forms. Singular Algonquian count nouns (and singular mass nouns that are individuated) therefore require some other (null) element to individuate, just like in Ojibwe and Innu-aimun. ()
a.
DivP
b. nP
Div
DivP
Div
∅ takwaminaan ‘a/the chokecherry’
nP
∅ tominikan ‘a bottle of oil’
Algonquian plural mass nouns prefer this null element to individuate when they co-occur with numerals (). ()
a. trwaa kimotiwin three loot ‘three stolen goods’ ≠‘three kinds of stolen goods’
b. ??trwaa three
lii .
kimotiwin-a loot-.
c. ??trwaa three
d. ??trwaa three
lii .
kimotiwin loot
kimotiwin-a loot-.
In fact, both heads are preferentially null. ()
NumP trwaa Num ∅
DivP Div
nP
∅ kimotiwin ‘three stolen goods’
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Whatever this null element is, it seems to be competing with the plural suffix.13 This is predicted by the analysis: either the null element or the plural suffix can occupy Div. For some reason, the numeral prefers the null element over the plural suffix. Thus, the two plurals occupy different positions and involve different semantics. We now have an explanation for why they can co-occur. .. Non-inflectional plural Recall that Wiltschko () argues that some plurals target the root, and are noninflectional. Here we show that this analysis is untenable for Michif. (Mathieu (a) also shows that the plural in Ojibwe must be inflectional.) First, let’s look at lii. The article plural is obligatory with French-derived vocabulary. ()
fiiy girl
a. trwaa lii three . ‘three girls’
b. *trwaa three
la ..
fiiy girl
It also triggers agreement on demonstratives. ()
a. li .. ‘this bed’
lii bed
b. lii lii . bed ‘these beds c. *lii .
ooma ... oo’nhii’n ...
lii bed
d. *li ..
lii bed
ooma ... oo’nhii’n ...
As lii is higher than modificational adjectives, it cannot occur inside compounds, or inside derivational morphology. ()
a. lii pchit fiiy . small girl ‘the small girls’
b. *pchit small
lii .
fiiy girl
We therefore reject the idea that lii is non-inflectional. In Table ., lii patterns with English plurality, rather than with Halkomelem.
13
Numerals also disprefer lii; we have no explanation for this.
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. Michif plurality
TABLE . Criteria for inflectional vs non-inflectional plurality applied to lii
Y
N
Y
Y
N
Y
N
Y
N
N
Y
N
We now turn to the plural suffix. Like lii, the plural suffix is obligatory with numerals. (This is also like Ojibwe.) ()
b. *trwaa three
a. trwaa takwaminaan-a three chokecherry-. ‘these chokecherries’
takwaminaan chokecherry
Further, the suffix triggers agreement on demonstratives. ()
a. takwaminaan ooma chokecherry ... ‘this chokecherry’ b. takwaminaan-a oo’nhii’n chokecherry-. ... ‘these chokecherries’ c. *takwaminaan chokecherry
oo’nhii’n ...
d. *takwaminaan-a chokecherry-.
ooma ...
Unfortunately, we were unable to find any examples of compounding in Michif, and so were unable to test the third diagnostic. The suffix is also not licit inside of derivational morphology. ()
Michif a. koohkom-ipaan-wa grandmother-deceased-. ‘the late grandmothers’
b. *koohkom-wa-ipaan grandmother-.-deceased
The plural suffix behaves like an inflectional suffix: it is obligatory, triggers agreement, and cannot appear inside derivational morphology. We were unable to test the
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Plurality
TABLE . Criteria for inflectional vs non-inflectional plurality applied to -a/-ak
-/-
Y
N
Y
Y
N
Y
N
Y
N/A
N
Y
N
third diagnostic, but the suffix patterns with English plurality, rather than with Halkomelem plurality (Table .).
. Other languages with multiple plurals Michif is not the only example of a language with more than one exponent of plurality. Gitksan also has several different ways of marking plurality: reduplication, prefixation, and irregular morphology (Brown ). More importantly, two exponents of plurality can be found on the same word simultaneously, just like in Michif. ()
Gitksan (Brown ) a. muxw b. hu-muxw ear -ear ‘ear’ ‘ears’ c. ga-muxw -ear ‘ears’
d. ga-hu-muxw --ear ‘ears’
Brown argues that both of these are modifiers, rather than occupying functional heads (following Wiltschko ). He also argues that this is why they can co-occur. Another example of double-plural marking comes from Breton (Anderson ; Stump ). ()
Breton (De Belder n.d.) a. louarn b. lern c. lern-ed fox fox. fox.- ‘fox’ ‘foxes’ ‘foxes’
The outermost plural is inflectional (Anderson ; Stump ; Acquaviva ); however, it is unclear which position it occupies (Num or Div). Acquaviva
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. Other languages with multiple plurals
() argues that the innermost plural is an instantiation of lexical plural (which occupies n) (however, see De Belder n.d. who argues that the innermost plural is a stem allomorph). Once again, two plurals can co-occur because they occupy different positions. Amharic is another language with multiple exponents of plurality: ‘regular’ and ‘irregular’ (Kramer ). ()
Amharic (Kramer : ) a. bet-otʃtʃ b. näfs-at house- soul- ‘houses’ (regular plural) ‘souls’ (irregular plural)
Just like in Michif, these plurals can co-occur. ()
Amharic (Kramer : ) näfs-at-otʃtʃ soul-- ‘souls’
Kramer argues that the regular plural occupies Num and the irregular plural occupies n (akin to the analysis Gillon a gives for Innu-aimun). Finally, there is another contact language that also has two exponents of plurality: Jamaican (Irvine ). Jamaican is a creole language, with English as its lexifier language. Like English, it has the plural suffix -s, and it also has a postnominal marker dem. ()
Jamaican (Irvine : ) a. some of the students live ‘some of the students live’ b. an di yout and children ‘and the children’
dem
Just like in Michif, these two plurality markers can co-occur. ()
Jamaican (Irvine : ) di guns dem guns ‘the guns’
However, Jamaican does not require the use of either marker to result in a plural reading (Irvine ).
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Plurality
Bobyleva () argues that -s occupies Div14 and dem occupies Num. This would make -s a dividing plural and dem a counting plural—exactly like the difference between -a/-ak and lii in Michif. Bobyleva argues that -s marks [+individuation]— which is what a dividing plural does—and dem marks [+collective], which is perhaps a way of formalizing a counting plural. It is interesting that two different contact languages—with different source languages—arrive at a similar endpoint. Both Michif and Jamaican have two plurals, and both seem to have the same types of plurality (dividing and counting). It appears that there are two possibilities for languages with multiple plural marking strategies that can co-occur: at least one of them is a modifier, or they occupy different positions. Michif falls into the latter camp.
. Implications Michif provides us with more evidence that plurality can come in different flavours. Michif has two different plurals: (i) lii which occupies Num and is a counting plural and (ii) -a/-ak which occupies Div and is a dividing plural. ()
NumP
Num
DivP
counting plural
Div
lii
dividing plural
nP n
NP
-a/-ak Thus, there is evidence for at least two different locations for plural (see Butler for examples of even more possible locations for plural): (i) Num (counting) and (ii) Div (dividing), each associated with different semantics (non-dividing and dividing, respectively). The counting plural can only occur with individuated nouns (count nouns and coerced mass nouns), whereas the dividing plural can occur with any type of noun—providing it is Algonquian-derived. French-derived nouns can only occur with the plural in Num; Algonquian-derived nouns can occur with either, or both simultaneously.
14
Bobyleva uses the label Cl instead. We use Div here to unify the discussion.
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. Implications ()
b. Algonquian-derived
a. French-derived NumP Num
DivP nP
Div
c. Alonquian-derived NumP Num
nP
-a takwaminaan ‘chokecherries’
lii fiiy ‘(the) girls’
d. Algonquian-derived NumP
DivP
lii
Div
Num
DivP
lii
nP
∅ takwaminaan ‘(the) chokecherries’
Div
nP
-a takwaminaan ‘(the) chokecherries’
We also argue that the French-derived nouns require n (see Chapter for more discussion). This has implications for the mass/count system. For example, Bale and Barner () argue that mass and count are instantiated by n. That is, there is a count version of n, and an underspecified version (which ends up as mass). ()
(Bale and Barner 2009: 234) a. n,c
√ cat
b. n
√ furniture
In Michif, the French-derived nouns are smaller than nP, and require n—either count or mass. ()
a. French-derived count noun nP n,c
√ fiiy
la ‘the girl’
b. French-derived mass noun nP n
√ vaa’n
li ‘the wind’
The Algonquian nouns, on the other hand, are full nPs, and do not require n. Thus, we argue, Algonquian nouns are underspecified for count or mass. This is why they can be easily pluralized/individuated, whereas French nouns must be coerced. The question that this raises is how this system of counting + dividing plural could have arisen. At least one Algonquian language has been argued to have two different
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Plurality
plural morphemes (Innu-aimun; Gillon a). However, according to Gillon, Innuaimun has a counting plural and a lexical plural (which occupies n), not a dividing plural. Further, the two plurals in Innu-aimun have the same form (-a/-at),15 unlike in Michif. We argue that the Cree-derived plural is a dividing plural, but in Innuaimun and Ojibwe at least, there is no such plural. This suggests that the plural in Plains Cree was/is a dividing plural, unlike in Ojibwe (Mathieu ) and Innuaimun. It is also possible that the Plains Cree plural marking was ambiguous—like Innu-aimun—but ambiguous between a dividing plural and counting plural reading, rather than between counting and lexical. More research is required into the semantics of plurality in Plains Cree.
15
Recall that these two forms relate to animacy, not to the semantics of counting vs lexical.
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4 Gender . Gender systems cross-linguistically In this chapter we discuss grammatical gender, or the class groupings that nouns in many languages are divided into, based on the agreement marking that they follow. Gender systems are normally motivated by a semantic core, i.e. there is some overlap with nouns in a particular group and some semantic feature (Corbett a). This semantic feature is most often related to biological sex. Sex-based systems are common in Indo-European languages such as French, Italian, German, and Russian. Example () from Russian shows a sex-based three-gender system: masculine, feminine, and neuter. ()
Russian (adapted from Corbett b) a. ʒurnal leʒal na stole magazine lay.. on table ‘The magazine lay on the table.’ b. kniga leʒal-a na stole book lay.- on table ‘The book lay on the table.’ c. pismo leʒal-o na stole letter lay.- on table ‘The letter lay on the table.’
The noun in ()a is a masculine form which takes an unmarked past tense form of the verb, while ()b is a feminine noun which ends in the feminine /a/ vowel and triggers the feminine agreement morpheme /-a/ on the verb. Finally, ()c is a neuter noun which ends in the neuter vowel /o/ and triggers the neuter agreement morpheme /-o/ on the verb. Note that while each noun is associated with a particular gender, this is an example of grammatical gender in that there are no inherent semantic gender features associated with the particular nouns in (), which are all types of written documents without any inherent gendered features. Although nouns in languages with gender systems tend to be grouped into a single gender class, some nouns, called epicenes, can change based on semantics. For example, French epicenes enfant ‘child’ and élève ‘student’ can be masculine or Nominal Contact in Michif. First edition. Carrie Gillon and Nicole Rosen. © Carrie Gillon and Nicole Rosen . First published by Oxford University Press
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Gender
feminine depending on the semantics of its referent. This shows that the semantics are crucial to assigning gender in some French words, in contrast to other languages such as German where a similar word kind ‘child’ is always assigned neuter gender. While sex-based systems are the most common gender systems, there are also classes of languages which organize noun classes based on notions of animacy, for example the family of Algonquian languages, which have animate versus inanimate nouns. Most Algonquian languages mark animacy distinctions in a number of ways, including in differential plural marking. In Table ., we see that across the Algonquian languages given, plurals are formed differently for inanimate ‘shoe’ versus animate ‘girl’. It is worth noting as well that some nouns taking animate endings are not obviously animate, as in Table .. We can see that while the plural forms are different for the two sets of nouns in Table ., ‘kettle’ is not obviously an animate noun, a point to which we return in §... Furthermore, animacy can be divisible at different thresholds. Languages can choose to divide between humans (animate) versus non-humans (inanimate), or between
TABLE . Animacy distinctions across Algonquian languages inanimate
animate
‘shoe’
‘shoes’
‘girl’
‘girls’
cree
maskisin
maskisin-a
iskwesis
iskwesis-ak
blackfoot
atsikín
atsikí-ístsi
aakííkoan
aakííkoa-iksi
nishnaabemwin m(a)kizin m(a)kizn-an (a)kwezens (a)kwezens-ag innu-aimun
massin
massin-a
ishkuess
ishkuess-at
Data from Cree Dictionary (Wolvengrey b); Frantz and Genee (); Ojibwe People’s Dictionary (Nichols ); Innu-aimun Dictionary (Mailhot and MacKenzie ).
TABLE . Examples of Algonquian animacy inanimate
animate
‘song’
‘songs’
‘kettle’
‘kettles’
cree
nikamon
nikamon-a
askihk
ashkihkw-ak
menominee
neka:mwan
neka:mwan-an ahkε:h
ojibwe
nagamon
nagamon-an
akik
akik-oog
fox
nakamo:n-i
nakamo:n-ani
ahkohkw-a
ahkohk-o:ki
Source: Goddard (: )
ahkε:hk-ok
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. French gender
animals and humans (animate) versus all other inanimate nouns, or between animals, humans, spirits, and growing things, such as trees, (animate) versus all other inanimate nouns. This last division is what is normally claimed for Algonquian languages. Note that not all researchers agree that Algonquian animacy is a form of gender. Wiltschko () argues that animacy in Blackfoot is instead a form of boundedness, akin to a mass/count distinction. This cannot be the correct characterization for Michif, at least, since the animacy distinction crosscuts the mass/count distinction within the French-derived vocabulary. (Her system only allows for one boundedness distinction, either mass/count or animate/inanimate.) We therefore do not adopt this analysis for Michif. Related to gender systems are class systems. Class systems can be thought of as more developed gender systems, marking various features including sex, animacy, and others. They are well developed and well attested in Bantu languages, for instance (Corbett b). While class is related to gender, we do not discuss it here, as Michif clearly does not have a class or classifier system and it is outside the scope of this work. Grammatical gender can be marked in a variety of different ways: via marking on the noun itself and on the verb (as in Russian), differential plural marking (as in Algonquian), or different articles (as in Romance). The animacy of the verbal arguments can also be reflected in verbal morphology, as in Algonquian languages, which we will see for Plains Cree in §.. Furthermore, recall from Chapter that gender shift (from inanimate to animate) on mass nouns in Ojibwe leads to a count interpretation (). ()
Ojibwe (Mathieu a: ) a. zhoonya b. zhoonya-g money. money-. ‘coins’ c. mitig wood/forest.
d. mitig tree.
Now that we have seen some examples of how gender is manifested in languages generally, we turn to how grammatical gender is marked in the parent languages of Michif, French, and Plains Cree, before moving on to see how Michif has adapted the two systems.
. French gender Like other modern Romance languages, French employs a sex-based gender system where each nominal is obligatorily grammatically either masculine or feminine. Masculine or feminine gender is marked in the DP on articles (), demonstratives (), and possessives ().
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Gender French a. le nez .. nose ‘the nose’
b. la bouche .. mouth ‘the mouth’
()
a. ce nez .. nose ‘this nose’
b. cette bouche .. mouth ‘this mouth’
()
a. mon ... ‘my nose’
nez nose
b. ma ... ‘my mouth’
bouche mouth
c. ton ... ‘your nose’
nez nose
d. ta ... ‘your mouth’
bouche mouth
()
Gender is also normally marked on adjectives modifying the nouns, whether they are prenominal or postnominal. The masculine form is normally considered unmarked for gender, while the feminine changes form, usually by the pronunciation of a final consonant. ()
French a. mon grand nez mɔ̃ grã ne ... big nose ‘my big nose’
b. ma grande bouche ma grãd buʃ ... big. mouth ‘my big mouth’
c. ton nez hideux d. ta bouche hideuse tɔ̃ ne hidø ta buʃ hidøz ... nose hideous ... mouth hideous. ‘your hideous nose’ ‘your hideous mouth’ In (), the final consonant in the adjectives is not pronounced in the masculine form, but is pronounced in the feminine form, as seen in the phonetic realization. Note however that this phonetic difference does not occur with all adjectives, and in a number of cases, there is no overt phonetic difference between masculine and feminine gender. This is particularly true for past participles being used adjectivally as in ()–(), of which there are an indeterminate number. French () a. un homme œ᷉ nɔm ‘a tired man’
fatigué (m) fatige
b. une femme fatiguée (f) yn fam fatige ‘a tired woman’
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. French gender ()
a. un problème compliqué (m) œ̃ prɔblɛm kɔ̃plike ‘a complicated problem’ b. une question compliquée (f ) yn kɛstjɔ̃ kɔplike ᷉ ‘a complicated question’
()
()
a. un travail difficile (m) œ̃ travaj difisil ‘a difficult task’ a. un homme œ̃ nɔm ‘a nice man’
agréable (m) agreabl
b. une course difficile (f ) yn kurs difisil ‘a difficult race’ b. une femme agréable (f ) yn fam agreabl ‘a nice woman’
The phonetic form of the adjectives in ()a–()a does not differ whether in the masculine or feminine, and there are many other similar examples. This shows us that while there is active adjectival gender agreement in French, it is neutralized in some cases. The agreement in ()–() is described as a rule in French grammars. While it is true that gender agreement is an intrinsic part of French, viewing gender agreement as immutable belies the fact that gender and gender agreement can be somewhat more variable, at least in vernacular Canadian French. Klapka () gives relevant examples in a corpus of storytelling interviews with Quebecois speakers born in the nineteenth century (Récits du français québecois d’autrefois, RFQ) (Corpus details published in Poplack and St-Amand ): ()
Canadian French (Klapka : ; from RFQ//) il s’en va en bas puis il allume le cheminée, quand la cheminée elle était bien embrayée ‘he goes downstairs and he lights the chimney/fireplace; when the fire was going well’
()
Canadian French (Klapka : ; from RFQ//) c’est des vies différents [diferɑ̃] [cf. différentes [diferɑ̃t] in prescriptive French] ‘it’s different lives’
()
Canadian French (Klapka : ; RFQ//) bien il y a tout le temps—il y a des—des petits choses de—tu sais…[cf. petites] ‘well there is always—there are—small things—you know…’
()
Canadian French (Klapka : ; RFQ//) bien, elle edit, écoute, les derniers journées là, tu vas avoir de la visite [cf. dernières] ‘well, she says, listen, those last days there, you will have visitors’
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Gender
In example (), we see both genders being used for the same (feminine) noun cheminée. In examples ()–(), the masculine adjective (in bold) is used with a feminine noun. In each of these cases, the nouns are very common, familiar lexical items, so it cannot be that the gender is unknown due to the lexical item being unfamiliar. Furthermore, French has dialectal variation in some lexical items where a noun is one gender in France and the other in Canada. There seem to be two general sets of items which have switched genders: one is the set of vowel-initial nouns, which have often been reanalysed as feminine and the second is those who have switched by analogy with other phonologically similar forms. Moreover, borrowed items do not always correspond to the same gender in Quebec French as hexagonal French, with forms such as stereo and job being of conflicting genders on either side of the ocean. We return to these cases in §., but the important detail to note here is that gender is not immutable in (at least) Canadian French, and that there is reason to believe that for at least some forms, there is variable agreement. We have outlined the sex-based gender marking in French, showing that it is across the DP elements, but also that there is some variability in the phonetic realization of gender marking in French, and even more so in Canadian French. We will go into more detail of the implications of this variability and lack of marking at the end of the chapter, but for now we move on to outlining gender in Plains Cree, the other input to Michif, before moving on to gender in Michif itself.
. Plains Cree gender Algonquian languages mark grammatical animacy rather than sex-based gender, as we saw in Tables . and ., and Plains Cree is no exception. Animacy permeates the Plains Cree grammar, showing up in both the DP and VP domains. Cree does not have articles, and so unlike French gender, there is no (obligatory) overt marker, but both nouns and verbs are morphologically sensitive to animacy distinctions. In this section, we describe the three places animacy shows up: plurality, demonstratives, and verb form/agreement. .. Gender marking on plural Plains Cree plural markers depend on animacy (). Animate nouns take the animate form of the plural marker: -ak. Inanimate forms take the inanimate form: -a. ()
Plains Cree a. awa:sis child ‘child’
b. awa:sis-ak child-. ‘children’
c. si:si:p duck ‘duck’
d. si:si:p-ak duck-. ‘ducks’
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. Plains Cree gender e. maskisin shoe ‘shoe’
f. maskisin-a shoe-. ‘shoes’
In some cases, the same stem can appear with both animate or inanimate endings, in which case the meaning shifts with the gender, receiving different interpretations. For example, mistik can refer to either a tree (an.) or stick (inan.); the plural marking disambiguates between the two readings. ()
Plains Cree (Wolvengrey b) a. mistik b. mistikw-a tree/stick tree/stick-. ‘tree/stick’ ‘sticks’
c. mistikw-ak tree/stick-. ‘trees’
.. Gender marking on demonstratives Demonstratives are also marked for animacy. The Plains Cree pronominal paradigms as outlined in Wolfart () show a clear division between animate and inanimate forms (Table .). Wolfart () analyses morphemes as split along the animate/inanimate paradigm, such as -hi as the plural marker in inanimates, and -ki as the plural marker for animates, marked in bold in the examples in Table .. .. Gender marking on verbs Lastly, gender marking is not confined to the DP domain, as gender is one of the basic criteria for the inflectional and derivational classification of Plains Cree verbs (Wolfart ). Verbs generally come in pairs, with inanimate and animate forms, based on the animacy of the subject (if intransitive) or the object (if transitive) (Chapter ). Transitive verbs come in pairs where the animacy of the direct object TABLE . Plains Cree demonstratives inanimate
animate
singular plural obviative singular
plural
proximal
awa
o:ki
o:hi
o:ma
o:hi
medial
ana
aniki
anihi
anima
anihi
distal
na:ha
ne:ki
nehi
ne:ma
ne:hi
ta:niki
ta:nihi
ta:ni, ta:nima ta:nihi
limiting interrogative ta:ni Based on Wolfart (: )
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Gender
is reflected in the stem. These are often labelled as transitive animate (TA) or transitive inanimate (TI) verbs (also known as VTA and VTI), seen in (). The intransitive verbs also come in pairs, but in this case it is their subject which determines which member of the pair is used: verbs taking animate subjects are called AI (VAI) and verbs taking inanimate subjects are called II (VII) verbs, seen in (). ()
()
Plains Cree (Wolfart : , ) VTA a. otine:w ‘s/he takes him/her’ c. pakamahe:w ‘s/he hits him/her’
VTI b. otinam d. pakamaham
Plains Cree (Wolfart : ) VAI VII a. ohpikiw ‘s/he grows up’ b. ohpikin c. mihkosiw ‘s/he is red’ d. mihkwa:w
‘s/he takes it’ ‘s/he hits it’
‘it grows up’ ‘it is red’
The examples on the left in ()–() are animate forms, while the forms on the right are inanimate. A verb cannot be used without knowing the animacy of the relevant grammatical function of the object/subject (depending on the transitivity). .. Summary Unlike French, which has sex-based gender that is marked solely within the DP, Plains Cree has animacy-based gender which is marked both in the DP by means of plural marking and on the demonstratives, and in the VP in the verb form and agreement patterns.
