[Algonquiana] Prehistoric Language contact ?

[Goddard, Ives]

On Eastern duals.

This subject was broached if incompletely treated in my 1967 papers (NMC Bull. 214:9-10, 104-105, with a reference to the issue having been earlier raised by Siebert in AA 42:331-333 and to his having told me that he no longer thought it was an Eastern archaism).  An Ottawa parallel for the formation of the Eastern AI triplural is cited, but more information on this would be welcome.  (I haven’t looked.)  In Delaware these marked plurals are commonly made as collectives, and many examples are to be found in O’Meara’s Munsee dictionary (his label is  “emphatic”), as if built on the causative finals PEA *h and *r.  See entries for kchíiw and matáhkeew.  Western Abenaki also appears to have the longer forms as marked (used for an indefinite number) but not as consistent triplurals.  I recall that the duals are used in Micmac for the people in a boat (always a countable number).  The comparative evidence shows this dual-triplural contrast gradually emerging and firming up within the Algonquian languages, becaming fully grammaticalized as such in the languages furthest from the Iroquoians.

Independently, Unami Delaware has a dual-triplural contrast in imperatives, at least for some speakers: mi:tsí:t:am ‘let’s eat (I and you sg.)’ vs. mi:tsí:t:amo:kw ‘let’s eat (I and you pl.).

The nasalized vowel.

On the other hand, it seems likely that the nasalized reflex of PEA *a: in Mahican, SNEA, and Abenaki reflects the influence of Mohawk, which has a nasalized vowel of exactly the same odd quality as what these languages seem usually to have (PAC 39:282 and n. 74).  Penobscot Eastern Abenaki has (mostly) denasalized this vowel but retained this caret-vowel-like quality.  There will be a little more on this in my eventual “Loup” paper in PAC 44.

Ives

From: Algonquiana [mailto:algonquiana-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org] On Behalf Of Conor Quinn
Sent: Wednesday, November 19, 2014 4:59 PM
To: John Steckley
Cc: ALGONQUIANA at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG
Subject: Re: [Algonquiana] Prehistoric Language contact ?

Dia dhaoibh, a chairde!

If I'm not mistaken, the notional dual contrast is found in most (all?) of Eastern Algonquian, and definitely at least as far south as Western and Eastern Abenaki.

It's a tricky pattern, because the "duals" are actually just the familiar verbal plurals of the rest of Algonquian.  E.g. they reflect the various plural person markings (among them reflex of PA *-aki (with Idp) or the EAlg version of PA *-wa·-t, i.e. *-hətī-t).  While the more-than-dual plurals are limited to AI stems, with an added stem-extensional element---most but not all arising historically from transitivization (= TA), then reciprocalization (= AI again)---which then takes the same pluralization morphology as the "dual".

So the contrast looks like it emerges from a notion of a minimal plural (= just the general Algonquian plural morphology) vs. an extended/non-minimal plural (= this new stem-extensional element added in).

What's particularly striking about these systems is that they're not in fact strictly dual vs. strictly (more-than-two) plural.  The familiar-Algonquian-type simple plurals generally do get a dual reading...but if the stems inherently imply more-than-two -type participants---e.g. if they incorporate a number 'three' or above, or refer to collective/mass action---they very often do not use the stem-extensional element, and so superficially have a "dual" pluralization pattern.

As far as I know, the only place where there's a completely strict dual vs. plural distinction is in the Mi'gmaq motion verbs, where -ie/-a' and -a'si (roughly, 'go..., change...') are systematically replaced with -a'ti for dual, and -(i)ta' for plural.

Apropos of the original question, I think Ives might have suggested a possible Iroquoian contact influence in one of his two papers on the "intrusive nasal" reflex of PEA *ā.  But I might be thinking of some other source; and it's always struck me as a little tenuous given that the N. Iroquoian languages I'm aware of systematically have contrastive nasalization only in vowels other than /a/.  So the contact effect would be oddly indirect/abstracted.

David Pentland and I have both independently noted some possible cases of lexical borrowing. Off the top of my head, 'eel' and 'great horned owl' in the northeastern-area Algonquian languages (i.e. Mi'gmaq gat(ew)-, PsmMl kàt(e); Penobscot tihtəkəli, PsmMl tihtikòl) may have Iroquoian links. I don't have the relevant Iroquian material at hand, though, and David likely has a more extensive list.

Hope that helps!

Till later, keep safe and sane.

Slán,
bhur gcara


P.S.  Is the Denny article the one that suggests PA *šentiy- 'conifer' as a possible loan from/with Siouan?  And points out the calque-cognacy (functional equivalence) of *wiki-wa·-hm- with tʰi-pi?  If not, who wrote that?
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