[Algonquiana] Prehistoric Language contact ?

[Michael McCafferty]

Thank you so much, Ives, for your comments and, at least for me, 
clearing away some of the fog.

What I just cannot wrap my head around, though, is how a sound in one 
language can influence the sound system of totally unrelated language. 
All I can get at is that women from one language group married into or 
were captured by another group speaking an unrelated language, and in 
learning the unrelated language use sounds that were in their native 
language that over time get adopted into the sound system of their 
husbands. Is this the mechanism for this transfer?


Michael


Quoting "Goddard, Ives" <GODDARDI at si.edu>:

> 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. *-h?ti?-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 *a?.  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 ka?t(e); Penobscot tiht?k?li, PsmMl
> tihtiko?l) 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 *?entiy-
> 'conifer' as a possible loan from/with Siouan?  And points out the
> calque-cognacy (functional equivalence) of *wiki-wa·-hm- with t?i-pi?
>  If not, who wrote that?
>