. Theoretical approach Before getting into the facts regarding gender in Michif, we turn to making explicit our theoretical assumptions regarding the morphosyntax of gender. We adopt the framework outlined in Kramer (), which argues that gender features are syntactically located on the n head, and distinguish between natural gender and grammatical gender. Natural gender features, i.e. gender that is assigned on the basis of some semantic property in the real world, are interpretable, while arbitrary (or grammatical) gender is the realization of uninterpretable gender features. Gender assignment operates along two dimensions: according to some natural or semantic property in the real world (interpretable features) or arbitrarily (uninterpretable features). Typologically, some languages only assign gender according to a natural (or interpretable) property of the noun (e.g. Dieri, Mangarayi, and Tamil; Kramer : ), while languages with grammatical gender contain both interpretable and interpretable features. Kramer’s approach is particularly relevant because she addresses differences between natural versus arbitrary gender, making predictions regarding what kind of gender systems we should find cross-linguistically. While
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. Theoretical approach
Kramer sets up her analysis using interpretable and uninterpretable features, for the purposes of exposition we will use different terminology: rather than using feminine/animate values, we will simply use masculine and feminine, and animate and inanimate. Furthermore, we will refer to semantic versus arbitrary gender rather than interpretable and uninterpretable gender. This departure from Kramer is not due to any departure from her theoretical stance, but rather to use plain language to remain clearer for readers not familiar with this framework, since the details are not important for our purposes here. We will now outline an analysis of French and Plains Cree within this system and discuss the predictions for Michif. .. Analysis of French While Kramer does not explicitly analyse French, French patterns similarly to Spanish, which she does analyse (: –). Under this framework, French has both semantic and arbitrary sex-based gender features. We saw in §. that every French noun is assigned masculine or feminine gender. For some nouns, this gender assignment is based on semantic gender. Consider the examples in (). ()
French a. un garçon . boy ‘a boy’
b. une fille . girl ‘a girl’
This gender assignment by semantic gender is exemplified by the epicene forms in (). ()
French a. un/une élève b. un/une malade c. un/une enfant
‘a pupil’ ‘a patient’ ‘a child’
In each of the examples in (), the gender of the article can change depending on semantic gender. In these cases, we say, following Kramer’s framework, that there are interpretable (i) gender features () on n which are realized in the article. ()
a. semantically feminine nP n i[+fem]
√
b. semantically masculine nP n
√
i[–fem]
However, since all nouns in French are assigned sex-based gender, either semantically or arbitrarily, it also has uninterpretable (u) gender features, for example in the forms in (), repeated below.
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()
Gender French a. le nez .. nose ‘the nose’
b. la bouche .. mouth ‘the mouth’
As there is nothing inherently feminine or masculine about a nose or a mouth, the nouns in () are associated with uninterpretable (arbitrary) gender features, which surface once again on the article. ()
a. arbitrary feminine nP n
b. default masculine nP n
√
√
u[+fem] Under Kramer’s framework, masculine would be the default gender in the case of French (analogous to Spanish, which she analyses). While arbitrary feminine must be specified, arbitrary masculine is not. An argument for masculine as default comes from the fact that masculine forms of epicene nouns as in () can refer either to females or males, while the feminine form can only refer to females. So, an absence of uninterpretable features will yield default masculine gender, but when there are uninterpretable feminine features associated with a noun, that noun will surface as grammatically feminine. Therefore, some nouns have interpretable (semantic) masculine or feminine gender features and others have uninterpretable (arbitrary) feminine gender features associated with them. Table . gives the inventory of the four possible gender features with examples from French for each. The semantic examples in Table . are all clearly male or female in the natural world, while the default and arbitrary examples do not have inherent female or male
TABLE . Examples of French gender le garçon ‘the boy’
la fille ‘the girl’
le mur ‘the wall’
la table ‘the table’
le gardien ‘the caretaker (m)’
la gardienne ‘the caretaker (f)’
le garage ‘garage’
la maison ‘the house’
le paon ‘the peacock’
la paonne ‘the peahen’
le bœuf ‘the beef ’
la viande ‘the meat’
i[−]
i[+]
—
u[+]
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. Theoretical approach
features, and exemplify arbitrary gender assignment. Therefore, in French there are two types of feminine and two types of masculine nouns. Now that we have seen how we analyse the French sex-based gender system, we turn to Plains Cree and its gender system based on animacy. .. Analysis of Plains Cree Recalling the examples given in Table . of Plains Cree gender, we assume that there are both semantic and arbitrary animacy-based features associated with nouns, as analysed by Kramer (: ) for the Algonquian language family more generally. In this section, we show how gender in Plains Cree is analysed in a way that mirrors somewhat that in French, but with animacy-based, rather than sex-based, gender. As seen in §., Plains Cree nouns are obligatorily specified for animacy. In some cases, this animacy is semantic. Take the example in (), repeated below. ()
Plains Cree a. awa:sis child ‘child’
b. awa:sis-ak child-. ‘children’
c. si:si:p duck ‘duck’
d. si:si:p-ak duck-. ‘ducks’
e. maskisin shoe ‘shoe’
f. maskisin-a shoe-. ‘shoes’
The examples in () show that the plural markers change based on semantic animacy: si:si:p ‘duck’ and awa:sis ‘child’ receive the animate plural marker -ak while maskisin ‘shoe’ receives the inanimate plural marker -a. As we saw in French with sex-based gender in the epicene forms in (), this semantic animacy can change depending on interpretation, as in (), repeated below. ()
Plains Cree (Wolvengrey b) a. mistik b. mistikw-a tree/stick tree/stick-. ‘tree/stick’ ‘sticks’
c. mistikw-ak tree/stick-. ‘trees’
In the epicene example in (), we see that semantic features must be involved as it changes the interpretation of the noun. The inanimate plural form refers to a nonliving stick while the animate form refers to a living and growing tree.
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Gender
However, there are nouns in Plains Cree (and in other Algonquian languages) that are semantically inanimate, but which take animate agreement (). ()
Plains Cree (Wolvengrey b) a. ayôskan ‘raspberry’ c. mîkwan ‘feather’ e. acâhkos ‘star’ g. okiniy ‘rose hip/tomato’
b. d. f. h.
ayôskan-ak mîkwan-ak acâhkos-ak okiniy-ak
‘raspberries’ ‘feathers’ ‘stars’ ‘rosehips/tomatoes’
Note that in all the examples in (), the animate plural is used, showing the animate uninterpretable features associated with these nouns. In Kramer’s system, the semantic animate nouns would be paired with an interpretable (i) animate feature, the arbitrary animate nouns would be paired with an uninterpretable (u) animate feature, and the inanimate nouns would be paired with an underspecified n. ()
a. semantically animate nP n i[an]
√
b. arbitrarily animate nP n
√
c. inanimate nP n
√
u[an]
Bloomfield () described gender in Algonquian as arbitrary, and ever since then, much discussion has taken place trying to construct or understand a worldview where a particular semantic feature would unite the nouns in () into the ‘animate’ category (Hallowell ; Darnell and Vanek , among others). However, we take the position, like Kramer (), that it is not a different worldview or an as yet unidentified feature which sees them collectively as animate, but rather that it is arbitrary animate features associated with the nouns which make semantically inanimate entities take animate agreement. We give here both language-internal evidence as well evidence from the Algonquian language family for this position. As Kramer (: ) outlines, while there is a camp which argues that there is a semantic feature (often referred to as ‘power’) common to all nouns that trigger animate agreement (Hallowell ; Darnell and Vanek , among others), this feature has not been able to exhaustively characterize this set of nouns. For example, Ratt (: ) gives a table of examples of semantically inanimate nouns which take animate agreement and some inanimate nouns which might be seen to be animate given arguments made for those in the animate category on the left. In the list of words in Table ., it is difficult to see how the grammatically animate nouns on the left could be characterized in any way that would exclude
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. Theoretical approach
TABLE . Plains Cree animacy animate
inanimate
mitâs
‘a pair of pants’
miskât
‘a leg’
astis
‘a mitt/glove’
micihciy
‘a hand’
maskasiy
‘a fingernail/toenail’
mêstakay
‘a hair’
tâpiskâkan
‘a scarf/tie’
nîpiy
‘a leaf ’
sôminis
‘a raisin’
mitêhimin
‘a strawberry’
ayôskan
‘a raspberry’
iyinimin
‘a blueberry’
oskâtâsk
‘a carrot’
misâskwatômin
‘a saskatoon berry’
wîhkihkasika
‘a cake’
wîhkwaskwa
‘sweetgrass (pl)’
ospwâkan
‘a pipe’
miskîsik
‘an eye’
Adapted from Ratt (: )
those on the right. Wolvengrey (b) further lists kaskitêmin ‘blackberry’ as inanimate, and it is difficult to see what characteristics blackberries share with animate strawberries, blueberries, and saskatoon berries that it doesn’t also share with inanimate raspberries. Furthermore, the nouns themselves vary in terms of animacy agreement across neighbouring languages. Goddard (: ) shows for example how the word for ‘tobacco’ is animate in Fox, Cree, Menominee, and Ojibwe while inanimate in Munsee, Unami, and Eastern Abenaki. However, as Goddard (: ) argues, ‘the cultural role and status of tobacco differed little among the Algonquian peoples’. Even allowing for a different worldview, there has been no single semantic feature or property proposed that accounts for all forms. Given this lack of consistency, we adopt the view that although some nouns are assigned animacy-based gender based on the natural world, there are many forms where arbitrary gender assignment is at work, as described in Bloomfield (), Armoskaite (), Mathieu (b), and Ratt (). Furthermore, we follow Kramer in asserting that animacy is privative, where animacy is specified (either interpretable/semantic or uninterpretable/arbitrary) and inanimate gender is the default. Table . shows examples of Plains Cree words corresponding to each of the ‘settings’. If there is no animacy feature present on the noun, the default interpretation is inanimate. As we show in §., Kramer’s framework for analysing gender systems lends itself well to analysing Michif due in part to its flexibility and to the crosslinguistic predictions that it makes. Having shown how Cree and French would be analysed within this framework, we turn now to the facts in Michif.
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Gender TABLE . Examples of Plains Cree gender omâcîw ‘hunter’
askihk ‘pail’
mitâs ‘pants’
wacask ‘muskrat’
mihkokwaniy ‘rose’
okiniy ‘rosehip’
âmôs ‘bee’
maskihkiy ‘medicine’
apoy ‘paddle’
i[]
—
u[]
. Gender in Michif Given the differing gender systems in Plains Cree and French, we could imagine a fairly complex situation developing in Michif, where the system marks both sexbased and animacy-based gender, combining both French and Plains Cree systems. In fact, this is what is normally claimed, that nouns take both markings (Bakker ; Papen ). In this section, we consider the facts of gender in Michif, which shows both animacy and sex-based gender marking, though to differing degrees. .. Sex-based gender marking in Michif Since Michif nouns come primarily from French lexical items, it is of little surprise that there is sex-based gender marking on Michif nouns, like the marking we saw in French in §.. In Michif, this marking surfaces primarily on the singular forms on articles and possessives. Gender is neutralized in plural forms in Michif. ()
a. li magazae’n ‘the store’
b. la mezoo’n ‘the house’
()
a. ae’n magazae’n ‘a store’
b. en mezoo’n ‘a house’
()
a. moo’n magazae’n ‘my store’
b. ma mezoo’n ‘my house’
()
a. too’n magazae’n ‘your store’
b. ta mezoo’n ‘your house’
()
a. lii magazae’n ‘(the) stores’
b. lii mezoo’n ‘(the) houses’
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a. noo magazae’n ‘our stores’
b. noo mezoo’n ‘our houses’
()
a. sii magazae’n ‘their stores’
b. sii mezoo’n ‘their houses’
The examples in ()a–()a all show masculine articles and possessives on a masculine noun, while those in ()b–()b show the feminine counterparts. The examples in the plural forms seen in ()–(), however, do not vary based on whether they are masculine or feminine nouns; the possessive and the article remain invariable. The articles and possessives are given in Tables . and .. Possessive constructions are somewhat complicated by the fact that there appear to be two systems available to speakers: the French system or a combined French/ Cree system. The mixed-source possessive paradigm is given in Table ., where we see the person and number marked on the prenominal possessive articles. The paradigms in Tables . and . apply only to animate possessors. Inanimate possessors use a genitive-type construction using ‘di’ (French de) for possession ()–(). TABLE . Michif articles singular plural masculine
definite li indefinite en
feminine
definite la indefinite ae’n
lii
TABLE . Michif possessive articles singular
plural
masculine feminine masculine feminine singular possessor 1st person
moo’n
ma
mii
2nd person
too’n
ta
tii
3rd person
soo’n
sa
sii
plural possessor 1st person
not
noo
2nd person
vot
voo
3rd person
lœr
lœr
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Gender TABLE . Michif possessive marking
plur possessor
sing possessor
singular
()
plural
masculine
feminine
masc/fem
1st
moo’n
ma
mii
2nd
too’n
ta
tii
3rd
soo’n
sa
si
1st incl. too’n-inaan
ma-inaan
tii-inaanak
1st excl. moo’n-inaan
ta-inaan
mii-inaanak
2nd
too’n-inaawaaw ta-inaawaaw tii-inaawaawak
3rd
soo’n-iwaaw
sa-iwaaw
sii-iwaawa
a. li portre di John .. picture John ‘John’s picture/the picture of John’ b. John soo’n portre John ... picture ‘John’s picture’
()
a. li portre di John .. picture John ‘John’s picture/the picture of John’ b. John soo’n portre John ... picture ‘John’s picture’
()
a. lii daa’n di John . teeth John ‘John’s teeth/the teeth of John’ b. John sii John .. ‘John’s teeth’
daa’n tooth
When the possessor is inanimate, only the general genitive marker is permitted: possessive pronouns are excluded. Consider the following examples. ()
a. la zhaa’nb di tab .. leg table ‘the table’s legs’
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b. *la tab sa zhaa’nb .. table ... leg ‘the table’s legs’ ()
a. lii daa’n di koto . teeth knife ‘the knife’s teeth’ b. *lii koto sii daa’n . knife .. teeth ‘the knife’s teeth’
In examples () and (), the possessors are inanimate, and thus the only possible possessive construction is that of the genitive marker ()a and ()a, instead of a possessive article ()b and ()b. This is another example of animacy playing an important role in Michif; in this case animacy determines what constructions are allowed within possessives. In sum, Michif marks sex-based gender via (in)definite articles and possessive elements. Articles and possessive elements can be argued to occupy the same position (see Chapter ), as they do not surface together. ()
a. la mezoo’n ‘the house’
b. ma mezoo’n ‘my house’
()
a. en mezoo’n ‘a house’
b. not mezoo’n ‘our house’
Possessive articles combined with plain articles are unattested, and elicitation results in an ungrammatical form: ()
a. *la ma mezoo’n b. *ma la mezoo’n
‘the my house’ ‘my the house’
Given the co-occurrence restriction of the possessives and the (plain) articles, and the fact that they both mark sex-based gender, we claim that they occupy the same position, and argue that this position is the locus of marking sex-based gender. We also saw that animacy plays a role in how possession is assigned, where animate possessors have access to the possessive paradigms in Tables . and ., while inanimate possessors do not. Both inanimate and animate possessors can mark possession in the syntax by using a genitive-type construction with the genitive marker di. Note that in a few cases, either masculine or feminine articles can be used, depending on the gender of the referent. In (), the Algonquian-derived noun can refer to a male person when it takes ae’n and a female person when it takes en.
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()
Gender a. ae’n pooyoosh ‘a quitter’ (m)
b. en pooyoosh ‘a quitter’ (f )
Recall that the epicene nouns in French () can also take articles of either gender to represent either female or male. Interestingly, those cases don’t seem to hold in Michif. Even French-derived nouns which have changeable sex-based gender do not vary in Michif (). ()
a. ae’n naa’nfaa’n .. child ‘a child’ (m or f )
b. *en ..
naa’nfaa’n child
For reasons we do not understand, when we add a diminutive suffix to the Algonquian-derived form in (), the noun can only be used with a masculine article. This nominal can refer to either a male or female person. ()
b. *en ..
a. ae’n pooyoosh-kish .. quitter- ‘a quitter’ (m or f )
pooyoosh-kish quitter-
Although it is unclear how productive the diminutive suffix is synchronically, there are other examples with similar behaviour, but where the stem is bound and cannot occur without -kish. ()
a. ae’n maatosh-kish .. crier- ‘a crier’ (m or f )
(*ae’n maatosh)
b. ae’n meetaweesh-kish .. player- ‘a player’ (m or f )
(*ae’n meehtaweesh)
We turn our discussion now to Michif adjectives. We saw in §. that French adjectives agree in sex-based gender (and/or number) with the noun. Again, given that adjectives in Michif are historically French, we might expect this same gender agreement in Michif. However, adjective agreement is less clear. First, recall that adjectival agreement in French can often be seen only in the orthography, due to historical developments in French phonology, which resulted in the feminine marker, a final vowel, no longer being pronounced. A small group of adjectives in Michif appear only prenominally. These adjectives normally agree in gender (with a few epicene adjectives as exceptions), and unlike in French, can never appear postnominally. The group includes groo/groos ‘big’, pchii/ pchit ‘small’, zhoen ‘young’, vyoe/vyey ‘old’ graa’n/graa’nd ‘big’, and bo/bel ‘beautiful’. However, the majority of adjectives, including any innovations such as English borrowings or Cree-source deverbal adjectives, are postnominal, and can never be
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. Gender in Michif
prenominal. We assume that adjectives occupy a postnominal position and that the prenominal adjectives are part of a small set of a lexicalized group. Example ()a shows the ungrammaticality of the prenominal adjective appearing postnominally, while ()b shows the ungrammaticality of a syntactic adjective appearing prenominally. ()
a. *en fiiy .. girl ‘a big/fat girl’
groos big.
b. *la ver .. green ‘a green girl’
fiiy girl
In Michif, the lexically determined adjectives show gender alternations (). ()
a. en .. ‘a big girl’
gros big.
fiiy girl
b. ae’n .. ‘a big boy’
gro big.
garsoo’n boy
c. ae’n gro .. big. ‘a big teeter-totter’
chaashchaa’ngoo’n teeter-totter
However, postnominal adjectives do not display any agreement, as in (). ()
a. la fiiy .. girl ‘the green girl’
ver green-Ø
b. li garsoo’n .. boy ‘the green boy’
ver green-Ø
Note that if the postnominal position is the syntactic adjective position, this amounts to saying that there is no active adjectival agreement in Michif, a position we take. There are, in fact, a few cases of apparent postnominal agreement, but we argue that these consist in a small number of lexicalized expressions rather than true agreement. This is illustrated in the minimal pairs in (). ()
a. en fiiy blaa’nsh .. girl white. ‘a European/Caucasian/ethnically white girl’ b. en fiiy blaa’n .. girl white ‘a white girl’ (i.e. painted white)
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Given the data in (), we argue that French-type postnominal adjectival agreement is not part of the regular Michif grammar, and fossilized occurrences of French-type agreement patterns occur solely in a few lexicalized expressions. Up until now we have shown evidence of some sex-based gender analogous to the French source sex-based gender, and other cases where we argue that active sexbased gender has been degraded in the development into Michif. While the Michif possessives and article paradigms do provide examples of sex-based gender, Frenchtype adjectival agreement seems either to be being lost, or is weaker than is seen in French. We return to this point in §... .. Animacy-based gender in Michif Nouns in Michif are marked for animacy as in Plains Cree, though the details of how grammatical animacy would be assigned to French-origin nouns remains unclear. We discuss the three places that animacy shows up in Plains Cree: plural marking, demonstratives, and verb forms/agreement. ... Animacy marking on plural Just like in Plains Cree, animacy can be marked on nouns via plural morphology. Recall that the plural suffix only occurs on Algonquian-derived nouns (Chapter ). For Algonquian-derived nouns, just like in Plains Cree, the plural marking matches the noun for animacy: -a for inanimate nouns ()a and -ak for animate nouns ()b. ()
a. otoohtooshim/otoohtooshim-a (her) breast/breast-.
b. shaapomin/shaapomin-ak gooseberry/gooseberry-.
... Animacy marking on demonstratives Since plural marking is unavailable for the French-derived nouns, we must turn to other places where animacy shows up. One salient area where animacy is manifested is in the demonstratives. Table . shows the paradigm for the Michif demonstratives. Both and in Michif mark number, while the marks animacy and the marks masculine or feminine gender ()–().
TABLE . Michif demonstratives animate
inanimate
singular plural obviative singular plural proximal
awa
ookik
oo'nhii'n
ooma
oo'nhii'n
medial
ana
anikik
anihi
anima
anihi
distal
naha
nekik
nehi
nema
nehi
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. Gender in Michif ()
()
()
a. anima ... ‘that chair’
la ..
b. anihi ... ‘those chairs’
lii sheezh . chair
a. ana ... ‘that horse’
li ..
b. anikik ... ‘those horses’
lii zhvoo . horse
a. ana ... ‘that raspberry’
li ..
sheezh chair
zhwal horse
fraa’nbwaaz raspberry
b. anikik lii fraa’nbwaaz ... . raspberry ‘those raspberries’ The examples in () have inanimate demonstratives while the examples in ()–() have animate demonstratives. Note that in () while fraa’nbwaaz ‘raspberry’ takes animate marking, it is not animate in the natural world, just like we saw for the Plains Cree ayôskan ‘raspberry’. ... Animacy marking on verbs In addition to the distinction in the choice of plural marking and demonstratives, transitive and intransitive verb stems are found in pairs differentiated by animacy. Intransitive verbs distinguish between an animate and inanimate subject, while transitive verbs distinguish between an animate and inanimate object. Consider the following examples, showing that the animacy of the object determines which verb is used, as both subjects are identical, and only the objects change. The verbs also change. In the following examples, ()a shows that the form with /ht/ denotes an inanimate object, while in ()b we see that the form with /m/ denotes an animate object. ()
a. Niwaapahteen kegwaay. ni-waapaht-een kekwaay -see.-/ something ‘I see something.’ b. Niwaapamaaw. ni-waapam-aa-w -see.--> ‘I see him.’
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Gender
Now compare the data in () with that in (). The relevant morphemes are bolded. ()
a. Mow-eew. eat.-> ‘He’s eating it (an.).’ b. Ni-mow-aa-w. -eat.--/> ‘I’m eating it (an.).’
()
a. Miichii-w. eat.- ‘He’s eating it (inan.).’ b. Ni-miichii-n. -eat.-/ ‘I’m eating it (inan.).’
Note that the root in the examples in () is different from the root in (). Since the subject, verb and person and number of the object are all identical, it is clear that the crucial difference is in the object’s animacy; the roots denote an animate object in () and an inanimate object in (). A verb paradigm of a single root in Michif being inflected to denote changes in valency and animacy can be seen in Table .. We have seen that animacy is marked both on the demonstratives and on the verbal forms in Michif, as in Plains Cree, and therefore has an important role in the Michif grammar. We have also seen examples where animacy is not only semantic, but arbitrary, as in the ‘raspberry’ examples in (). Now we will turn to some interesting facts about animacy shifts in marking in Michif, before analysing the system. ... Animacy shift In §. we saw that in Plains Cree, some nouns can shift in animacy, with a resulting shift in meaning. This can be seen in the different animacy settings for the same lexical item mistik, where we get an animate versus an inanimate reading. The analogous example in Michif as the Plains Cree example in () does not occur, simply because different lexical items are used. TABLE . Verbal animacy marking in Michif ( )
VAI (Animate, Intransitive) VII (Inanimate, Intransitive) paash-ow paash-teew
VTA (Transitive, Animate) VTI (Transitive, Inanimate) ( ) paash-weew paash-am
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a. li bwaa anima .. wood . ‘that firewood’ (cut wood)
()
en .. ‘that tree’
()
a. Ni-waapaht-een la -see.-/ .. ‘I see that branch.’
braa’nsh branch
b. Ni-waapaht-een li -see.-/ .. ‘I see that stick/firewood.’
bwaa stick
traam tree
b. li graa’n .. big ‘that forest’
bwaa wood
anima .
ana .. anima. ..
anima. ..
However, animacy shift does occur in Michif in other interesting ways. Perhaps most intriguingly, adding a possessive can change the animacy of the noun ()–(). ()
a. Ni-kii=waapa-ht-een li kor anima. -=see--/ .. body .. ‘I saw that/the body.’ b. Ni-kii=waapa-m-aa-w soo’n kor ana. -=see---> ... body .. ‘I saw his/her body.’ c. Ni-kii=waapa-m-aa-w li shyae’n soo’n kor ana. -past=see---> .. dog ... body ‘I saw the dog’s body.’
()
a. Ni-kii=waapa-ht-een lii mae’n. -=see--/ . hand ‘I saw the hands.’ b. Ni-kii=waapa-m-aa-w -=see---> ‘I saw his/her hands.’
sii ..
mae’n. hand
Note that in the examples in ()–(), the verbal marking and demonstratives change based on whether the body (part) is possessed or not. In the cases without possession, we don’t know who the body (part) belongs to, and the noun is inanimate. Once there is an animate possessor, the animate morphology is used. This animacy shift appears to be a Michif innovation, as it is not available in Plains Cree, as seen in the analogous examples in ().
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()
Gender Plains Cree (Wolvengrey, p.c.) a. ni-kî-wâpa-ht-ên mi-yaw --see--/ -body ‘I saw a body.’ (almost certainly dead) b. nikî-wâpa-ht-ên wi-yaw --see--/ -body ‘I saw his/her body.’ (most likely dead) c. *nikî-wâpa-m-âw wi-yaw --see--> -body (Intended: ‘I saw his/her body.’ (alive or dead))
The examples in () show that the inanimate object ‘body’ always selects the inanimate form of the verb in the animate form -ht-, and the inanimate object marker -ên as in ()a,b. Changing to the verb selecting an animate object in ()c is ungrammatical, while analogous examples in Michif in ()b–()b are grammatical. .. Analysis of the Michif system Michif is an amalgam of two systems, the French system marking sex-based gender, and the Cree system marking animacy-based gender. Both systems are marked overtly in Michif, as summarized in Table .. Recall that within the framework outlined in §., French has semantic masculine and feminine gender, as well as default masculine and arbitrary feminine gender. ()
Types of nouns in French a. Feminine semantic gender b. Masculine semantic gender c. Default masculine gender d. Arbitrary feminine gender
ex. la fille ex. le garçon ex. le mur ex. la table
‘the girl’ ‘the boy’ ‘the wall’ ‘the table’
Plains Cree, on the other hand, has an animacy-based system, where inanimate is the default. Note that with animacy, there is no distinction between ‘semantic’ and ‘arbitrary’ for inanimate gender features, only for animate gender features. TABLE . Gender/animacy marking in Michif
yes
yes
no
yes
no
yes
no
yes
no
- no
no
no
no
yes
no
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. Gender in Michif ()
Types of nouns in Plains Cree a. Semantic animate gender b. Default inanimate gender c. Arbitrary animate gender
ex. iskwew ex. mistikwân ex. iyinaskihk
‘woman’ ‘head’ ‘kettle’
In this language contact situation, as Michif was being created, one of (at least) three likely scenarios could have emerged: (i) a language which uses only French sex-based gender as in (), mapping sex-based gender onto the few Algonquianderived nouns, (ii) a language using only Cree animacy-based gender (), mapping animacy features onto the French nouns, or (iii) a language which uses both systems. Given that animacy-based gender permeates the Cree grammar, including the selection of verb forms, and is inherently part of the verbal morphosyntax, it is difficult to see how the first scenario could be possible. The second scenario is more likely: for example, a language could choose to map masculine onto inanimate and feminine onto animate. However, the data given throughout §.. shows that the second option is not possible. (Michif did not map masculine onto inanimate or feminine onto animate.) This makes the third scenario the best description of the Michif system: a merger of the two systems, marking both sex-based and animacybased gender. Plains Cree has three types of gender marking on nouns (see ()), and French has four types of gender marking (see ()). Given that the interpretable m/f gender features of French entail an interpretable animate feature (a noun cannot be naturally masculine or feminine without being animate), the Michif merged system results in eight possible gender feature combinations on nouns, when we combine the sex-based and animacy-based features. The possible combinations are given in Table ., with Michif examples. Shaded boxes reflect semantic impossibilities (for example, one cannot have a semantically feminine noun which is inanimate, as having semantic gender entails animacy.)
TABLE . The gender system of Michif default inanimate arbitrary animate semantic animate semantic feminine
la fiiy ana ‘that girl’
semantic masculine
li garsoo’n ana ‘that boy’
default masculine
li shapoo anima ‘that hat’
la rob anima arbitrary feminine ‘that dress’
li kol ana ‘that necktie’
li minosh ana ‘that cat’
la farin ana ‘that flour’
la torcheu ana ‘that turtle’
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The eight different settings for the Michif gender system are given in (). ()
a. Semantic feminine, semantic animate la nP n
√
i[+fem], i[an] b. Semantic masculine, semantic animate li nP n
√
i[–fem], i[an] c. Arbitrary feminine, semantic animate la nP n
√
u[+fem], i[an]
d. Default masculine, semantic animate li nP n
√
i[an] e. Arbitrary feminine, arbitrary animate la nP n
√
u[+fem], u[an] f. Default masculine, arbitrary animate li nP n
√
u[an] g. Arbitrary feminine, default inanimate la nP n
√
u[+fem] h. Default masculine, default inanimate li nP n √
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. Implications of a mixed gender system
Before we turn to the implications of this expanded system, it is necessary to discuss the different behaviour of the Algonquian-derived nouns and the French-derived nouns. Recall that the French-derived nouns must occur with some kind of article (indefinite, definite, plural, or possessive; see Chapter ). Algonquian-derived nouns do not require any article. We argue that the Frenchderived nouns require n, with one of the options given in (). However, the Algonquian-derived nouns are already nPs (as we discuss in more detail in Chapter ). This means that the Algonquian-derived nouns must already be marked for animacy. ()
a. French-derived noun nP n
√fiiy
i[+fem], i[an]
‘girl’
b. Algonquian-derived noun nP i[an] shaapomin ‘gooseberry’
This is contra Kramer () who argues that gender is always marked on n, never the noun itself. However, her system would need to allow eight different kinds of covert n with all the same features as li and la. It is simpler to assume that Algonquian-derived nouns are already nPs, along with their animacy features (or lack thereof, in the case of inanimates). We turn now to discussion of the implications of the expanded system in ().
. Implications of a mixed gender system The Michif gender system as outlined in §. is more complex than many other languages, setting aside certain Mba languages that have both class and animacy systems (Corbett ). This is to be expected given the merging of two different systems, but note that the two gender systems are compatible and even complementary, in that they can merge without any gender assignment clashes. There are no cases where a given noun is, for example, feminine [+] in one input language, and masculine [−] in the other, resulting in a clash, as it might be if German and French were to mix. In Michif, nouns are simply assigned features for both systems: animacy- and sex-based gender, which never conflict with each other. This might add to the ease of development and transition from each system into the new mixed system. That said, if we assume the stability of Michif, we might expect some element of diachronic simplification to occur over time. This is speculative, but we predict that, with the passage of time, sex-based gender will erode somewhat, while the animacy system should remain stable.
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This prediction is based on both empirical and theoretical reasoning, outlined in the rest of this section. .. Variable gender Empirically, if we compare the gender markings of Plains Cree and those of French (as in §. and §.), we find that animacy-based marking is stronger across Michif than sex-based marking. First, recall that although sex-based and animacy-based gender is marked across DP elements, only animacy is integral to the verbal morphology. Animacy, but not sex, selects for the verb itself, as outlined in §... This means that animacy-based gender is marked across more domains, and is an integral part of the grammar. Sex-based gender need not be marked within a sentence at all, and there are three ways in which it can be dropped altogether: (i) if the noun in the sentence is Algonquian-derived, (ii) if the speaker only uses demonstratives instead of full DPs, or (iii) if there is no overt DP at all (see Chapter ). On the other hand, there is no way to drop animacy within a sentence: it is impossible to use a verb without first knowing whether the subject or object is animate or inanimate. Second, although sex-based gender marking is obligatorily marked on every (French-derived) noun by means of an article or possessive, this marking is neutralized in a number of contexts, making it phonologically less overt than it might appear in the syntax. This is true in French as well as in Michif. French Masculine () l’ane brun () l’œuf () l’océan
‘the brown donkey’ ‘the egg’ ‘the ocean’
Feminine l’alouette brune l’œuvre l’odeur
‘the brown lark’ ‘the work (of art)’ ‘the odor’
In each of the examples in ()–(), the article is pronounced with a single identical consonant /l/ rather than the /lə/ in the masculine forms and /la/ in the feminine forms, due to the deletion/apocope of the vowel before the initial vowel on the noun. The result of the deleted vowel is that there is now no overt marker of gender on the nouns in ()–() in French, and therefore no way of recovering the gender. Note that while in French there is at least a possibility of recovering gender from a syntactic adjective, this agreement pattern is no longer active in Michif (see §..), and there are even fewer ways to trace the sex-based gender. In addition, gender often cannot be recovered from these vowel-initial nouns by adding a demonstrative or prenominal adjective because phonologically, prenominal masculine adjectives and demonstratives change form before a vowel-initial noun. Although there used to be a phonological difference between the two, today this difference is only maintained in the writing system, and there is no phonetic difference between the masculine and feminine.
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. Implications of a mixed gender system French demonstratives Masculine
V-initial masculine
Feminine
V-initial feminine
() a. ce marchand b. cet artiste c. cette marchande d. cette ardeur ᷉ ᷉ [sə marʃa] [sɛt artist] [sɛt marʃad] [sɛt ardør] ‘this merchant’ (m) ‘this artist’ (m) ‘this merchant’ (f) ‘this heat/fervour’ () a. ce chien [sə ʃj᷉ɛ] ‘this dog’ (m)
b. cet agneau c. cette chienne [sɛt aɲo] [sɛt ʃj᷉ɛn] ‘this lamb’ (m) ‘this dog’ (f )
d. cette offer [sɛt ofr] ‘this offer’
Note that in the examples in ()–(), there is a mismatch in terms of the demonstrative (in bold) and the gender of the noun. The demonstrative in the vowel-initial masculine forms is identical to the demonstrative in the feminine forms. The gender in ()a,b–()a,b is masculine in both cases, but the phonetic forms are different from each other. Furthermore, the gender in ()b and ()b is different from ()c,d and ()c,d but the phonetic form is identical. This input creates confusion in terms of the featural makeup of nouns. This confusion has been partially systematized in Quebec French, where many vowel-initial words have developed arbitrary feminine features from their historical default masculine (Chamberlain ; Barbaud et al. ). Barbaud et al. () show that while % of the changing vowel-initial masculine nouns became feminine, only .% of feminine vowel-initial words became masculine, showing a particular asymmetry from masculine to feminine.1 The following are examples of nouns which prescriptively are masculine, but often surface with feminine articles and adjectives in Quebec. ()
Hexagonal/prescriptive French a. un avion
Quebec French b. une/un avion
()
a. un autobus
b. un/e autobus
()
a. un ustensile
b. un/e ustensile
()
a. un ongle
b. un/e ongle
()
a. un arome
b. un/e arome
()
a. un organe
b. un/e organe
There are also examples of nouns which switched from one gender to another over time: légume ‘vegetable’ was feminine until the eighteenth century, pamplemousse ‘grapefruit’ is sometimes listed in reference materials as either gender being possible (for example in the Larousse), and sandwich used to be feminine and is sometimes still employed as a feminine in Quebec. All the examples in ()–() speak to a
1 We attribute this to phonological reasons, as the demonstratives and prenominal adjectives in these cases all resemble the feminine forms, as in ()b and ()b.
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certain degree of instability of the sex-based gender marking in French, and in the French input that would have been present in the development of Michif. Note that (to our knowledge) no such neutralization occurs in the animacy-based gender marking. Given the complexity of the Michif system, and assuming the stability of the language, we predict erosion of some of these gender features, in the direction of system simplification. Given our theoretical framework, we believe we can make predictions regarding which gender features will be most susceptible to erosion. We do in fact see signs of this erosion, which we present in the next section. .. Gender instability In addition to the empirical variability of the sex-based gender, we might expect certain gender features to be more prone to weakening in language change. Given our framework, we expect the default settings to be the most stable in the language, as they do not require the addition of any extra features onto the forms. The semantically based features should also be stable, since speakers can use real-world knowledge to support the use of those features. The arbitrary features should be the least stable in the language, as they would need sufficient input for the speaker to be maintained. They are therefore the most likely to erode over time. There are two arbitrary features: u[+] and u[]. Recall, however, that animacy is required in the grammar of Michif much more strongly than sex-based gender is; we therefore argue that u[+] is most likely to erode. This prediction seems to be borne out with the examples of variable gender given in French in §.., where the feminine forms more often get marked with masculine adjectives and articles than the reverse. Default forms are unlikely to disappear, and interpretable features are unlikely to disappear because they have grammatical effects. It is the arbitrary features that are most likely to disappear, and in Michif, specifically the sex-based feminine that is most susceptible to erosion, given the lack of phonological and grammatical evidence maintaining the arbitrary feminine feature. This would mean that nouns with arbitrary feminine features would tend to become marked with the default masculine. We do find some evidence of this weakening in Michif. In a collection of stories collected by Olivia Sammons, the feminine animate item en gurnouy ‘a frog’ was variably uttered by several speakers, with the feminine article en and the masculine article ae’n (Sammons, n.d.). Similar variation occurred in fieldwork discussion with Demontigny over the feminine item ‘fleur’, which surfaced variably as feminine en fleur or masculine ae’n fleur. Even within a single speaker, the article varied within the story. Note that in gurnouy ‘frog’, we see exactly what we predict: the weakening of an animate, arbitrarily feminine noun, where the sex-based gender is variable. We argue that the variable or weakened arbitrary feminine feature on nouns may is a result of the lesser and variable input of the sex-based French system when Michif was created. Thus, we have both empirical and theoretical reasons for predicting weaker sex-based gender marking in Michif.
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. Conclusions
The sex-based gender assignment on some Cree nouns appears to be variable as well, at least for Demontigny. ()
ae’n/en tahkweminaan
()
ae’n/*en yaamoo
‘a chokecherry’
‘a bee’
In (), the noun is variably masculine or feminine, while in () the noun can only be masculine. Adding this example to those of fleur and gurnuy, we see that sex-based gender does seem to be variable in a number of cases. In the above case, we attribute this to two factors: first, the word tahkweminaan ‘chokecherry’ is normally given in the plural, and therefore the sex-based gender is not often recoverable. Second, we assume this is an arbitrary feminine setting for gender, which is less stable, and is in the process of being degraded and used in the default masculine. On the other hand, the default masculine example yaamoo ‘bee’ is stable. That is, arbitrary feminine gender assignment can be replaced by default masculine, but default masculine cannot be replaced by arbitrary feminine.
. Conclusions In this chapter, we have presented the facts of Michif gender, showing that it is a complicated system combining both Algonquian-origin animacy- and the Romanceorigin sex-based systems. Within the DP, we see evidence of both sex and animacy features: demonstratives and the plural suffix are marked for animacy while articles and possessives are marked for sex. Within the VP, Michif verb forms are differentially marked for animacy, as in other Algonquian languages. Specifically, there are paradigms of related verbs where one form is used with an animate subject/object while the other is used with an inanimate subject/object (depending on transitivity). This makes the animacy system extremely strong in Michif, as it surfaces across different syntactic domains. We showed that the Michif data can be analysed within the framework developed by Kramer (). While Michif gender may be more complicated than many other systems that Kramer analyses in her cross-linguistic study of gender, it has developed within structures already posited to exist cross-linguistically. Given the complicated Michif system, which must account for both animacy- and sex-based marking, we expect some breakdown over time. We predict that this breakdown will occur in the sex-based marking rather than the animacy marking, since animacy is so robust throughout the grammar. We predict based on theoretical and empirical evidence that arbitrary feminine will be the first to erode (and possibly to disappear), given that it involves adding an arbitrary feature to the structure, and that there is less morphological evidence for it than animacy marking. Although this prediction is speculative, there is some compelling evidence to show that feminine marking in Michif is less productive than in French: sex-based gender is not active on
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Gender
adjectives, and there is at least some variability in the production of feminine agreement elsewhere in the Michif system. We have argued for a coherent analysis of Michif using the framework of Kramer () to show that this system, despite being mixed historically, need not resort to extra or special structure in order to account for the facts in the language. Michif is a language with a mixed gender system which can be easily analysed within a framework posited for languages cross-linguistically. Now that we have shown that Michif is not exceptional in terms of gender specifically, we move on to analysing the article system more generally in Chapter .
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5 Articles . Introduction Recall from Chapter that the articles in Michif (li, la, lii, ae’n, en) developed from French articles (le, la, les, un, une). ()
French a. la table .. table ‘the table’
b. le nez .. nose ‘the nose’
c. les tables . tables ‘the tables’
d. une .. ‘a table’
e. un .. ‘a nose’
f. des . ‘tables’
table table
() a. la tab .. table ‘the table’ d. en .. ‘a table’
tab table
nez nose
b. li nii .. nose ‘the nose’ e. ae’n .. ‘a nose’
tables tables
c. lii tab . table ‘(the) tables’
nii nose
The articles in both French and Michif share some properties: (i) they seem to introduce NPs, (ii) they are sex-based (masculine or feminine) gender- or numbermarked, and (iii) the singular forms appear to be (in)definite in both languages.1 However, these articles differ in many other ways: (i) the order of Num and the articles vary between the two languages, (ii) the only elements that can intervene between the NP and the article in Michif is a small set of French-derived adjectives, (iii) the articles can be incorporated in Michif, and (iv) the plural form in Michif is underspecified for definiteness. 1 The term ‘definite’ is problematic for both languages, as we discuss in §.. and §.. However, the French definite articles may be described as weakly definite (Simonenko and Carlier ), where there is only a uniqueness requirement; the Michif definite articles lack even weak definiteness, but tend to be used for familiar referents.
Nominal Contact in Michif. First edition. Carrie Gillon and Nicole Rosen. © Carrie Gillon and Nicole Rosen . First published by Oxford University Press
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Articles
In this chapter, we assume that the definite French articles occupy D, and the indefinite articles occupy Num (see §..). We argue that the singular definite French articles were reanalysed as n by the original Michif speakers (see also Strader for a similar proposal),2 that the indefinite French articles were reanalysed as nominalizers which move up to Num, and that the plural article occupies Num (as previously argued in Chapter ). ()
a.
French DP D
b.
NumP
la, le, les
Num une, un, des
Num nP
n
Michif NumP
lii, ae’n, en
NP
nP n
NP
la, li, ae’n, en
This proposal has implications for the nature of nouns in Michif. Algonquianderived nouns do not require French-derived articles; we therefore assume that they are inherently categorized as nouns. French-derived nouns, however, do require one of the French-derived articles, and require categorization. Thus, the Frenchderived articles/n are required in order for the French-derived nouns to be recognized as nouns by the syntax. We assume then that Algonquian-derived nouns are nPs, while the French-derived nouns are category-less roots. ()
a. French-derived nouns
b. Algonquian-derived nouns
√
nP
tab ‘table’
tominikan ‘oil’
This chapter has the following structure. In §., we describe the syntax and semantics of the French definite articles. In §., we describe Algonquian nominal syntax, focusing on the lack of overt determiners/articles and noun incorporation. In §., we describe the syntax and semantics of Michif articles, providing our analysis of the French-derived articles and the difference between French-derived vocabulary and Algonquian-derived vocabulary. In §., we discuss the implications of this analysis for Michif.
. French articles In this section, we discuss the position and interpretation of French articles. We assume that the French articles occupy some position within the higher DP domain.
2
However, Strader () argues that the singular definite articles occupy Num instead.
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. French articles
We discuss the three interpretations available to French definite articles: definite, generic, and expletive. .. Syntax In this section, we provide our assumptions about the position of the indefinite and definite articles in French. ... Definite articles Morphologically, the definite articles in French cliticize to whatever follows. Muysken () calls the definite articles ‘prenominal clitics’. This cliticization can be seen in creolization and borrowing patterns. In many French creoles, exemplified by Mauritian Creole in (), and in many languages that have borrowed French nouns, exemplified by Skwxwúmesh in (), the article is borrowed with the noun as a unit. ()
Mauritian Creole (Guillemin : )3 lipye < le pied ‘foot’
()
Skwxwúmesh ta latab < la table table ‘the/a table’
(Note that this is not what happened in Michif; the definite articles are usually not borrowed with the noun as a unit. Most of the French-derived nouns can co-occur with the definite, indefinite, plural, or possessive articles. See §.. for more details.) The definite articles are more closely bound phonologically in French than the definite article in English is. The syntax of French articles is controversial. Many researchers assume the articles occupy D (e.g. Déprez ; Zribi-Hertz and Glaude ). However, not everyone agrees. For example, Boucher () argues that the articles occupy SpecAgr. This would make them phrasal; we assume this cannot be correct, given how phonologically light they are.4 Laenzlinger () argues there is a split DP: the lower Not all nouns in Mauritian Creole were borrowed with the article (e.g. sat ‘cat’ was borrowed without the article; Guillemin : ). 4 Another issue is that they cannot occur on their own (i). 3
(i)
French a. J’ai vu le livre -have seen .. book ‘I saw the book.’ b. *J’ai
vu
-have seen
le. ..
If they were really phrasal, we might expect them to behave more like demonstratives, and to be able to occur without a following NP.
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D expresses ‘determination’, while the higher D encodes deixis. He also argues that the definite articles move from the lower D to the higher one.5 Ihsane and Puskas () argue that the definite articles start off in DefP (which they argue is the lowest position within a split DP). Definite non-specific articles occupy Def, but in specific contexts, the articles move up to Top. ()
a. definite, non-specific
b. definite, specific TopP
TopP Top
DefP Def
…
[+def]
DefP
Top [+spec]
Def
le
[+def]
…
le
le
Guillemin () argues for a very similar analysis, although she replaces TopP with SpecP, and claims that Spec is occupied by a null element rather than the definite article. ()
a. definite, non-specific DefP Def
…
le
b. definite, specific SpecP Spec ∅
DefP Def
…
le Despite the controversy, most researchers agree that the French definite articles occupy some D-like position, high up in the DP domain. And regardless of which head the French definite articles occupy, that head must be medium-high. The definite articles precede any numerals. ()
French les trois lettres . three letters ‘the three letters’
Assuming numerals occupy SpecNumP (following Duffield ; Nakanishi ), the articles must be in a position higher than SpecNum.
5
However, deixis does not seem to be encoded by French articles.
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. French articles ()
?P ?
NumP
les
trois
Num’ Num
NP lettres
To simplify the discussion, we assume that this head is D, either within DP or a split DP, following Déprez (); Ihsane and Puskas (); Androutsopoulou and Español Echevarría (); Zribi-Hertz and Glaude (); and Guillemin (). While an intermediate position is also possible, nothing hinges on the particular position of the French articles, as long as they occupy a position above NumP. ()
DP D
NumP
les
trois
Num’ Num
NP lettres
... Indefinite articles Following Stroik () and Lyons (), we assume that the indefinite articles in French occupy Num. ()
NumP Num
NP
une
lettre
English a has also been argued to occupy Num (Epstein ). We therefore assume that indefinite articles in general occupy Num. This follows from their usual development from the numeral ‘one’, which occupies SpecNumP. (Grammaticalization from Spec to head is common (van Gelderen ).) Indefinite articles are often assumed to be markers of agreement or cardinality (Valois ; Muromatsu ; Campbell , among others), which would make Num a likely position for them. As we shall see, Michif and French do not vary with respect to the position of the indefinite articles.
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.. Semantics The semantics of French articles is as controversial as their syntax. The definite articles often appear to behave like markers of definiteness, but not in all instances. Bare nouns are extremely rare in French.6 This has consequences for the use and interpretation of the definite articles. In many contexts, the definite articles receive definite interpretations. In (), both l’étudiant ‘the student’ and la professeur ‘the professor’ are translated as definite. ()
French (Ihsane and Puskas : ) L’étudiant est venu voir la .-student is come to.see .. ‘The student came to see the professor.’
professeur. professor
The definite articles also contrast with the indefinite articles in certain ways. For example, definite DPs can be topicalized, while indefinite DPs cannot. ()
French (adapted from Corblin et al. : ) a. Le chien, il a aboyé. .. dog he has barked ‘The dog, he barked.’ b. *Un ..
chien, dog
il he
a has
aboyé. barked
However, the definite plural article can receive generic interpretations as well as definite ones. ()
French (adapted from Zribi-Hertz and Glaude : ) Les baleines sont mignonnes. . whales are cute. (i) ‘The whales are cute.’ (definite) (ii) ‘Whales are cute.’ (generic)
Therefore, it is probably too simplistic to call them definite articles. In fact, Boucher () argues that ce is the only unambiguous marker of definiteness. Further, in other contexts, DPs headed by the definite determiners do not appear to be definite or generic. As French (mostly) disallows bare nouns, there are many constructions where articles are syntactically required. Vergnaud and Zubizarreta () call this use of articles ‘expletive’, as the articles provide no semantic information. Mass nouns, for example, cannot occur as bare nouns; they require an article. Since mass nouns cannot co-occur with an indefinite article (see Chapter ), they
6 Longobardi () claims that there are no bare nouns in French, but Roodenburg () shows that bare nouns, while constrained, do exist. We set this issue aside.
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. French articles
must co-occur with the definite article instead. Often, the definite article is part of a partitive construction, but not always. ()
French a. (adapted from Androutsopoulou and Español Echevarría : ) J’ai mangé du pain. J=ai mangé de-le pain =have eaten -.. bread ‘I ate bread.’ b. (Doetjes : ) Jean a mangé de la glace. Jean has eaten .. ice.cream ‘Jean ate ice cream.’ c. L’or est précieux. .-gold is precious ‘Gold is precious.’ d. J’aime le café. - .. coffee ‘I like coffee.’
In these contexts, the article is referred to as expletive because it lacks presuppositional content. These contexts are different from regular definite contexts, and for the rest of the chapter, we will be careful to note when we are talking about generic, expletive, and definite contexts. Even when we focus on unambiguously definite contexts, we have to contend with the fact that definiteness itself is controversial. For many researchers (Christophersen ; Prince , ; Heim , among others), definiteness is about information structure: if a referent is novel in a particular context, then an indefinite article will be used, and if a referent is familiar in a particular context, the definite article will be used. If we apply this diagnostic to the definite articles in French, they do appear to only be used in familiar contexts (when not expletive or generic). ()
French a. J’ai vu un I-have seen .. ‘I saw a dog yesterday’
chien dog
hier. yesterday
(novel)
b. Le chien aboyait. (familiar) .. dog bark. ‘The dog was barking.’ c. # J’ai vu le chien hier. (novel) I-have seen .. dog yesterday # ‘I saw the dog yesterday.’
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Other researchers argue that definiteness is about uniqueness (see Frege []; Russell []; Hawkins , ; Kadmon ; Abbott , among many others). For them, definite articles can only be used when there is a unique referent (within a particular context). If we use this diagnostic, French singular definite articles are only used when the DP refers to a unique referent. For example, in (), le chien cannot be used, since there are two dogs in the context. ()
French Elle a deux chiens. #Le chien she has two dogs .. dog ‘She has two dogs. #The dog’s name is Oscar.’
s’appelle is.called
Oscar. Oscar
The definite articles in French do appear to be definite—at least when they are not generic or expletive. Simonenko and Carlier () argue that the French definite articles are weakly definite, and we assume that analysis here. The crucial fact is that singular definite articles cannot be used in contexts where there is no unique referent. As we show in §.., the Michif definite articles do not display the same behaviour.
. Algonquian nominal syntax In this section, we describe the syntax of nominals in the Algonquian language family. There are two facts in particular we focus on. First, Algonquian languages lack articles (with the possible exception of Blackfoot). Second, Algonquian allows noun incorporation (NI). These facts are important for understanding the position and interpretation of Michif articles, as we show in §.. .. No articles in Algonquian languages Algonquian languages in general lack articles. Instead, most Algonquian languages allow bare nouns to be arguments. For example, in Innu-aimun () and Plains Cree (), bare nouns can receive either indefinite or definite readings. ()
Innu-aimun (Gillon : ) a. Mashkua ka-utinikushâpanua, nitishinuâu. bear. -taken.’> perceive.> ‘He was taken by a beari, I dreamed.’ (indefinite) b. Uîpat mâ kâtshî panâkuneuâkanit anite itâkanû soon after remove.snow.from.den . say. mashku, ekue unuîpaniut . . . bear and.then make.go.outside. ‘Soon after the snow was removed, it is said, the beari ran out . . .’(definite)
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. Algonquian nominal syntax ()
Plains Cree (Hirose : ) ni-tahk-iskaw-â-w misatim. -kick-by.body-- horse ‘I kicked a/the horse.’ ((in)definite)
These languages all have demonstratives, but they cannot be considered articles. Demonstratives are able to behave like pronouns, whereas articles cannot. ()
a. I saw that. b. *I saw the.
()
French a. J’ai vu I-have seen ‘I saw that.’ b. *J’ai I-have
vu seen
ça. le.
We assume that articles are dependent on a noun (see also Baker ). ()
(adapted from Gillon : ) If an element can occur without a following NP, it is a demonstrative, and not an article.
There may be some exceptions to the lack of articles in Algonquian. For example, Cyr argues that both Innu-aimun7 (a, b) and Plains Cree (b, ) have developed definite articles. For example, in Innu-aimun, she claims that prenominal demonstratives are functionally the same as definite articles. ()
Innu-aimun (Cyr a: ) . . . nishtulnue-iapiss muk tatueshipan ashu thirty-dollars only cost.. plus ne utshek tshipâ-tatueshu . . . .. mink -cost.. ‘. . . it cost only thirty-five the mink . . .’
patetât five
However, Gillon () argues that prenominal demonstratives in Innu-aimun are not articles. For example, the demonstrative ne can occur on its own, suggesting it is still a demonstrative (assuming () is the correct generalization).
7 In much of the older linguistic literature, Innu-aimun is referred to as Montagnais. We use the name the Sheshatshit Innu community leaders prefer: Innu-aimun (see Brittain ).
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()
Articles Innu-aimun (Gillon : ) Apû tshî pîtûtshet ne able enter- .. ‘She could not enter then.’
eku. then
Second, ne can be part of a discontinuous DP. ()
Innu-aimun (Gillon : ) Ne kâ mishta-tshinuâshkushi-t .. very-be.tall.- ‘Very tall trees . . .’
mishtiku . . . tree
Discontinuity is a property of demonstratives and quantifiers. Articles cannot be discontinuous, at least in Greek (Ntelitheos ). Third, demonstratives are not obligatory, whereas articles often are. In Innu-aimun, for example, demonstratives are never obligatory, even when the nominal is definite ()b. Therefore, on the basis of these three facts, we assume that Innu-aimun lacks articles. Similar arguments can be made for Plains Cree. Another possibility is Blackfoot, where almost every singular noun requires a demonstrative (Glougie ). Singular subjects must co-occur with a demonstrative, as must singular objects of a formally marked transitive verb (). ()
Blackfoot (Glougie : ) a. *(amo) aki iyimmi woman .laugh ‘The woman laughed.’ b. nit-ano-a *(om-a) -see.- - ‘I saw the eagle.’
piita eagle
However, when the verb is formally intransitive—and yet occurs with a singular object—the object is bare. ()
Blackfoot (Glougie : ) ihkan-iyapi-ya piita .all-see.- eagle ‘They all saw an eagle.’
Bare nouns in Blackfoot are therefore syntactically restricted. Demonstratives, being obligatory with singular nouns under most circumstances, could be considered articles. In some languages, articles are obligatory (at least in some/most contexts). However, Blackfoot demonstratives can be used without a following NP, violating ().
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. Algonquian nominal syntax ()
Blackfoot (Uhlenbeck : ) Ánni anistsiu: Kimáuksauχkàipαskaχks? ann-yi waanist-yii-wa ki-máo’k-saw-ohko-á-ipásska-hks -. tell.-- -why--able--dance.-hks ‘To that one he said: Why don’t you go and dance?’
Further, demonstratives can be discontinuous, just as in other Algonquian languages. ()
Blackfoot (Bliss : ) Óóma áóhkiwa om-wa a-ohki-wa - -bark.- ‘That dog is barking.’
imitááw. imitaa-wa dog-
We therefore assume that Algonquian lacks articles, including Blackfoot. .. Noun incorporation in Algonquian There are at least four different types of noun incorporation (NI) in Algonquian (Barrie and Dunham ): (i) light verbs/denominals, (ii) true incorporation, (iii) Vn verb plus medial, and (iv) vN verb plus medial. Some Algonquian languages only have a subset of these; all appear to have light verb incorporation. We only discuss light verb incorporation, as it is the most relevant to the borrowing of nonAlgonquian vocabulary.8 With light verb noun incorporation, the verb is derived via the noun plus some verbalizing suffix. In Blackfoot, one of these suffixes is null9 (), in Plains Cree, one of these suffixes is -iwi (), and in Mi’gmaq, one of these is -i- (). ()
Blackfoot (Frantz : ) nínaawa nínaa-Ø-wa man-- ‘he is a man; he is a chief ’
()
Plains Cree (Wolfart : ) mahi:hkaniwiw mahi:hkan-iwi-w wolf-- ‘S/he is a wolf.’
8
Unless otherwise noted, all examples are of light verb incorporation. There are also ten overt verbalizing suffixes in Blackfoot (Barrie and Dunham ). All of these require a noun initial/root. 9
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() Mi’gmaq (Manyakina : ) Lpa’tuj-u-i-t boy--.- ‘He is a boy.’ ... What incorporates? In examples () to (), it appears that only the nominal root incorporates into the verb. However, more than just the noun can be incorporated. Barrie and Mathieu () show that nominalizers can be incorporated in Ojibwe, along with the noun (); thus, nPs can be incorporated (not simply NPs). This is also true in Ojicree (Slavin ).10 ()
Ojibwe (Barrie and Mathieu : ) bkwezhganke [bakwezhig-an]-ke-w bread--.- ‘S/he makes bread.’
()
Ojicree (Slavin : ) Manki-ahpihkwehshimone. manki-[ahpihkwehshimo.n]-e big-pillow.-. ‘S/he has a big pillow.’
In Ojicree, Blackfoot, Ojibwe, and Plains Cree adjectives can also be incorporated, along with the noun (). () a. Ojicree (Slavin : ) Nitoshki-ahpihkwehshimone. ni-oshki-ahpihkwehshimon-e. -new-pillow- ‘I have a new pillow.’ b. Blackfoot (Dunham : ) nitótsskomitáám’i nit-ótssko-imitáá-im-yi -blue-dog--. ‘I have a blue dog.’ c. Ojibwe (Barrie and Mathieu : ) ngii-gchi-gwiiwzensiw n-gii-gichi-gwiiwzens-wi -past-big-boy-. ‘I was a big boy.’ 10 Ojicree has a further requirement that the noun not be stem-initial, unlike Ojibwe or Blackfoot (Slavin ).
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d. Plains Cree (Bakker : ) kaskitêw-âniskw-ê-w black-hair-- ‘He has black hair.’ Barrie and Mathieu () argue that this is dP incorporation (following Cinque’s proposal for adjectival position within the DP).11 In Ojicree, Blackfoot, Plains Cree and Ojibwe possessive marking can also be incorporated along with the noun ().12 () a. Ojicree (Slavin : ) Nitomohsitaawihpokosi. ni-[o-mihsitaawi]-hpoko-si -[-foot]-taste.- ‘I taste like a foot.’ b. Blackfoot (Dunham : ) nitótsskomitáám’i nit-ótssko-imitáá-im-yi -blue-dog--. ‘I have a blue dog.’ c. Plains Cree (Déchaine : ) o-môhkomân-i-w -knife-.- ‘He/she has a knife.’ d. Ojibwe (Barrie and Mathieu : ) mookmaanimi o-mookomaan-im-i-w -knife--.- ‘S/he has a knife.’ Barrie and Mathieu () argue that this is DP incorporation.
11 Cinque’s articulated DP structure is as follows: [DP [NumP [FP (reduced) relative clause [dP [FP direct modification [NP]]]]]]. dP is therefore larger than nP, but smaller than NumP. 12 Other things can be incorporated in Ojibwe: e.g., diminutive and pejorative (Barrie and Mathieu ). Ojicree also allows the diminutive to be incorporated, though not the pejorative (Slavin ). We do not discuss these elements here.
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According to Barrie and Mathieu, Ojibwe allows three different structures to be incorporated in light verb incorporation (). (We assume that the Ojicree and Blackfoot allow similar structures to be incorporated.) () Ojibwe NI targets for light verb incorporation (to be revised)
DP
a. D
dP
b. d
NumP
nP n
Num
dP d
nP
c. n
√
√
nP n
√
However, as they show, nouns along with their number marking can also be incorporated. ()
Ojibwe (Barrie and Mathieu : ) makwake makw-a-ke-w bear-/-.- ‘S/he’s hunting bears.’
Numerals can also be incorporated in Blackfoot, Ojicree, and Mi’gmaq. ()
Blackfoot (Barrie and Dunham : ) nitsí’topookam’i nit-ni’t-pookáá-mi -one-child-. ‘I have one child.’
()
Ojicree (Slavin : ) Niishoosite. niishoo-sit-e two-foot-. ‘S/he has two feet.’
()
Mi’gmaq (Manyakina : ) Newt-i-ptn-a-t. one-?-hand-- ‘S/he is one-handed.’
We therefore assume that NumPs can also be incorporated in Ojibwe (and, we assume, Algonquian more generally).
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Ojibwe NI targets for light verb incorporation
DP
a. D
b.
Num
NumP Num
NumP
nP
d n
nP n
n
nP
d. nP
d
dP d
dP
dP
c.
n
√
√
√
√
It is somewhat surprising that DPs can be incorporated, given how large they are. Regardless, it is never the case that demonstratives can be incorporated in Algonquian languages. Instead, the demonstrative must be stranded (). Here, we provide an example of true incorporation. ()
Plains Cree (Hirose : ) ni-kimot-astimw-â-n awa. -steal-horse-- ‘I stole this horse.’
This is even the case in Blackfoot. Despite having obligatory demonstratives (in almost all singular contexts), the demonstratives are still never incorporated into the verb. These are examples of Vn incorporation. ()
Blackfoot (Dunham : ) a. *áíssomiikaawaatsimii á-ssi-om-yi-ika-atsi-m-yii -wipe--/.-foot--- ‘She is washing his foot.’ b. *áíssomiksikaiksawaatsimii á-ssi-om-iksi-ika-iksi-atsi-m-yii -wipe--.-foot--- ‘She is washing his feet.’
Light verb incorporation does not allow stranding at all, however, at least in Mi’gmaq. ()
Mi’gmaq (Manyakina : ) *Tia’m-u-e’ge-Ø-p ne’sis-ijig. moose--get.-- three-. (intended: ‘S/he hunted three moose.’)
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Regardless, NI is only licit with certain structures, and demonstratives can never be incorporated. Thus, there are many kinds of structures that can be incorporated: at least nPs, NumPs, dPs, and DPs. However, demonstratives can never be incorporated. As we discuss in §., Michif NI is more restricted in terms of the targets for NI, and yet the definite articles can be incorporated. ... Semantics of incorporation least) Ojicree. ()
The incorporated noun can be referential, in (at
Ojicree (Slavin : ) Nitoshki-ahpihkwehshimone. Kihci-noohsohkaa. ni-oshki-ahpihkwehshimon-e. Kihci-noohsohk-aa. -new-pillow-. very-soft-. ‘I have a new pillow. It is very soft.’
The interpretation given to an incorporated noun is usually indefinite, but the incorporated element can sometimes refer back to previously introduced referent (). In this case, -âkue- ‘porcupine’ has already been introduced earlier in the text. (The following example does not involve light verb incorporation, but we assume that the facts are the same in light verb incorporation.) ()
Innu-aimun (Gillon : ) Kâtshî piminuepani-t ekue mu-âkue-t. after cook.- at.that.moment eat.-porcupine- ‘After he (Hare) had finished cooking, he ate the porcupine.’
In (), incorporated nouns receive a definite interpretation in both Ojicree and Plains Cree. () a. Ojicree (Slavin : ) Ni-pahkiikimasinahikane. ni-pahk-iik-i-masinahikan-e -open-cloth--book-. ‘I opened (the pages of ) the book.’ b. Plains Cree (Mellow : ) noocih-acaskw-ii-w hunt-muskrat-- ‘He hunts the muskrat.’ Since possessed nouns can be incorporated (), perhaps the fact that incorporated nouns can receive definite interpretations is not surprising.
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.. Summary Light verb incorporation in Algonquian can involve quite large structures (including DPs, which are possessed nouns). The incorporated nouns are usually translated as indefinite, but the nouns can be definite, and often are referential.
. Michif articles In this section, we describe the syntax of the Michif articles. First, we discuss what was borrowed from French (the articles and the nouns, and the lingering effects of liaison). Then we compare the behaviour of the French-derived nouns and the Algonquian-derived nouns. Finally, we argue that the articles all start off in n, creating nouns out of uncategorized roots.13 .. What was borrowed Before we can discuss the syntax and semantics of Michif articles, first we need to show how the nouns themselves got borrowed. As mentioned in §..., in many languages, the French articles got borrowed with the noun as one unit (e.g. (), repeated below). ()
Mauritian Creole (Guillemin : ) lipye < le pied ‘foot’
In most cases, that is not what happened in Michif. Usually the noun was borrowed separately from the articles. We can see this because the nouns can occur with a definite article, an indefinite article, the plural article, or a possessive article. () a. la tab .. table ‘the table’ c. lii tab . table ‘(the) tables’
b. en .. ‘a table’ d. ma ... ‘my table’
tab table tab table
Compare that with the same word borrowed in Skwxwúmesh, where an additional article is required (). ()
Skwxwúmesh ta latab table ‘a/the table’ 13
As we show, in some instances, they take aPs as well, and turn them into nPs.
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However, there are some cases where the borrowing is more complicated. For example, in some instances the vowel in the noun was reanalysed as part of the determiner. () a. li gliiz < l’église .. church ‘the church’ b. ae’n gliiz .. church ‘a church’ c. li lifaa’n < l’élephant .. elephant ‘the elephant’ d. ae’n lifaa’n .. elephant ‘an elephant’ There are some instances of truncation as well. () li tinaa’n .. lieutenant ‘the lieutenant’
< le lieutenant
In other instances, the borrowing of the noun seems to have included part of the article. This involves cases of historical liaison, where the final consonant of the article was pronounced as the onset of the noun in French. In the word for ‘egg’ zaf, the /z/ was borrowed as part of the noun in Michif. This is most obvious in ()b to ()b, where the liaison in French involves /n/, but the Michif word still contains /z/.14 ()
(adapted from Rosen : ) a. lii zaf < les œufs /lezœf/ . egg ‘(the) eggs’ b. ae’n zaf < un œuf /œ̃nœf / .. egg ‘an egg’
14
The definite form for ‘egg’ can be li zaf or li naf, somewhat unexpectedly.
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(adapted from Rosen : ) a. lii zarb < les arbres /lezarb/ . tree ‘trees’ b. ae’n .. ‘a tree’
zarb tree
< un arbre /œ̃narb/
This pattern is also found in Mauritian Creole: nouns that are/were often used in plural form also were borrowed with the /z/ (Guillemin ). ()
Mauritian Creole (Guillemin : ) zamann ‘almond’
Finally, there are cases that appear to still involve active liaison. The word for ‘funeral’ is pronounced in three different ways: zaatermaa’n, naatermaa’n, and laatermaa’n. ()
(adapted from Rosen : ) a. lii zaa’ntermaa’n < les enterrements /lezãtɛrmã/ . funeral ‘(the) funerals’ b. ae’n naa’ntermaa’n .. funeral ‘a funeral’
< un enterrement /œ̃nãtɛrmã/
c. laa’ntermaa’n < l’enterrement /lãtɛrmã/ ..funeral ‘the funeral’ However, this apparent liaison is not active: the indefinite form naa’ntermaa’n is used even when there is an intervening adjective (Bakker ; Rosen ). ()
(adapted from Rosen : ) ae’n gros naa’ntermaa’n .. big funeral ‘a big funeral’
< un gros enterrement /œ̃grozãtɛrmã/
If liaison were still active, the form of ‘funeral’ in () would be zaa’ntermaa’n. Rosen () and Bakker () argue there are three stems for the word ‘funeral’: definite aa’ntermaa’n, indefinite naa’ntermaa’n and plural zaa’ntermaa’n. We adopt that analysis here. The main takeaway is that the nouns were almost never borrowed as a unit with the article. The only exceptions are some of the mass nouns, like diloo ‘water’, and dilet which were both borrowed with the article and the partitive de l’/du.
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() a. diloo < de l’eau /dəlo/ ‘water’
b. dilet < du lait /dulɛt/ ‘milk’
This is similar to what happened in Mauritian Creole once again. In Mauritian Creole, masculine mass nouns were all borrowed with the partitive article (Guillemin ). ()
Mauritian Creole (Guillemin : ) diber > du beurre ‘butter’
Feminine mass nouns were borrowed with the definite article only. ()
Mauritian Creole (Guillemin : ) labyer > la bière ‘beer’
The word for water was borrowed into Mauritian Creole in (nearly) the same form as into Michif. ()
Mauritian Creole (Guillemin : ) dilo > de l’eau ‘water’
Other vowel initial feminine mass nouns were only borrowed with the definite article (). ()
Mauritian Creole (Guillemin : ) lerb > l’herbe ‘grass’
Michif is only somewhat like Mauritian Creole then: it borrowed some words with the partitive, but mainly it did not borrow the article with the noun itself. Instead, Michif mostly borrowed the nouns and articles as separate units, with some nouns having multiple allomorphs. .. Michif articles are lower than French articles The Michif articles must occupy a position lower than the French ones. First, French articles must precede numerals within a DP (), whereas Michif articles must follow numerals (). ()
French a. les trois pommes . three apples ‘the three apples’
b. *trois three
les .
pommes apples
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. Michif articles () a. *lii trwaa pom . three apple ‘(the) three apples’
b. trwaa three
lii .
pom apple
Second, only a very small number of French-derived adjectives can intervene between the articles and the noun; no other elements may intervene. ()
French a. le petit animal .. small animal ‘the small animal’
() a. li pchit animaal .. small animal ‘the small animal’
b. les trois animaux . three animals ‘the three animals’ b. *lii .
trwaa three
animaal animal
And finally, NI usually involves incorporation of the singular article along with any French-derived noun.15 () a. Li-lyevr-ihka-isho-w. ..-rabbit-.-- ‘S/he’s like a rabbit (s/he’s fast).’ (lit.: s/he’s making him/herself into a rabbit) b. La-tortsheu-ihka-isho-w. ..-turtle-make.-- ‘S/he’s like a turtle (s/he’s slow).’ (lit.: s/he’s making him/herself into a turtle) We focus only on light verb/denominal NI, as it is the most relevant to nonAlgonquian borrowings. The definite article can always be incorporated along with the noun. () a. (Rosen : ) Kii=ni-li-supi-Ø-n-an. =-..-supper-have.-/- ‘We had supper.’ b. (Rosen : ) Ga=li-shmae’n-ihka-n. .-..-road-.-/ ‘I’ll build a road.’
15 Article-incorporation is not obligatory, but it appears to be the preferred pattern for French-derived nouns.
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Articles c. (Rosen : ) Li-kotoo’n-iw-an. ..-cotton-.- ‘It’s made of cotton.’ d. Li-karii-iw-an. ..-square-.- ‘It is square.’
If the Michif articles were higher, we would not expect this constellation of behaviours. Therefore, the Michif articles are at minimum lower than the French articles, and lower than SpecNumP (where the numerals reside). ()
NumP trawaa Num
nP n
...
.. Singular definite articles occupy n We argue that singular definite articles occupy n. n is associated with many different properties: categorization (Marantz ), nominalization (Marantz ; Arad , ), gender (Ferrari ; Kihm ; Kramer , , ), mass/ count (Bale and Barner ), and plurality (Acquaviva ; Alexiadou ). As n is the locus of gender, and n is used to nominalize uncategorized roots, it seems likely that all of the articles start off in n. Marantz () argues that categorial status is not an inherent property of roots. All lexical items are roots (lacking category information); words like ‘table’ can be made into nouns via n, or into verbs via v. Nouns are therefore associated with a categorial head n. ()
a.
b.
nP n
√ table
vP v
√ table
n can also change the category of an already categorized word. For example, -ness changes happy from an adjective to a noun. ()
nP n
aP
ness
happy
‘happiness’
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Evidence for Michif singular definite articles as exponents of n comes from the fact that (i) they mark sex-based gender and (ii) they create nouns out of French and English vocabulary. Further, the singular definite articles are found in what superficially look like very strange places. When a French or English adjective (), noun (), or verb () is used in predicate position, it usually is first prefixed by li- or la(turning it into a noun), and then turned into a verb via verbal morphology.16 () a. (Rosen : ) Li-groo-iwi-w. ..-big-.- ‘He’s big.’ b. (Rosen : ) la fiiy ka-la-smart-iwi-t .. girl -..-smart-.- ‘the girl that is smart’ c. Bakker (: ) li-vieux-iwi-t ..-old-.- ‘he who is old’ ()
(Rosen : ) Li-supii-Ø-w. ..-supper-.- ‘He’s having supper.’
() a. Li-surf-ii-w li ..-surf-- .. ‘S/he is surfing the net.’
net. net
b. (Bakker : ) Gii=li-gaazh-ii-n seur li breu’n. .-..-bet-vai- on .. brown ‘I bet on the brown one.’ c. (Bakker : ) Kahkijaaw li-selibreet-ii-w-ak li kaet all ..-celebrate--- .. four di zhojet. july ‘All celebrate the Fourth of July.’
16 Algonquian in general lacks an Adjective category (and therefore a), so Michif has no way to turn uncategorized words into adjectives.
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Articles d. (Bakker : ) Daweeht-eenaan en .need.- .. ‘We need a battery charger.’
batrii battery
kaa-li-chaarj-ii-t. -..-charge--
We treat these three cases as involving the same process: the article creates a noun out of an uncategorized root, and then the noun is turned into a verb via suffixation of a light verb. We assume that the light verb occupies v (following Brittain ; Mathieu ; Ritter and Rosen ; Slavin ). ()
a. adjective in predicate position (to be revised) vP v iwi
nP √ gro
n
vP
nP
v
li gro
iwi
nP √ gro
n
li li ‘be big’
b. noun in predicate position vP v ∅
vP nP
n
√ supi
nP
v
li supi
∅
li
nP n
√ supi
li ‘have dinner’
c. verb vP v ii
vP nP
n
√ surf
nP li surf
v ii
nP n
li li ‘surf ’
√ surf
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Note that this seems to be the main strategy for borrowing non-Algonquian vocabulary into Michif. Bakker () suggests that the definite article’s ‘function might be to mark the fact that what follows [the article] must be interpreted as a foreign, nonCree item’ ().17 Michif can borrow verbs via suffixation of v (without also prefixing n), but the preference is to prefix li- first. Michif has multiple flavours of v—the -ii- suffix in (), the null suffix in (), the -ihka- suffix in (), and the -iwisuffix in (), for example, and they can attach directly to the root. () a. Surf-ii-w li net. surf-- .. net ‘S/he is surfing the net.’ b. Supii-Ø-w supper-.- ‘S/he’s having supper.’ c. Gro-iwi-w. big-.- ‘S/he’s big.’ In these cases, we assume the root takes a light verb suffix directly. ()
a. bare adjective in predicate position (to be revised) vP v
√ gro
iwi ‘be big’ b. bare noun in predicate position vP v
√ supi
∅ ‘have dinner’ c. bare verb vP v
√ surf
ii ‘surf ’ 17
As Michif also has Ojibwe vocabulary, it cannot be quite that narrow, but the articles are used to highlight the fact that the vocabulary is not Algonquian.
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Note that the—the -ii- suffix comes from the French infinitive suffix -er (Bakker ). This means that French morphosyntax has been absorbed into the morphology of Michif. This suffix was reanalysed as a light verb/verb final, and is now used to verbalize non-verbal roots.18 There is another place where Michif does not require the addition of extra morphology. Adjectives can be borrowed directly without adding any structure when they are used as nominal modifiers (e.g. en fiiy ver ‘a green girl’; Rosen ). When adjectives are used as verbs, they usually are first turned into nPs () (though they can be borrowed directly as roots ()c). We argue that French adjectives were borrowed as aPs, and that they can occupy the same position that adjectives occupy (pre- or postnominal) in French. However, they cannot be used predicatively without being changed into a verb. This is because Algonquian languages lack an adjective category, and all predicates must be vPs. aPs can first be changed into nPs before changed into vPs, or they can be input into the structure as aPs. ()
adjective in predicate position a. aP → nP → vP vP v iwi
vP
nP
nP
n
aP
n
aP
li
gro
li
gro
v
nP
iwi
li gro
‘be big’ b. aP → vP vP v
aP
iwi
gro
‘be big’ This means that the articles nominalize both bare roots and aPs. The articles are not required, but they are strongly preferred. We argue this is because it marks the nonAlgonquian vocabulary as such, making it easier for the Algonquian grammar to ‘read’. The articles/nominalizers are always required on French-derived nouns inside a DP, but are only preferred inside a verb. This is because the rest of the morphosyntax
There is a Cree final -ii- as well, but its function is different. The -ii- in ()a behaves more like -ê- in Cree, but phonologically it must come from the French suffix, not the Cree final. The Cree final -ê- is mapped to -ee- in Michif. 18
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will Algonquianize it sufficiently; within a DP there is no way to do that other than via the articles. Also note that there is no evidence in the Algonquian part of the vocabulary that nominal roots require a nominalizer. Animacy (Algonquian gender) is not marked on the noun (other than via the Algonquian plural; however, recall that the -a/-ak suffix occupies Div, which is higher than n). We assume that animacy is a property of the Algonquian-derived noun itself (see Chapter ), and the plural marker usually matches that gender. Further, Algonquian morphemes can—and must—be incorporated into a verb without li/la. () a. (Bakker : ) Mashkaw-ishi-w. strong-.- ‘He is strong.’ b. *Li-mashkaw-ishi-w. ..-strong-.- (intended: ‘he is strong’) We therefore argue that only non-Algonquian roots require structure to fit them into the Algonquian grammar.19 Further, some roots can be inherently categorized.20 What about the fact that Algonquian-derived nouns can co-occur with the Frenchderived articles? They do not need them, as they are already categorized. We argue when they do occur with an article, there is an extra nP layer. (The article must agree with the nP in terms of sex and animacy.) ()
a.
nP takwaminaan ‘chokecherry’
nP
b. n
nP
li takwaminaan ‘the chokecherry’
.. Plural and singular indefinite articles occupy Num Recall that lii must be lower than D ((), repeated below).
19 Partitives are an exception to this. We assume that partitives were borrowed as (minimally) nPs, rather than as roots, since they do not require extra structure. 20 In other work, however, Gillon (a) argues that Innu-aimun nouns occur with (often covert) n. That n is associated with properties of mass/count, not with animacy/gender (though it may turn out to have animacy properties as well). Innu-aimun also has a lexical plural—housed in n—that Michif lacks. Innu-aimun nouns therefore appear to be smaller than nPs, suggesting that the structures of the two languages are slightly different.
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() a. trwaa lii pom three . apple ‘(the) three apples’
b. *lii .
trwaa three
pom apple
However, lii must be higher than n: unlike the singular definite articles, lii cannot be incorporated ()a. Instead, the non-incorporating verb oshiye- ‘make’ with the plural nominal must be used ()b. () a. *Lii-bulet-ihkee-w. .-meatball-.- b. Lii bulet oshiye-w. . meatball make.- ‘He’s making meatballs.’ This means that NumPs cannot be incorporated in Michif. Recall that in other Algonquian languages, nPs, dPs, NumPs, and even DPs can be incorporated. It appears that only nPs and roots can be incorporated in Michif. In () Bakker provides an example of an adjective being incorporated along with the noun; however, the adjective cannot occupy a position higher than n. ()
(Bakker : ) ae’n kanaar kaa-li-ver-ishtikwan-ee-t .. duck -..-green-head-- ‘a duck that has a green head, mallard’
We assume that the adjective here occupies a stem initial position (see Chapter ), and is therefore part of the stem formation, rather than part of a dP.21 Michif is (much) more restricted than other Algonquian languages in only incorporating nPs. As we argued in Chapter on independent grounds, lii occupies Num. ()
NumP Num
nP n √
Similarly, the indefinite articles must also occupy a higher position than the definite articles. The indefinite articles also cannot be incorporated. Instead, the noun must be repeated as a full DP, along with the indefinite article. () a. *En-galet-ihk-ee-w. ..-bannock-make-- 21 We assume this is the case for other Algonquian languages as well, at least for light verb incorporation.
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. Michif articles
b. La-galet-ihk-ee-w peeyak en galet. ..-bannock-make-- one .. bannock ‘He’s making one/a bannock.’ (just one, for one person) We assume that these articles occupy Num, just like the French indefinite articles, and the English indefinite article. ()
NumP Num aen, en
nP n
NP
.. Indefinite and definite cannot co-occur So far, we have argued that the singular indefinite and the plural articles all occupy Num, and that the singular definite articles occupy n. ()
NumP Num
nP
aen, en, lii
n
NP
la, li This analysis falsely predicts that the indefinite and definite articles can co-occur. () a. *en .. b. *la ..
la ..
galet bannock
en ..
galet bannock
We argue that the indefinite articles start off in n:22 the indefinite articles are therefore in complementary distribution with the definite ones. This also explains why some kind of article is required for a non-Algonquian noun to be marked as a noun: almost all of them start off as nominalizers. ()
NumP Num ae’n, en
nP n
NP
ae’n, en
22
Strader () argues that lii occupies n.
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Articles
The plural article, however, must start off higher in the tree. This is because it can co-occur with the other plural marker (-a/-ak), which occupies Div (Chapter ). The plural article cannot start off in n, as it could not move past Div. ()
NumP Num lii
DivP Div
nP
-a/-ak
n
NP
We claim that when French-derived vocabulary co-occurs with lii, there is a null nominalizer in n. This nominalizer must be licensed by lii, as it never occurs in any other environment. This is reminiscent of Ghomeshi’s () analysis of plurality in Persian, where D or Q licenses plural marking.23 .. Possessive articles There is one other possibility for French-derived vocabulary: they can also be introduced by a possessive article. The possessive articles also provide gender information and nominalize French-derived roots. () a. ma mezoo’n b. ... house ‘my house’ ‘our house’ c. ta mezoo’n d. ... house ‘your (sg) house’ ‘your (pl) house’ e. sa mezoo’n f. .. house ‘his/her house’
not ..
mezoo’n house
vot ..
mezoo’n house
loer mezoo’n .. house ‘their house’
Recall that the possessive articles and the (in)definite articles cannot co-occur (Chapter ). () a. *la ..
ma ...
mezoo’n house
b. *ma la mezoo’n ... .. house
23
However, in Persian, the plural is overt, and (definite) D is covert. (Overt material in Q can also license plural marking in Persian.) In Michif, there must be overt marking—in this case lii—to license covert material.
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. Semantics
c. *en ma mezoo’n .. ... house d. *ma ...
en ..
mezoo’n house
We therefore assume that the possessive articles also occupy n.
. Semantics A remaining problem comes from the meaning of la and li. They look like they are definite (and often receive that interpretation). However, if so, why are they so low? Can definiteness occur anywhere within the nominal functional superstructure (contra Lyons ; Gillon )? The articles in Michif have been described in terms of their definiteness. For example, in Table ., the singular articles are divided into definite and in definite. This often seems like the correct characterization. Many times, nouns introduced by the definite articles receive definite interpretations. () a. (Rosen : ) L-om la fam kii=waapam-eew. .-man .. woman =see.->’ ‘The man saw the woman.’ b. (Adapted from Rosen : ) Daa’n li kafe (ni-)neu miitsho-n-an. .. restaurant -. eat.-/- ‘We are going to eat at the restaurant.’ c. (Adapted from Rosen : ) Shikw-ah-am la -crush.by.tool.- .. ‘He is pounding the meat.’
vyaa’nd. meat
TABLE . Michif articles
singular plural definite
masculine li feminine
la
indefinite masculine ae’n feminine Adapted from Rosen ()
en
lii
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Articles
However, li and la are not always translated as definite. Recall that the French definite articles are used as expletive articles when used with mass nouns. This is also true in Michif: mass nouns require a definite article (or the partitive, as with diloo ‘water’ or dilet ‘milk’). () a. (Rosen : ) la poudr a fiizii .. gunpowder ‘gunpowder’ b. (Adapted from Rosen : ) li maa’nzhii .. food ‘food’ c. Li kofii for pi ka-maachishpak-wak .. coffee strong and -tastes.bad.- ‘I like strong, bitter coffee.’
ni-miyoiht-een. -like.-/
d. (Adapted from Rosen : ) li boo’n taa’n .. good weather ‘nice weather’ Moreover, even with count nouns, the definite article does not appear to be interpreted definitely. For example, in ()a, li kab is translated as ‘a rope’, rather than the expected ‘the rope’. Similarly, in ()b, li lifan is translated as ‘an elephant’ rather than the expected ‘the elephant’. () a. (Adapted from Rosen : ) Li kab ohtshi-pit-am. .. rope out-pull.- ‘He pulls out a rope.’ b. Li lifaa’n teehtap-iw. .. elephant ride.->’ ‘He rides an elephant.’ In this section, we show that the definite articles—even on count nouns—can be used in contexts that are associated with indefinite articles in English and French.24 .. Familiarity Let’s begin with familiarity. Definite articles are usually used in contexts where the referent is already familiar to the hearer, as discussed in §... This is often the case 24
Bakker () argues that the ‘definite’ articles have lost their definiteness.
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. Semantics
in Michif; the definite articles are often used in familiar contexts, while the indefinite articles are often used in novel ones. For example, in ()a, ae’n video ‘a video’ introduces a new referent into the story. In ()b, en rosh ‘a rock’ is introduced into the story and then is referred back to using la rosh ‘the rock’ ()c. ()
(Sammons, n.d.) a. Ae’n video .. video ‘I watched a video.’
gii=kana-waapaht-een. .=keep-watch.-/
b. En rosh kii=pischipayiheew .. rock past=ran.into ‘he ran into a rock there . . .’
(novel)
anda . . . (novel) there
c. . . . kii=ka-pischipayihaat anihi la =-walk.into .. ‘. . . when he ran into that/the rock’
rosh. rock
(familiar)
Generally, it appears that the definite articles are used for familiar referents, outside of NI environments. (However, the examples in () do not appear to involve familiar referents.) .. Uniqueness The other feature often associated with definiteness is uniqueness, as discussed in §... Michif definite articles lack uniqueness. Recall that definite articles are only allowed in contexts with a unique referent that matches the NP description. In Michif, the definite articles can be used for non-unique referents. For example, in (), the speaker introduces two skunks into the discourse. Li shikaak ‘the skunk’ should be illicit, as there is no unique referent to refer to. However, it is grammatical, referring to one of the skunks in the context. () Deu lii shikaak ayawaa-w. Li two . skunk possess.- .. kii=shinihkaasho-w. =be.called.- ‘She has two skunks. #The skunk is named Bob.’
shikaak skunk
Bob Bob
Recall that is impossible in French ((), repeated below). ()
French Elle a deux chiens. #Le chien she has two dogs .. dog ‘She has two dogs. #The dog’s name is Oscar.’
s’appelle is.called
Oscar. Oscar
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Articles
.. Indefinite articles The interpretation of the indefinite articles appears to be indefinite. () a. (Laverdure and Allard ) La mwaton peeyak ae’n .. sheep one .. kii-peeyawaawew. -have.one ‘The ewe had a little one.’
pchi25 little
b. (Sammons, n.d.) Ae’n video gii=kana-waapaht-een. .. video .-keep-watch.-/ ‘I watched a video.’ The indefinite articles are used to introduce new referents. While the definite articles are not always used for familiar referents (see ()), the indefinite ones are always used for new referents. The distinction appears to be along familiarity lines, but the indefinite articles can only be used for new referents; the definite articles are usually used for familiar referents, possibly only in contrast to the indefinite ones. This would mean that using the definite articles involve an implicature that the hearer should know the referent. .. Lii The plural article makes no reference to (in)definiteness whatsoever and can be used for novel or familiar referents. In ()a, lii pear ‘pears’ introduces a set of pears into the discourse. In ()b, lii pear ‘the pears’ refers back to that same set of pears, which are now familiar. ()
(Sammons, n.d.) a. Ae’n nom awa meekwach lii .. man right.now . ‘A man, this one, right now, is picking pears.’
pear pear
moshahkiin-eew. pick.-> (novel)
b. Kiiyawaa-w ae’n sak ee-potish-ak have.- .. bag -wear.- lii pear ee-shawah-aat. . pear -put.in.->’ ‘He had a bag he wore to put pears in.’ (familiar) Lii is unmarked for familiarity/novelty, and only marks plurality.
25
Just like in French, Michif adjectives can behave like nouns/do not require an overt noun.
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. Conclusions
.. Summary When the indefinite and definite articles contrast, the difference appears to be one of novelty vs familiarity. However, the ‘definite’ articles can be used for novel referents in some cases, and they never require uniqueness. Note that this is unlike French, where the definite articles are weakly definite, and encode uniqueness. Further, the definite articles do not encode familiarity when they are incorporated. () Li-lyevr-ihka-isho-w. ..-rabbit-.-- ‘S/he’s like a rabbit (s/he’s fast).’ (lit.: s/he’s making him/herself into a rabbit) We assume that the definite articles only encode familiarity when they are used in the nominal domain. This is because in the nominal domain, they are used contrastively with the indefinite articles. However, in the verbal domain, the indefinite articles cannot be incorporated (as they are too high), and therefore the definite articles no longer contrast with the indefinite forms.
. Conclusions Michif superficially seems to be mixed within the nominal domain. However, despite this mixing, we argue that it really is an Algonquian language that has heavily borrowed from French. Syntactically, it behaves like an Algonquian language, and it uses French morphosyntax to create structures that the Algonquian grammar can interpret. We argue that French-derived and Algonquian-derived nouns have different underlying structures: French-derived nouns are roots, which require n to create nouns, and Algonquian-derived nouns are already nPs. ()
a. French-derived nouns √
b. Algonquian-derived nouns nP
tab ‘table’
tominikan ‘oil’
We further argue that the definite articles occupy n, the indefinite articles start off in n and move to Num, and the plural article occupies Num (see also Chapter for the plural). ()
NumP Num lii, ae’n, en
nP n li, la, ae’n, en
√
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Articles
The structure of the Michif DP also must contain DivP (at least for Algonquianderived vocabulary). ()
NumP Num lii, ae’n, en
DivP Div -a, -ak
nP n
√
lii, la, ae’n, en We now turn to the highest part of the DP in Chapter .
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6 Demonstratives . Introduction In many languages, demonstratives and articles may not co-occur.1 This is true in English, for example. ()
a. *the this man
b.
*this the man
The fact that demonstratives and articles are frequently in complementary distribution across languages led to the preliminary assumption that they occupy the same position (see, for example, Abney ). However, demonstratives and articles can co-occur in other languages such as Greek, St’át’imcets, Welsh, and Irish. ()
Greek (Velegrakis : ) afto to-mikro vivlio -small book ‘this small book’
()
St’át’imcets (Matthewson : ) tecwp-mín-lhkan ti ti káoh-a buy--. car- ‘I bought that car.’
()
Welsh (Borsley et al. : ) yr adeilad newydd ’ma building new ‘this new building’
()
Irish (Kane : ) an hata sin hat ‘that hat’
Note that demonstratives can precede articles in some languages (() and ()), while in other languages the demonstrative is postnominal (() and ()). 1
This chapter is loosely based on Rosen ().
Nominal Contact in Michif. First edition. Carrie Gillon and Nicole Rosen. © Carrie Gillon and Nicole Rosen . First published by Oxford University Press
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Demonstratives
Michif is another language that allows demonstratives and articles to co-occur. Recall that French-derived vocabulary always requires an article, even in the presence of a demonstrative (Chapter ). ()
awa ... ‘this girl’
*(la) ..
fiiy girl
Second, the demonstrative can either precede the article ()a,b (if there is one),2 or follow the noun ()c,d. ()
a. anikik ... ‘those horses’
lii zhvoo . horse
b. awa ... ‘that girl’
fiiy girl
la ..
c. lii zhvoo anikik . table ... ‘those horses (there)’ d. la fiiy awa .. girl ... ‘that girl (there)’ We argue that prenominal demonstratives are base-generated in a functional projection (FP) above NumP ()a. In prenominal position, the demonstrative moves up to SpecDP ()b; postnominal demonstratives involve a leftward movement of the NumP to SpecFP ()c. We also claim that the movement of NumP is associated with focus (following Bernstein ). ()
a. base-generated demonstrative DP D
FP anikik F
NumP Num
nP
lii
zhvoo
2 Recall that Algonquian-derived nouns do not require an article (Chapter ); the demonstrative would then precede the noun or any prenominal adjective.
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. The semantics of demonstratives
b. prenominal demonstrative DP anikik D
FP anikik F
NumP Num
nP
lii
zhvoo
‘those horses’ c. postnominal demonstrative DP D
FP NumP lii zhvoo
FP anikik
F
NumP
lii zhvoo ‘THOSE horses there’ This chapter has the following structure. In §., we discuss the deictic features associated with demonstratives. We also briefly discuss deixis in Michif, Plains Cree and French, comparing the demonstrative systems to one another. In §., we turn to Guisti’s () and Bernstein’s () analyses of demonstratives in Romance languages, including a discussion of the semantics of postnominal demonstratives. In §., we discuss the syntax and semantics of demonstratives in Algonquian languages, including the differing interpretations of demonstratives in prenominal, postnominal, and discontinuous positions. In §., we investigate the behaviour of Michif demonstratives in more detail. We provide an analysis that shows that Michif demonstratives share behaviours with both Romance and Algonquian languages—though not French. In §., we discuss some implications of our analysis.
. The semantics of demonstratives Demonstratives are often described as encoding deictic features. Deixis can be used to refer to many different notions, including person deixis, space deixis, time deixis,
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Demonstratives
and social deixis (see Fillmore ; Lyons ; Levinson ). The common feature in all of these is the notion of distance, anchored to the speech actors, or utterance. This distance can involve distance in time, space, social hierarchies, etc. In this section, we focus on spatial deixis, as it appears to be the only notion relevant to Michif. Spatial deictic elements can differ along many different axes. We assume that there are two main parameters: () anchor and () spatial demarcation (following Imai ).3 () The anchor can be speaker (typically), hearer, both, or someone or something else. () The space can be divided by relative distance (proximal, medial, and distal, for example) or by notions such as up/down, uphill/downriver, north/ west/south/east. In Michif the anchor is the speaker. The space is divided into three relative distances: proximal, medial, and distal (Table .). The demonstratives are also marked for number and animacy (see Chapter for a discussion of animacy). Demonstratives often encode both deictic and qualitative features (Diessel ). Qualitative features encode classificatory information about the referent, such as number and gender. We do not focus on any of these features in this chapter, but focus entirely on the syntactic position demonstratives occupy. Note that these demonstratives are very similar to those in Plains Cree (Table .). Other than the addition of final -k in the animate plural forms, the system has survived in Michif intact. The French demonstrative system is very different (Table .). None of these forms are used in Michif. This is further evidence that the Michif DP is mainly Algonquian. TABLE . Michif demonstratives animate
inanimate
singular plural obviative singular plural proximal medial distal
awa ana naha
ookik anikik neekik
oo’nhii’n anihi neehi
ooma anima neema
oo’nhii’n anihi neehi
Adapted from Rosen (: )
3 Imai () claims there are four parameters, but neither () configuration or () function appears to be relevant in Michif.
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. Romance demonstratives
TABLE . Plains Cree demonstratives animate proximal
inanimate
singular plural obviative singular plural awa ôki ôhi ôma ôhi
medial
ana
aniki
anihi
anima
anihi
distal
nâha
nêki
nêhi
nêma
nêhi
Wolvengrey (a: )
TABLE . French demonstratives masculine feminine plural neutral
ce(t)
cette
ces
proximal
ce(t) …-çi
cette …-çi ces …-çi
distal
ce(t) …-là
cette …-là ces …-là
. Romance demonstratives In this section, we discuss the syntax and semantics of demonstratives in Romance. Syntactically, prenominal demonstratives in Romance languages cannot co-occur with articles (Bernstein ). However, some Romance languages allow them to co-occur when the demonstrative is postnominal (Giusti ; Bernstein ). In Spanish and Italian, postnominal demonstratives are associated with focus semantics (Bernstein ). .. Co-occurrence of demonstratives and articles We begin with a discussion of French, as that is one of the contact languages for Michif. However, French behaves differently from Michif in many ways, and we focus more on other Romance languages that have more in common with Michif. French never allows demonstratives and articles to co-occur (), and does not permit postnominal demonstratives (). ()
French a. les chevaux . horse. ‘the horses’
b. ces chevaux . horse. ‘those horses’
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Demonstratives c. *ces les chevaux . . horse. (intended: those horses)
()
French a. cette fille . girl ‘that girl’
b. *fille girl
cette .
While French never permits demonstratives and articles to co-occur (Giusti ; Bernstein , , ; Brugè ), other Romance languages do. For example, in Romanian, the definite article and a demonstrative can co-occur. In Romanian, a noun can occur with a definite enclictic ()a or with a prenominal demonstrative ()b. If both co-occur, the demonstrative must be postnominal ()c. A prenominal demonstrative cannot co-occur with the definite enclitic ()d. ()
Romanian (Gabriela Alboiu, p.c.) a. băiat-ul boy- ‘the boy’ b. acest băiat boy ‘this boy’ c. băiat-ul acesta boy- -4 ‘this boy’ d. *acest
băiat-ul boy-
Giusti (; following Grosu ) derives the order in ()c from the order in () b, via N-movement of băiat ‘boy’ over the demonstrative acest. The details of the analysis of the Romanian data are not relevant for this chapter (see Grosu ; Cornilescu for details). We simply note that Romanian allows demonstratives and articles to co-occur (unlike French). Spanish and Italian also allow articles and demonstratives to co-occur, but only when the demonstrative occurs postnominally.
4
Romanian postnominal demonstratives require an -a suffix (Giusti ).
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. Romance demonstratives ()
Spanish (Verónica Loureiro-Rodríguez, p.c.) a. *este el libro interesante .. book interesting b. el libro interesante .. book interesting ‘THIS interesting book’
este
We discuss this in more detail in the following section. .. The position of demonstratives Cinque () argues that there is a universal underlying order for demonstratives, numerals, adjectives, and nouns. Demonstratives occupy SpecWP, numerals occupy SpecXP and adjectives occupy SpecYP. ()
AgrwP
WP
Agrw DemP
W
AgrxP
XP
Agrx NumP
X
AgryP YP
Agry AP
Y
NP
This universal base order can result in many different word orders within the DP.5 We focus here on the relative order of demonstratives, nouns, and adjectives. Giusti () and Bernstein (, , ) both argue that demonstratives are base-generated in the specifier of a functional projection between DP and NP. (Note that this is compatible with Cinque’s universal order in (), where the functional head is labelled W.) Giusti () calls this functional projection AgrP, and argues that either the noun moves to D (as in ()a), or the demonstrative moves to SpecDP (as in ()b). 5 However, this base order fails to predict the order in Michif, once numerals are considered. We leave this for future research.
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()
Demonstratives Romanian (adapted from Giusti : 6)
DP
a.
DP
D
AgrP
-le
Spec
D
Agr
NP
AgrP
fetele
Spec
aceste
Agr
NP
fete
fete
acestea fete ‘those girls’
DP
b.
DP
D
AgrP Spec
Spec acest
Agr
D
AgrP
NP
Spec
aceste fete
Agr
NP
aceste fete ‘those girls’
Thus, according to Giusti, the DP cannot be ‘doubly filled’, and the demonstrative only moves when D is empty. Bernstein also claims that demonstratives raise from a lower position (which she labels FP), but instead, she claims that the demonstrative substitutes into the head of D. ()
DP
DP D
D
FP Spec cette
cette F
NP
FP Spec
F
cette
femme
NP femme
‘this woman’
6 Giusti’s tree does not actually represent the movement of the demonstrative to SpecDP, though she argues that it occurs.
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. Romance demonstratives
This substitution is motivated by the fact that definite articles and prenominal demonstratives do not co-occur in any Romance language. By adopting an analysis which substitutes the demonstrative into the head of D, Bernstein is able to predict that prenominal demonstratives and articles cannot co-occur without resort to filters (which are needed in Giusti’s proposal). While Bernstein’s proposal may account for the facts in Romance languages, it clearly does not account for Greek () or St’át’imcets (), which both allow prenominal demonstratives and articles to co-occur.7 Bernstein admits that languages that allow articles and demonstratives to co-occur may need an analysis where demonstratives raise to a specifier position instead.8 Leu () claims that demonstratives occupy SpecDP in most languages, but move to a higher position (which he labels XP) in those languages that allow prenominal demonstratives and articles to co-occur. Thus, for Leu, the doubly filled DP filter is active in all languages. We assume that demonstratives move to SpecDP, and leave the possibility that they move even higher open. Giusti’s proposal for Romanian demonstrative movement to SpecDP vs N-movement to D does not apply to the other Romance languages discussed here. First, French does not allow postnominal demonstratives at all ()b. Second, both Spanish and Italian lack N-to-D movement in these circumstances. In order to get the same postnominal order, an entire phrase needs to move instead (minimally the noun plus the adjective). Bernstein (; based on Zubizarreta’s analysis of clausal movement)9 provides an analysis for postnominal demonstratives in Spanish and Italian whereby an XP moves to a higher specifier position within the DP. She claims that DP-final demonstratives are contrastively focused elements and that they are associated with prosodic prominence.10 Across Romance languages, various contrastively focused elements (including demonstratives, possessives, and quantifiers) appear prenominally in the unmarked case, but postnominally when focused. ()
Spanish (Bernstein : ) a. este libro interesante book interesting ‘this interesting book’
7 Giusti’s () analysis also cannot account for Greek or St’át’imcets, however, since it appears the DP would be doubly filled in these languages. 8 Note that her analysis of substitution into D would work for Michif, despite the fact that prenominal demonstratives and articles can co-occur, since the articles do not occupy D (Chapter ). However, we assume demonstratives move to SpecDP, as they are phrasal. 9 Details of clausal movement are outside the scope of this book. See Zubizarreta () for more details. 10 In Romance languages such as French, Spanish, Catalan, and Italian, the Nuclear Stress Rule (Chomsky ; Jackendoff ) assigns prosodic prominence to the clause-final, or rightmost constituent. Bernstein extends this effect to within the DP.
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Demonstratives ESTE11
b. el libro interesante .. book interesting ‘THIS interesting book’ ()
Italian (Bernstein : ) a. il mio libro .. my book ‘my important book’
importante important
b. il libro importante .. book important ‘MY important book’ ()
MIO my
Spanish (Bernstein : ) a. cualquier estudiante rubio any student blond ‘any blond student’ b. un estudiante .. student ‘ANY blond student’
rubio blond
CUALQUIER any
Note that French does not have postnominal demonstratives ()a,b, though it does have postnominal reinforcers ()c that result in similar focus effects. () a. la table .. table ‘that table’
(*cette)
b. les filles intelligentes . girls smart.. ‘those smart girls’
(*ces)
c. cette femme intelligente woman intelligent ‘THAT intelligent woman’
ci
Bernstein shows that DP-final elements in Romance (including reinforcers) generally receive a focus interpretation, and that Romance languages express focus on the right periphery of DP. She claims that the DP-final elements seen in ()b–()b are base-generated prenominally, and that their postnominal position is derived
11
Capitals indicate focus stress.
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. Romance demonstratives
from leftward XP movement of another element (here represented as NP), as in (). ()
DP
FP
D el NP
FP
libro interesantei
DemP
F
NP
este ti ‘THIS interesting book’ .. Implications of the movement analysis If the demonstratives can move, and an XP can move, is it possible that both can happen within the same DP? And if so, what is the result? First, let us examine some French data, similar to ()c, which show demonstrative elements on both sides of the NP: ()
a. ce ... ‘this/that boy’
garçon boy
b. ce garçon-ci ... boy- ‘THIS boy’, ‘this boy here’ c. ce garçon-là ... boy- ‘THAT boy’, ‘that boy there’ d. ce garçon intelligent ... boy smart ‘THAT smart boy’, ‘that smart boy there’
là
Bernstein () analyses the postnominal demonstrative elements -ci and -là as reinforcers, which are obligatorily dependent on the prenominal demonstrative.12 She generates reinforcers in the head of the FP between DP and NP with the prenominal demonstrative in SpecFP.
12
However, in English at least, reinforcers can occur without a demonstrative (i). (i) Bill here disagrees with you.
(Foreman : )
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Demonstratives
()
DP D
DP FP
D
ce F
NP
-là
garçon
ce
FP NP garçon
FP ce F
-là ‘that boy there’
NP garçon
In this case, the demonstrative ce moves to D and the NP moves to SpecFP. In Romance, at least, only French allows both movements, and this is likely due to the presence of reinforcers. .. Summary In some Romance languages, demonstratives can be prenominal and postnominal. Prenominal demonstratives can never co-occur with articles in any Romance language, and move to SpecDP (Giusti ) or D (Bernstein ). In French, demonstratives can only be prenominal, but they can co-occur with reinforcers. Postnominal demonstratives and reinforcers are associated with a focused or emphatic interpretation. Postnominal demonstratives are derived via movement of the NP to the specifier of a functional head (FP).
. Algonquian demonstratives In this section, we describe the behaviour of demonstratives in Algonquian languages. Algonquian demonstratives can occupy three different positions: prenominal, postnominal,13 and discontinuous (Matthewson and Reinholtz ). For example, in Innu-aimun, demonstratives can occupy prenominal ()a, postnominal ()b, or discontinuous ()c positions.
13
If the sentence only consists of a noun and a demonstrative, the result is an equational sentence (Ahenakew ). (i) East Cree (Junker and MacKenzie : ) Marie-Odile û. Marie-Odile ... ‘This is Marie-Odile.’ We do not discuss such structures here.
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. Algonquian demonstratives ()
Innu-aimun (Gillon : –) a. Eku pâtûtshe-t ne then come.- .. ‘Then the Rabbit enters the house . . . ’ b. «Mîtish-a nenua bead- .. ‘She is stringing beads.’
mîtshuâp-inû . . . house-.
Uâpush hare
tâpishikuâu-eu.» thread.->’
c. Nâsht nenû uâpâ-nû mitîtshî-nû. really ... be.white.-’ hand- ‘It was a very white hand.’ .. Prenominal demonstratives The analysis of prenominal demonstratives in Romance, given in §., can easily be applied to Algonquian. The demonstratives are base-generated in SpecFP, and move to SpecDP/D. We assume that they move to SpecDP, rather than D, as they are phrasal (see Chapter for more discussion). ()
Innu-aimun demonstrative movement DP D
DP ne
FP
D
FP
ne F
ne
NP
F
Uâpush
NP Uâpush
‘the Rabbit’ .. Postnominal demonstratives Matthewson and Reinholtz () and Reinholtz () argue that postnominal demonstratives are full DPs, adjoined to the DP containing the noun, unlike prenominal demonstratives (which they treat as normal demonstratives occupying SpecDP). They note that postnominal demonstratives are only licit in preverbal position in Swampy Cree. ()
Swampy Cree (Matthewson and Reinholtz : ) a. Nâpêsis awa kî-sipêhtêw. boy ... -leave ‘This boy left.’ b. *Kî-sipêhtêw nâpêsis awa. -leave boy ...
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Demonstratives
They claim that this suggests that postnominal modifiers are focus elements, and the DP must therefore be in preverbal focus position. The clause structure they assume for Cree is given in (). ()
FocusP DP Focus
TopicP CP
Topic
DP
According to Matthewson and Reinholtz, focused DPs are found in SpecFocusP/ preverbally, and all other DPs are found within the TopicP. Note that the interpretation for postnominal demonstratives in Cree is similar to that of postnominal demonstratives in Romance (focused), but the analyses are different. Matthewson and Reinholtz () argue that a movement analysis from within the DP is incorrect because postnominal demonstratives are illicit postverbally.14 However, the facts in Swampy Cree can also be explained with a Bernstein-style analysis. If the movement of NP past the demonstrative must be associated with focus, then the entire DP would then be forced to move to/occupy SpecFocusP. The lack of postnominal demonstratives postverbally would be explained by the fact that any focused element must occupy that position. ()
DP D
DP FP
D
FP
awa F
nP
nP
nâpêsis
nâpêsis
FP awa F
nP nâpêsis
‘this boy’ More problematically, these facts do not hold for Plains Cree. In Plains Cree, postnominal demonstratives are licit postverbally.
14
They are arguing against the demonstrative moving to the right and adjoining to the DP, rather than against the NP moving past the demonstrative. However, we assume they would use the same reasoning to argue against the Romance-type analysis.
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. Algonquian demonstratives ()
Plains Cree (Déchaine : ) a. ni-wâpaht-ên ôma -see.- ... ‘I see this knife.’ b. ni-wâpaht-ên môhkomân -see.- knife ‘I see this knife.’
môhkomân. knife
ôma. ...
It is also unclear if the postnominal position is still associated with focus in Plains Cree. For the sake of simplicity, we continue to assume that postnominal demonstratives are focused, and that focused DPs involve movement of some XP (minimally nP) past the demonstrative. In some Algonquian languages, this focus movement further requires the DP to occupy a preverbal position. .. Discontinuous demonstratives Discontinuous demonstratives are common in Algonquian (as are discontinuous quantifiers). Discontinuous demonstratives must always precede the verb and the noun they are associated with (Matthewson and Reinholtz ). ()
()
Plains Cree (Wolfart : ) Ôhi nipah-êwak ... kill.->’ ‘They killed these ducks.’
sîsîp-a. duck-
Swampy Cree (Reinholtz : ) Awa kî-kâhcitin-êw ... -catch.->’ ‘This man caught the thief.’
nâpêw man
okimotiskw-a. thief-
A possible analysis would be to argue that the demonstratives and nouns are completely unrelated and adjoined to the structure. However, Dahlstrom () shows that these DPs must be part of the same constituent. Discontinuity cannot simply involve co-reference, as there are constraints on the possible co-occurrence of discontinuous elements. First, DPs cannot be split into more than two parts, and second, the demonstrative cannot follow the noun.15 Matthewson and Reinholtz () provide two constraints on discontinuity: the demonstrative must precede the noun, and it must also precede the verb. Matthewson and Reinholtz () note that discontinuous demonstratives ‘are not considered natural’ unless they have contrastive or novel emphasis. Reinholtz and
15 In Meskwaki, both parts of the DP also cannot precede the noun (Dahlstrom ); this restriction does not hold in other Algonquian languages however.
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Demonstratives
Russell (), (); Russell and Reinholtz (); and Reinholtz () argue that discontinuous DPs involve focus movement of the demonstrative to SpecFocusP. (They also assume the pronominal argument hypothesis (Jelinek ), which is not crucial to any argument in this book. See Lochbihler () for a similar analysis of discontinuity which does not assume the PAH.) In (), awa moves from the DP within the TopicP to SpecFocusP. ()
Swampy Cree (Matthewson and Reinholtz 1996: 224) a. awa kî-sipêhtê-w nâpêsis. dem.prox.an.sg past-leave.vai-3 boy ‘This boy left.’ b.
FocusP awai Focus
TopicP
CP Topic proi-kîsipêtêw
DP ti nâpêsis
‘This boy left’ Johnson and Rosen () argue that this analysis cannot be correct for Passamaquoddy, Meskwaki, Ojibwe, or Menominee, because other elements can precede the noun within the clause, even when the noun is preverbal. For example, in () enoh ‘that’ is separated from the noun apa͞ehnīhsaeh ‘boy’ by taeh ‘and’. ()
Menominee (Johnson and Rosen : ) enoh taeh apa͞ehnīhsaeh kan oma͞ehnowī-n-an . and boy be.at.the.place.-- cew-ohnae͞ qnomo-w. -have.consumption.- ‘And that boy was not doing well there because he had tuberculosis.’
They argue for an articulated left periphery, with multiple topics, and an intervening focus position: [ExtTopP [FocP [IntTopP [TP . . . ]]]]. Bruening () also shows that discontinuous elements (including demonstratives) in Passamaquoddy must occupy a lower position, since they follow negation. For example, in (), psite ‘all’ is separated from nomehsu ‘fish (pl)’ by the verb, and is preceded by mate, the negative particle.
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. Algonquian demonstratives ()
Passamaquoddy (Bruening : ) Ma=te psi=te ’-poth-a-wi = all= -hook.--’. ‘He didn’t catch all the fish.’
nomehsu. fish..
Further, in Passamaquoddy, demonstratives that precede the verb (but follow other material) are old information, rather than focused, according to Bruening. The details of which exact position discontinuous demonstratives occupy are not important for this chapter, and we simply note that discontinuous demonstratives in Algonquian need to move to some higher position in the clause, and at least in Swampy Cree receive a focus interpretation. .. Demonstrative doubling In at least two Algonquian languages, demonstratives may occupy both a pre- and postnominal position simultaneously. In Plains Cree, the demonstratives match; in Innu-aimun, the demonstratives are different. ()
Plains Cree (Wolfart ) kâ-sipwêhtê-yâhk awa nisîmis awa when-took.off.-. ... younger.sister ... ‘when this little sister here of mine and I took off ’
()
Innu-aimun (Cyr a: ) Ekun ma ne tshishelnu ekue issishue-t and then .. old.man then say.- ne Bastien Shushep nana. .. Bastien Joseph ... ‘And then the old man says to Bastien Joseph [=the late Bastien Joseph]’
In Plains Cree, demonstratives can be doubled, even in the absence of an overt noun. In (), both demonstratives refer to the (proximate) object ‘one of them’. ()
Plains Cree (Bloomfield : ) pêyak pikoh nipah-ik-wak êwakonik one only kill.-- .. ‘They (obv.) killed only one of them (prox.).’
ôki ...
Demonstrative doubling is evidence of a movement analysis. In Plains Cree both copies of the demonstrative can be pronounced (cf. Ghomeshi et al. ; based on Richards ).16 16
Matthewson and Reinholtz () argue that the demonstrative is not doubled, but instead, the rightmost demonstrative is a DP-external element, inside a predicational structure. This is also a possible analysis, but for the purposes of this chapter we adopt the doubling analysis. Nothing rests on this assumption.
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Demonstratives
()
DP awa D
FP FP
nP nimiimis
awa F
nP nimiimis
‘this little sister here of mine’ In Innu-aimun, it appears that demonstratives can sometimes be used as reinforcers. We assume a similar analysis to that for French. Note that, just like in French, the reinforcer provides more information (in this case that the referent is inaccessible— and therefore possibly dead). ()
DP ne D
FP nP Bastien Shushep
FP ne F
nP
nana
Bastien Shushep
‘the late Bastien Joseph’ .. The semantics of Algonquian demonstratives Although we have focused more on the semantics of postnominal demonstratives, at least one researcher has argued that prenominal demonstratives are associated with a particular semantics. Cyr (, a, b, ) argues that prenominal demonstratives in both Innu-aimun and Plains Cree function like definite articles. In Montagnais [Innu-aimun], it is the case that preposed demonstratives correspond closely to definite articles in other languages while postposed demonstratives . . . behave more like
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. Algonquian demonstratives
demonstratives on the second mention of a definite referent, and/or at paragraph boundaries. From these matching functions and frequencies in other languages, we can infer that the preposed demonstratives of Montagnais are in fact definite articles, while the postposed and circumfixed ones seem to be genuine demonstratives. (Cyr b: )
For example, in (), ne utshek ‘the mink’ receives a definite interpretation. ()
Innu-aimun (Cyr a: ) . . . nishtulnue-iapiss muk tatueshipan thirty-dollars only cost.. ne utshek tshipa-tatueshu . . . .. mink -cost.. ‘ . . . it cost only thirty-five the mink . . . ’
ashu plus
patetat five
This is also true in Plains Cree. For example, in (), awa ostêsimâw ‘the oldest’ receives a definite interpretation. ()
Plains Cree (Cyr b: ) kêtahtawê êsa awa ostêsimâw at.one.time apparently ... oldest kâ-mâh-mâmitonêyiht-ahk ê-nôhtê-itohtê-t ôtênâhk when--think.- -want-come.- town. ‘Then there came a time when the oldest was thinking he wanted to go to town.’
Innu-aimun and Plains Cree demonstratives are often translated as definite when prenominal. Cyr argues that postnominal demonstratives are used to introduce new referents to the discourse in Plains Cree and Innu-aimun. However, it is not so clear-cut. Her own example seems to involve a reintroduction of a referent, rather than a true introduction. ()
Plains Cree (Cyr : ) [Context: On our way home, my dad—he had told us, telling us the previous evening already] mostos aw ê-wî-otawâsimisi-t nânitaw cow ... --calve.- anywhere ôte sakâhk; . bush. ‘that one cow would be calving somewhere in the bush over there’
The second mention of the same referent also uses a postnominal demonstrative.
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()
Demonstratives Plains Cree (Cyr : ) mostos awa, tâpwê ôho ni-pâpâ cow ... really -dad kâ-kî-itwê-t k-âsa-wâpam-âyâhk, mwêhc when--tell.- would-?-see.-.. exactly.then kâ-pimi-sipwêhtê-t ana mostos when-along-go.off.- ... cow ‘at that moment, the cow, the very one for which my dad had to us to look out, was going off . . . ’
In both cases, it appears as though the postnominal demonstratives are used as topic markers. This would explain why they are often found with introductions of referents. A second problem with Cyr’s analysis has to do with the interpretations of prenominal demonstratives in Innu-aimun and Plains Cree. In both languages, prenominal demonstratives can also receive indefinite interpretations. For example, in (), ne ûhû ‘an owl’ is discourse-new. The owl is just being introduced into the story and is translated as an indefinite. ()
Innu-aimun (Gillon : ) Eku niâtâu-ât ne then fly.to.->’. .. ‘Then an owl flew to him.’
ûhû. owl
(discourse-new)
In (), ôki sîsîpak ‘these ducks’ introduce new ducks into the discourse. ()
Plains Cree (Cyr b: ) [Context: Everywhere the women were saying: ‘Duck! Duck! Oh my, I want to eat ducks’—and the women were many, and I only had one shell, but I went anyway. Close by there was a small round lake, that is were [sic] I went.] ê-sâkêwê-yân ôma, wahwâ, mitoni comp-come.into.view.- ... oh.my really here ki-wâsakâpi-wak ôki sîsîpak, mwêhci -sit.around.- ... ducks exactly.there ê -pêhi-cik ta-ni-pahakw-â-w. -wait.- --kill.--> ‘ . . . and right when I came into view of it, well there were these ducks sitting right around the lake, just as if they were waiting for me to kill them’ (novel)
This does not appear to be a definite use of demonstratives. Finally, bare nouns can also receive definite interpretations—which is unexpected if prenominal demonstratives are truly definiteness markers. In (), the owl has already been introduced into the discourse, and ûhûa refers back to that same owl. Similarly, in (), the bear has already been introduced and maskwa refers back to that same bear.
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. Michif demonstratives ()
()
Innu-aimun (Gillon : ) Eku tshâtâpamiku-t mâni then watch.->’. usually ‘The owl kept staring at him . . . ’
ûhû-a . . . owl- (familiar)
Plains Cree (Cyr : ) ê-kî-itakotâ-yan cî masko-tâpakwâna kâ-nipah-at --set.- bear-traps when-kill.-> maskwa, bear ‘ . . . had you been setting bear-traps when you killed the bear’ (familiar)
We assume that this is because definiteness is not the correct generalization for Algonquian languages in general (see Gillon ; Gillon and Armoskaite for definiteness in Innu-aimun). The ‘definiteness’ may come from the downplaying of the deictic features, when used prenominally (in contrast to postnominally). .. Summary In Algonquian, prenominal demonstratives receive a more neutral interpretation, which may lend them to being often translated as definite. Postnominal and discontinuous demonstratives receive a focus or topic interpretation. We assume that prenominal demonstratives involve movement from SpecFP to SpecDP, just like in Romance. We also assume that postnominal demonstratives involve movement of some XP (minimally nP) to a higher functional projection (FP).
. Michif demonstratives We now turn to the behaviour of Michif demonstratives. Recall the Michif demonstratives can occupy three positions: prenominal ()a, postnominal ()b, and discontinuous ().17
17 Quantifiers—both French- and Algonquian-derived—can also be discontinuous, just as in Algonquian generally.
(i) Algonquian-derived (adapted from Laverdure and Allard : ) Kahkiyaw pakwaat-eew la famiiy. all hate.->’ .. family ‘He hates the whole family.’ (ii) French-derived (adapted from Laverdure and Allard : ) Ae’n pchii brae’n nawat gii=miy-ik-awin .. small bit by.comparison .-give.--/ larzhaa’n niiya. .money ‘I got the least money.’
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Demonstratives
() a. awa ... ‘that girl’
la ..
fiiy girl
b. Lii pwesoo’n ookik kii=kaachitin-aa-naanik. . fish .... =catch.--> ‘We caught these fish.’ () Ookik kii=kaachitin-aa-naanik ... =catch.--> ‘We caught these fish.’
lii .
pwesoo’n. fish
.. Prenominal demonstratives We assume that prenominal demonstratives are base-generated in the same position they are in Romance and Algonquian: in SpecFP. We continue to label this position FP, and we also assume that the demonstratives move to SpecDP, just like they do in Romance and Algonquian. () anikik ... ‘those horses’ ()
lii .
zhvoo horse
DP D
DP FP
anikik FP
D anikik
F
NumP Num
nP
lii
zhvoo
anikik F
NumP Num
lii ‘those horses’
nP zhvoo
There is no overt evidence that this movement takes place, but since prenominal demonstratives behave similarly in Algonquian and Romance, we assume that Michif demonstratives are no different. .. Postnominal demonstratives For the postnominal demonstratives, we continue to assume that they are basegenerated in SpecFP, a functional projection above NumP and below DP. Following
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. Michif demonstratives
Bernstein (), we claim that postnominal demonstratives are derived via leftward scrambling of the NumP over DemP. This scrambling is motivated by the need to assign prosodic prominence for emphasis of the demonstrative on the right periphery of the DP. In Michif (just like in Romance), a postnominal demonstrative yields a different interpretation. ()
(Sammons n.d.) Ae’n nom awa meekwach .. man ... right.now moshahkiin-eew. pick.->’ ‘A man, this one, right now, is picking pears.’
lii .
pear pear
Like Plains Cree (but unlike Swampy Cree), postnominal demonstratives can occur postverbally. () a. (Sammons n.d.) . . . meekwach ee-kana-waapaht-ak lii right.now -keep-watch.- . anihi. ... ‘ . . . while he was looking at those baskets, those ones.’
payii’n basket
b. (adapted from Laverdure and Allard : ) Keeyapit wawchayhpi-w li vyeu ana. still active.- .. old ... ‘The old man is still active.’ Like the Romance cases, if a contrastive reading is desired, the demonstrative must be postnominal. Further, if the demonstrative is (phonologically) stressed, the demonstrative must be postnominal. Unlike the Romance cases, postnominal demonstratives can also receive other types of readings. The locative features of the demonstratives are emphasized in these cases in contrast to the more neutral use. The examples with postnominal demonstratives are consistently translated by adding the reinforcing English adverb ‘here’ or ‘there’ to ‘this’ and ‘that’, which is not the case for the prenominal demonstratives. This follows the same pattern as the Romance DPs, where the rightmost element within the DP is the locus of focus or emphasis. We follow Bernstein () and analyse these cases of postnominal demonstratives as cases of leftward scrambling of an XP (here NumP) to a specifier position above DemP.
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Demonstratives
()
DP D
FP NumP
FP okik
lii fiiy smart
F
NumP
lii fiiy smart ‘THOSE smart girls (not those)’ The base-generated positions of the demonstratives and plural article in Michif are in SpecFP and Num respectively. ()
DP D
FP okik F
NumP Num
lii ‘those girls’
nP fiiy
Either the demonstrative can move to SpecDP or the NumP can move, depending on whether the demonstrative is emphatic in some sense. If the NumP moves, we assume that it is checking a focus feature. If the NumP does not move, then we assume that the demonstrative must move SpecDP to check a discourse-level feature. Prenominal demonstratives are generally used for familiar referents ()a, whereas postnominal demonstratives allow novel readings ()b. ()
(Sammons, n.d.) a. Trwaa lii pchii garsoo’n kii=wiichih-iko-w three . small boy =help.--’> ee-moshkina-akik anikik lii pear . . . -pick.-. ... . pear ‘Three little boys helped him to pick up those pears.’ (familiar) b. Aeñ nom awa meekwach lii .. man ... right.now . moshahkiin-ew pick.->’ ‘A man, this one, right now, is picking pears.’ (novel)
pear pear
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. Implications
.. Discontinuous demonstratives Just like other Algonquian languages, demonstratives can be discontinuous ((), repeated below). () Ookik kii=kaachitin-aa-naanik ... =catch.--> ‘We caught these fish.’
lii .
pwesoo’n. fish
We assume discontinuous demonstratives have the same semantics as those in other Algonquian languages (focus or topic). It is not crucial for our analysis exactly what interpretation is available to discontinuous demonstratives, just that they exist.
. Implications The goal of this chapter has been to investigate the syntax and semantics of demonstratives in Michif. First, we claim that Michif demonstratives are basegenerated in SpecFP, following a similar analysis by Bernstein (, ) for Romance. We claim that either the demonstrative moves to SpecDP or the NumP moves to SpecFP. The latter movement occurs whenever the demonstrative is emphatic in some way, again following Bernstein (). ()
a. prenominal demonstrative DP awa
FP
D
DP D
awa F
nP
FP awa F
la fiiy
nP la fiiy
‘this girl’ b. postnominal demonstrative DP D
FP
DP FP
D
awa F
nP
nP
la fiiy
la fiiy
FP awa F
nP la fiiy
‘this girl here’
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Demonstratives
Although the demonstratives behave like Romance demonstratives, they do not behave like French demonstratives. We argue that the demonstratives behave like Algonquian demonstratives—and the similarity to non-French Romance demonstratives is accidental. This is further evidence that the Michif DP is mainly Algonquian. The demonstratives can even be discontinuous—a property of demonstratives in Algonquian generally.
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7 Status of the category ‘mixed language’ . Language contact makes use of structures already available Our discussion of Michif shows us that we cannot only look at the surface of a language to decide what kind of language it is. Numbers showing what percentage of vocabulary comes from each source language are not as revelatory as underlying structural analysis. As we discuss in §., the Michif DP is mainly Algonquian, with a few extra French structures (like adjectives) added to the structure provided by Plains Cree. Taking a strong stance, mixed languages are all likely to behave mainly like one unified language, with some extra features from the other language, once the spotlight is put on their structure. For example, we predict that Media Lengua has Quechua grammar with some Spanish additions to the grammar. In fact, this is correct: ‘Media Lengua is entirely based on Quichua morphosyntax’ (Lipsky : ). It is not simply a matter of Quechua grammar + Spanish vocabulary or Plains Cree grammar + French vocabulary. It is Quechua grammar + Spanish features that can be easily absorbed into Quechua, or Plains Cree grammar + French features that can be easily absorbed into Plains Cree. This undoubtedly results in a system with more features than the original—which can lead to loss or weakening of some of the (new or old) features. For example, in Michif, obviation has been weakened (see Chapter ), and it looks like the French sex-based gender is weakening somewhat (see Chapter ). Note that this sort of weakening in ‘mixed languages’ is not isolated to Michif: Stewart () argues that there is no productive gender in Media Lengua, other than in a few frozen forms. The default has become masculine, so we get forms such as those in the following examples from Stewart (), where the source noun in Spanish is feminine, morphologically evident from the -a on the nouns, but the possessive ()a, article ()b, and demonstrative ()c all are masculine. ()
Media Lenga (Stewart ) a. mio suedra-pish . . . . mother.in.law-too ‘my mother-in-law too . . . ’
b. uno caña-ta . . . . cane- ‘ . . . a cane’
Nominal Contact in Michif. First edition. Carrie Gillon and Nicole Rosen. © Carrie Gillon and Nicole Rosen . First published by Oxford University Press
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Status of the category ‘mixed language’ c. . . . ese pelota? . ball ‘ . . . that ball?’
Interestingly, in ()a the noun is even semantically feminine (see Chapter ), but that has no effect on the possessive, which appears to be a default form. Media Lengua thus appears to show even more weakening than Michif, where only the arbitrary feminine appears to be eroding. This weakening of semantic feminine features gives rise to a system with no gender at all (or only found in fossilized forms). We want to emphasize that creating a whole new category for languages that develop under intense contact is misleading, as it implies these languages pattern differently from other languages. It makes ‘mixed’ languages look strange and exotic (Bakker compares Michif to a platypus, for example). However, mixed languages are regular languages, just with their history on their sleeves. In some ways, we agree with Bakker’s characterization of Michif. Michif uses grammar from Cree, borrows whatever features and structures it needs from French, and tries to make them fit as best as possible. In Algonquian languages, it is easier to borrow non-verbal items, given the morphological complexity of its verbs, and so that’s what Michif did. The Plains Cree structure shaped the borrowing process to dictate what could be borrowed and what couldn’t. However, we argue that his characterization of Michif as a split Cree VP/French DP language does a disservice to the facts, and obscures the real nature of Michif as an Algonquian language.
. The Michif DP is mainly Algonquian The Michif DP has long been characterized as ‘French’ (in contrast to the Cree VP), but this book has shown that that is not the case. The Michif DP is an expanded Cree DP, with some French additions—as well as some uniquely Michif innovations. It has almost all the same features as a Cree DP: (i) the plural suffix on Algonquian-source nouns, (ii) the deceased suffix -ipan, (iii) the demonstratives (which behave just like Algonquian demonstratives, although the obviative set is used less systematically in Michif), (iv) some quantifiers (which behave exactly the same as Algonquian quantifiers, even when they come from French), (v) animacy throughout the DP (and the VP), (vi) the possessive paradigm, with some traces of obviation (though it is only partial on the French-source nouns), (vii) nominalizers like -win (only on Algonquian-source verbs), (viii) the diminutive -(k)ish (only on derived Algonquian-source nouns), and (ix) nouns (regardless of history) undergo light verb NI, just as in Plains Cree. It has some features from French: (i) a new plural form lii, (ii) new singular articles and possessive forms, (iii) new adjective positions, (iv) sex-based gender marking, including agreement on a handful of adjectives, (v) a mass/count distinction (only with French-derived nouns), (vi) some prepositions, and (vii) some quantifiers (including nearly all of the numerals).
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. The Michif DP is mainly Algonquian
Michif is thus an Algonquian language with some extra additions that on the surface make the DP look more like French. But digging just a bit deeper, we can see that Michif behaves more like English than a unique type of language with a split or intertwined grammar. Much like English has a Germanic core with extra lexical items, features, and structures from French, Michif has an Algonquian core, with some extra lexical items, features and structures that it also imported from French. In fact, we argue that Michif patterns even more straightforwardly as an Algonquian language than Blackfoot, which is often seen as an outlier within the Algonquian family. Although Blackfoot is relatively divergent in phonology and lexicon (Mithun ), its inclusion in the Algonquian language family is not disputed. We argue that Michif should not be treated any differently just because it is a younger language. Bakker () claims that mixed languages have their grammar from one language, and their vocabulary from another. Michif does mainly have Plains Cree grammar, but it does not only take the vocabulary from French, even if we focus only within the DP. Bakker also claims that mixed languages use the morphosyntax from the grammatical language on the other language’s vocabulary. This book has shown that the facts are much more complicated than that. Some Plains Cree morphosyntax is compatible with vocabulary from both languages, but most of it is only compatible with Algonquian-derived vocabulary (e.g. the plural suffix). This is problematic for Bakker, but makes sense from a perspective where nouns from different languages come with different features, again, akin to English maintaining different morphological subsystems or stress patterns for Latinate vs Germanic words. A further problem with the DP/VP split comes from the fact that Michif borrowed a verbal suffix from French: -ii from the infinite -er suffix (danser ‘to dance’, chanter ‘to sing’, dîner ‘to dine’, etc.). Although it is difficult to borrow verbs in polysynthetic languages (as noted by Bakker), the language still chose to borrow something from French, and to slot it into the already available structure of the verb template, as a productive final. This new suffix is even added to new verbs created from English borrowings (lisurfiiw ‘s/he surfs the web’). Although the vocabulary may come from French (or English), the Plains Cree grammar shaped the borrowing process and the structure remains underlyingly Algonquian. Michif has features that come from French, such as a French-type mass/count distinction, sex-based gender, articles, and some adjectives. That said, there are French-source items within the verb, which are used to make things fit an Algonquian structure, such as the articles in NI and the newly created -ii- final from French. These cases reinforce that even when French morphemes are used, they are incorporated into existing Cree structures, and don’t come with French grammar attached to them (a possible exception being adjectives). In some cases, both the Cree and the French structures are incorporated into Michif, resulting in a fairly complex system. This is the case of the gender system, where both Cree animacy-based gender and French sex-based gender exist in Michif.
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Status of the category ‘mixed language’
However, we argue that animacy-based gender is ‘stronger’ than sex-based gender, first because it permeates the entire language, including not only the DP but influencing verb choice, but also because there are cases of weakening in the sexbased gender system, where the masculine default sometimes surfaces instead of feminine arbitrary gender. We predict this to be the case in a predominantly Algonquian language: although Michif has incorporated sex-based gender into its grammar, it is likely to be a locus of weakening. Moreover, Michif has innovated new structures/features that come from neither Plains Cree nor French. Within the phonological system, for example, Rosen () argues that the Michif stress system takes features from both the French system and the Plains Cree system, to create its own new system with elements of each. Rosen () also gives an example of innovation in the verbal paradigm that distinguishes between inclusive and exclusive forms of the first person plural (). ()
a. Ni-pahkishi-n-aan. -fall.-/- ‘We fall.’ (exclusive)
b. Ki-pahkishi-n-aan. -fall.-/- ‘We fall.’ (inclusive)
c. Ki-pahkishi-n-aawaaw. -fall.-/- ‘You (pl) fall.’ ()
Plains Cree (adapted from Wolfart : ) a. ni-tapi-n-ân b. ki-tapi-n-ânaw -sit.-/-. -sit.vai-/-/.pl ‘we sit’ (exclusive) ‘we sit’ (inclusive) c. ki-tapi-n-âwâw -sit.-/-. ‘you sit’ (inclusive)
In Plains Cree, the inclusive ()a and exclusive ()b forms are different, but in Michif, the inclusive ()a and exclusive ()b forms share a suffix -aan. We saw as well in Chapter that certain possessives have developed a somewhat different structure, using French vocabulary. Recall that adding a French possessive to (normally inanimate) body parts changed the animacy features to animate, whereas the noun with a (non-possessive) article remained inanimate. Plains Cree does not allow animacy shift in this context, but Michif took features from French possessives and adapted them to the Cree grammar to innovate this distinction. In this book, we have shown that there are two different mass/count systems (or, perhaps, only one mass/count system—operating over the French-derived nouns only). We argue that the mass/count system operates within the n: mass nouns are underspecified and count nouns are marked as count (c) (following Bale and Barner ). The Algonquian-derived nouns are already nPs and underspecified for mass
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. The Michif DP is mainly Algonquian
or count. They are also able to become count more readily than mass nouns in the French-derived part of the vocabulary. ()
a. French-derived count noun nP
√ vaa’n
n
√ fiiy
n,c
b. French-derived mass noun nP
la ‘the girl’
li ‘the wind’
c. Algonquian-derived noun nP shaapomin ‘gooseberry’ We also showed that there are two plurals: one French-derived lii, and one Algonquian-derived -a/-ak. We argue that the French-derived plural is a counting plural, which occupies Num, and that the Algonquian-derived plural is a dividing plural, which occupies Div. The Algonquian-derived plural is only available to Algonquianderived nouns, and the Algonquian-derived nouns can take both plurals simultaneously. ()
a. French-derived
b. Algonquian-derived
NumP
DivP
Num
nP
lii
fiiy
-a takwaminaan ‘(the) chokecherries’
‘(the) girls’ c. Alonquian-derived NumP Num lii
d. Algonquian-derived NumP
DivP Div
np
Div
Num np
takwaminaan ∅ ‘(the) chokecherries’
lii
DivP Div
np
-a takwaminaan ‘(the) chokecherries’
We discussed the two gender systems (French-derived sex-based and Algonquianderived animacy-based). We argue that both systems were housed in n, leading to a complicated system of gender. There are eight different gender settings for n, as shown in ().
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()
Status of the category ‘mixed language’ a. Semantic feminine, semantic animate la nP n
√
i[+fem], i[an] b. Semantic masculine, semantic animate li nP n
√
i[–fem], i[an] c. Arbitrary feminine, semantic animate la nP n
√
u[+fem], i[an] d. Default masculine, semantic animate li nP n
√
i[an] e. Arbitrary feminine, arbitrary animate la nP n
√
u[+fem], u[an] f. Default masculine, arbitrary animate li nP n
√
u[an] g. Arbitrary feminine, default inanimate la nP n
√
u[+fem] h. Default masculine, default inanimate li nP n √
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. The Michif DP is mainly Algonquian
We argue that the Algonquian-derived nouns do not require n or sex-based gender, and that they are marked for animacy in the lexicon. () a. French-derived noun nP
n
b. Algonquian-derived noun nP i[an] shaapomin
√ fiiy
‘gooseberry’
i[+fem], i[an] ‘girl’ We argue that the definite articles occupy n, while the indefinite articles start off in n and move to Num. The plural article also occupies Num. For the French-derived vocabulary, one of these articles is required, because the nouns start off as roots, whereas for the Algonquian-derived nouns, articles can be added ()b, but are not necessary because they start off as nPs. ()
a. French-derived nouns NumP
b. Algonquian-derived nouns NumP Num
nP
Num lii, ae’n, en
√
n
lii, ae’n, en
li, la, ae’n, en
DivP Div
nP
-a,-ak
n
nP
li, la, ae’n, en Finally, we showed that Michif demonstratives behave exactly like Algonquian demonstratives: they can be prenominal, postnominal, or discontinuous. We argue that the prenominal demonstratives occupy SpecDP and that postnominal demonstratives occupy SpecFP. ()
a. prenominal demonstrative DP D
DP awa
FP
D
awa F
nP la fiiy
FP awa F
nP la fiiy
‘this girl’
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Status of the category ‘mixed language’ b. postnominal demonstrative DP D
DP
FP
D
FP
awa F
nP
nP
la fiiy
la fiiy
FP awa F
nP la fiiy
‘this girl here’ Putting all of this together, we argue that French-derived nouns require n, which houses the mass/count distinction and the eight-way gender system (which is manifested through the gender-marked article system), while the Algonquianderived nouns do not. The Algonquian-derived nouns can take the Algonquianderived plural suffix -a/-ak. The demonstratives can occur with either type of noun. ()
a. French-derived DP D
b. Algonquian-derived DP D
FP
FP DEM
DEM F
F
NumP
NumP Num
Num lii, ae’n, en
nP n,(c)
lii √
DivP Div
nP
-a,-ak
m/f, an/in la, li
. Implications for other ‘mixed’ languages and creoles In the vein of DeGraff (, ) and Mufwene (), we argue that mixed languages—like creoles—are grammatically no different from any other language. They should be given a place alongside other language varieties such as Acadian French or African-American English, providing us with evidence of how language
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. Implications for other ‘mixed’ languages and creoles
can evolve under certain socio-historical conditions, but not as a distinct category of language. Mufwene () argues that ‘the claim that a creole has typically inherited its grammar from sources other than its lexifier . . . is not backed by the diachronic evidence’. He takes this as evidence that a new category of language formation is not motivated. Similarly, we argue that Michif has inherited most of its grammar from Plains Cree, with some French influence due to intense language contact. Language can vary when it enters into abrupt contact with another language, but as Mufwene argues for creolization, this is a sociocultural, not structural process (Mufwene ). Speakers of creole varieties do not think they speak a separate language, only a different variety. Similarly, many Michif speakers used to say they spoke Cree, or Chippewa Cree, or French Cree, or ‘bad’ Cree or ‘not the real’ Cree. They recognized it as different from Plains Cree, or Swampy Cree, or ‘the real’ Cree, but they still did refer to it as a type of Cree. Today it is called Michif to reflect the pride and the ‘ownership’ of the language by the Métis, the culture which created the language. However, the name ‘Michif ’ to designate the language is not used until the later part of the twentieth century, with the emergence of Métis pride and the Métis being recognized as having Aboriginal Rights accorded in as part of the Canadian Constitution. Given our analysis here, like creole languages, ‘mixed languages’ cannot be distinguished a priori from non-mixed languages on strictly synchronic structural grounds. DeGraff (, , ) adopts a strictly language-external definition whereby ‘creole’ is a socio-historical attribute that connotes the results of particular types of (abrupt) language contact marked by exacerbated social distance-cum-power imbalance (see DeGraff and references therein for overviews). Furthermore, in a generative framework: [C]reoles [as mental entities, i.e., I(nternal)-languages] are no more and no less than the result of extraordinary external factors coupled with ordinary internal factors [ . . . ] [Within mentalistic approaches to language creation and language change,] the notion of ‘creolization' as a unitary and distinct linguistic phenomenon evaporates. (DeGraff : ; emphasis added)
While creole exceptionalists describe creoles as sharing certain structural characteristics, these ‘shared structures’ evaporate under scrutiny. For example, the alleged absence of morphology, held as a universal feature of creoles (McWhorter ), inspired many to study the area of creole morphology, and while it is true that creole morphology is not always transparent, both inflectional and derivational morphology do exist in creoles (DeGraff ; Lacharité ). We argue that the same goes for Michif and mixed languages; while it may not always be transparent, DP grammar in Michif is essentially Algonquian, not French. In fact, although Bakker states ‘The noun phrase in Michif is fundamentally French, regardless of its syntactic function’ (: ), his description of the Michif noun phrase includes many
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Status of the category ‘mixed language’
instances where the Michif noun phrase differs from the French noun phrase. For instance, he shows that demonstratives are derived from Plains Cree lexical items, and surface either pre- or postnominally (unlike French, : ), that French des does not exist in Michif (: ), that unlike in French, quantifiers require the French article between it and the noun (: ), and also that quantifiers can be discontinuous (: ) and that possessives follow a different word order than in French (: ). We therefore agree on the description of the facts, but whereas Bakker does not see these exceptions as problematic for his claim that the Michif DP is essentially French, we do see them as fundamentally problematic, and analyse them in more depth in this book to show that we can account for them using structures already available within linguistic theory. Therefore, while the external factors of language contact may be extraordinary, Michif follows regular universal rules of language creation and language change, and there is little synchronic motivation for a new category of ‘mixed languages’.
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Appendix A: Plains Cree Verbal Paradigms TABLE A. Independent order, inanimate intransitive verbal paradigm
-w
-wa
’ -yiw
-yiwa
TABLE A. Conjunct order, inanimate intransitive verbal paradigm
ê-…-k
ê-…-ki
’ ê-…-yik
ê-…-yiki
TABLE A. Independent order, animate intransitive verbal paradigm plural singular inclusive
exclusive
1
ni-…-n
ni-…-nân
2
ki-…-n
3
-w
3’
ki-…-nânaw
ki-…-nâwâw
-wak -yiwa
TABLE A. Conjunct order, animate intransitive verbal paradigm plural singular inclusive exclusive 1 ê-…-yân 2 ê-…-yan 3 ê-…-t 3’
ê-…-yahk
ê-…-yâhk ê-…-yêk
ê-…-cik ê-…-yit
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Appendix A: Plains Cree Verbal Paradigms
TABLE A. Independent order, transitive inanimate verbal paradigm plural singular inclusive 1 ni-…-ên 2 ki-…-ên
ki-…-ênânaw
3 -am 3’
exclusive ni-…-ênân ki-…-ênâwâw
-amwak -amiyiwa
TABLE A. Conjunct order, transitive inanimate verbal paradigm plural singular inclusive
exclusive
1
ê-…-amân
ê-…-amâhk
2
ê-…-aman
3
ê-…-ahk
3’
ê-…-amahk
ê-…-amêk
ê-…-ahkik ê-…-amiyit
TABLE A. Independent order, transitive animate verbal paradigm direct
1
2
3 3’
inverse
3
3pl
3
3pl
ni-…-âwak
ni-…-ik
ni-…-ik(w)ak
singular
ni-…-âw
inclusive
ki-…-ânaw ki-…-ânawak ki-…-ikonaw ki-…-ikonawak
exclusive
ni-…-ânân ni-…-ânânak ni-…-ikonân ni-…-ikonânak
singular
ki-…-âw
plural
ki-…-âwâw ki-…-âwâwak ki-…-ikowâw ki-…-ikowâwak
ki-…-âwak
ki-…-ik
3’
3’
singular
-êw
-ik
plural
-êwak
-ikwak
-êyiwa
-ikoyiwa
ki-…-ik(w)ak
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Appendix A: Plains Cree Verbal Paradigms TABLE A. Conjunct order, transitive animate verbal paradigm direct
1
2
3
inverse
3
3pl
3
3pl
singular
ê-…-ak
ê-…-akik
ê-…-it
ê-…-it(c)ik
inclusive
ê-…-âyahk ê-…-âyahkok ê-…-ikoyahk ê-…-ikoyahkok
exclusive
ê-…-âyâhk ê-…-âyâhkik ê-…-ikoyâhk ê-…-ikoyâhkik
singular
ê-…-at
ê-…-at(c)ik
ê-…-isk
ê-…-iskik
plural
ê-…-âyêk
ê-…-âyêkok
ê-…-ikoyêk
ê-…-ikoyêkok
3’
3’
singular
ê-…-ât
ê-…-ikot
plural
ê-…-âcik
ê-…-ikocik
ê-…-âyit
ê-…-ikoyit
3’
TABLE A. Independent order, transitive animate verbal paradigm, st and nd persons direct 1 2
inverse
1pl
singular
ki-…-in
plural
ki-…-inâwâw
1
ki-…-inân
1pl
ki-…-itin ki-…-itinâwâw
ki-…-itinân
TABLE A. Conjunct order, transitive animate verbal paradigm, st and nd persons direct 1 2
1pl
inverse 1
singular
ê-…-iyan ê-…-iyâhk ê-…-itân
plural
ê-…-iyêk
ê-…-itakok
1pl ê-…-itâhk
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OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 31/10/2017, SPi
Appendix B: Michif Verbal Paradigms TABLE B. Independent order, inanimate intransitive verbal paradigm
-(w)
-wa
TABLE B. Conjunct order, inanimate intransitive verbal paradigm
ee-…-k
ee-…-ki
’ ee-…-yik
ee-…-yiki
TABLE B. Independent order, animate intransitive verbal paradigm plural singular inclusive exclusive 1 ni-…-n 2 ki-…-n 3 -(w)
ki-…-naan
ni-…-naan ki-…-naawaaw
-wak
TABLE B. Conjunct order, animate intransitive verbal paradigm plural singular inclusive exclusive 1 ee-…-yan 2 ee-…-yen 3 ee-…-t
ee-…-yahk
ee-…-yaahk ee-…-yehk
ee-…-chik/ee-…-tik
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Appendix B: Michif Verbal Paradigms
TABLE B. Independent order, transitive inanimate verbal paradigm plural singular inclusive 1 ni-…-een 2 ki-…-een
exclusive
ki-…-eenan
3 -am
ni-…-eenan ki-…-eenawaw
-amwak
TABLE B. Conjunct order, transitive inanimate verbal paradigm plural singular 1 ee-…-aman 2 ee-…-amen
inclusive ee-…-amahk
3 ee-…-ak
exclusive ee-…-amaahk ee-…-amehk
ee-…-akik
TABLE B. Independent order, transitive animate verbal paradigm direct singular
inverse
3
3pl
3
3pl
ni-…-aw
ni-…-awak
ni-…-ik(w)
ni-…-ikwak
1 inclusive ki-…-anan
ki-…-aanaanik ki-…-ikwnan
ki-…-ikwnanik
exclusive ni-…-anan
ni-…-aanaanik ni-…-ikwnan
ni-…-ikwnanik
ki-…-awak
ki-…-ikwak
2
3
singular
ki-…-aw
ki-…-ik(w)
plural
ki-…-aawaw ki-…-aawawak ki-…-ikwawaw ki-…-ikwwak 3’
3’
singular
-eew
-ik
plural
-eewak
-ikwak
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Appendix B: Michif Verbal Paradigms TABLE B. Conjunct order, transitive animate verbal paradigm inverse
direct 3 singular ee-…-aak 1 inclusive ee-…-aayahk
3pl
3
3pl
ee-…-aakik
ee-…-it
ee-…-itik
ee-…-aayahkwik ee-…-ikwahkw ee-…-ikwahkwik
exclusive ee-…-aayaahk ee-…-aayaahkik ee-…-ikwaahk ee-…-ikwaahkik 2
singular ee-…-aat plural
ee-…-atik
ee-…-ishk
ee-…-ishkik
ee-…-aayehkw ee-…-aayehkwik ee-…-ikwehkw ee-…-ikwehkwik 3
3
singular plural
ee-…-aat
ee-…-aatik
TABLE B. Independent order, transitive animate verbal paradigm, st and nd persons direct 1 2
singular ki-…-in plural
inverse
1pl
1
1pl
ki-…-inan
ki-…-itin
ki-…-itinan
ki-…-inawaw ki-…-inawaw ki-…-itinawaw ki-…itinawaw
TABLE B. Conjunct order, transitive animate verbal paradigm, st and nd persons direct 1 2
singular ee-…-iyen plural
ee-…-iyehk
1pl ee-…-iyaahk
inverse 1 ee-…-itaan ee-…-itehk
1pl ee-…-itaahk
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OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 31/10/2017, SPi
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Author Index Acquaviva , , , , Ahenakew , n Alexiadou , , Allard , , , n, Armoskaite , Bakker , , , , n, –, –, –, , , , , –, , –, Barrie – Bernstein Bliss Bloomfield , , , –, Borer –, , Brittain n, , n, Bruening – Burnouf Corbett , , , , Croft , , Cyr , , – Dahlstrom Darnell Déchaine , deGraff – Dunham – Frantz , , Genee Ghomeshi , n, , Gillon , –, n, n, , –, , , –, , n, , , , Giusti –, Glougie Goddard –, , Hallowell Hirose , Hockett Johnson Junker n Kramer , , –, , –, Laverdure , , n, Lochbihler Lussier Lyons , ,
MacKenzie , , , n McWhorter Mailhot , Marantz Mathieu , –, , –, –, , , , , –, Matthewson , , , , , , n Mazzoli Meakins , , Mellow Mufwene Muysken , Nichols Ouwayda n, –, Oxford Papen n, Ratt – Reinholtz , , , , , n Rhodes , , Ritter Rosen, B. Rosen, N. , , –, , n, , , n, –, –, , –, n, , Rosen, S. Russell, B. Russell, K. Russell, N. Sammons , , , , , Sealey Slavin –, , Stewart , Strader , n Uhlenbeck Vanek Weaver Wiltschko , –, n, –, , , Wolfart , , n, , –, , , , Wolvengrey , , , , –, ,
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 3/11/2017, SPi
Language Index Algonquian languages , n, , , –, –, n, , , , , –, , , , , , , , , , , –, , , Amharic Arabic –, , Lebanese Arabic –, Bantu Blackfoot –, –, , n, n, –, , –, Breton Catalan Copper Island Aleut Cree , , , , , , , , , –, , , , , , , –, , , East Cree n Plains Cree –, , n, , , , , , , , –, –, –, , –, –, –, –, –, , –, – Swampy Cree –, , Dieri
Haitian Creole Halkomelem –, , Innu-aimun n, –, n, , , , –, –, , , , –, , n, –, – Irish Italian , , –, – Jamaican – Mangarayi Mauritian Creole , , , Mba languages Media Lengua , – Menominee , , Meskwaki n, Mi’gmaq –, – Montagnais Munsee Nishnaabemwin Ojibwe , , –, n, –, –, , , , –, –, , –, , –, n, Ojicree –,
Eastern Abenaki English African American English
Passamaquoddy – Persian , n,
French –, , –, –, n, –, –, –, , –, , –, –, –, –, , , –, –, –, –, –, , –, –, n, , –, –, , n, –, – Acadian French Canadian French – Fox ,
Romance languages , , , , , , Romanian , – Russian , ,
German , , Germanic , , n, Gitksan Greek –, , ,
Quechua ,
Spanish , –, –, –, Skwxwúmesh , St’át’imcets , Tamil Unami Welsh
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 3/11/2017, SPi
Subject Index adjectives , , , , , , , –, –, –, , , , –, , n, , , – agreement , , –, , , –, –, , –, , –, –, , , , animacy , , –, –, –, , , –, , n, –, –, –, –, –, , –, – animacy shift –, , –, articles , –, –, , , –, , , , , , , –, , , , –, –, –, , –, –, , , , –, , –, –, possessive articles –, –, , , –, , , , –, , –, ,
indefiniteness , , –, , , , –, –, –, , –, –, , individuation , , –, , , , –, –, , –, –, – intertwining –,
borrowing , , , , , , ,
language contact , –, , –, – liaison –
class creole , , –, , , , , –, –
mass/count , , –, , , , , , , –, mass nouns –, –, –, –, –, , , –, , – Métis people –, , mixed language , –, , , –, –
D , n, –, –, , , –, –, –, , , , , – definiteness , –, , n, –, – deixis , – demonstratives –, –, , –, , n, –, , –, –, –, , n, –, –, –, –, discontinuous demonstratives –, , , –, , –, postnominal demonstratives , –, –, –, –, – prenominal demonstratives , –, –, –, –, diminutive , , , , , , , n, Div –, –, –, , –, , , , , – gender , , –, –, –, –, , –, , n, –, –, –, –, , –
animate gender see animacy arbitrary gender –, , –, –, , , gender shift –, semantic gender , –, –, , sex-based gender , –, –, –, –, –, , –, , , , , , –
n , –, –, , –, , –, –, –, –, – noun incorporation (NI) , , –, –, Num –, , , –, –, –, , –, , –, –, –, , , , – number see plural obviation –, –, , , –, phonology , , pidgin , – plural , –, –, –, –, –, –, , , , , , , , , , –, –, –, , –, – agreement plural –, –
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 3/11/2017, SPi
Subject Index
plural (cont.) counting plural , –, –, –, –, dividing plural –, , –, –, lexical plural , –, , –, , , , n non-inflectional plural , –, – polysynthesis ,
Q , n, reduplication n, , verbal derivation –, –, –, verbal inflection , –, –, , , , , –, –, , , ,