30.62, Review: Michif; Morphology; Semantics; Sociolinguistics; Syntax: Gillon, Rosen (2018)

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Subject: 30.62, Review: Michif; Morphology; Semantics; Sociolinguistics; Syntax: Gillon, Rosen (2018)

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Date: Mon, 07 Jan 2019 14:15:17
From: David Robertson [ddr11 at columbia.edu]
Subject: Nominal Contact in Michif

 
Discuss this message:
http://linguistlist.org/pubs/reviews/get-review.cfm?subid=36424397


Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/29/29-1498.html

AUTHOR: Carrie  Gillon
AUTHOR: Nicole  Rosen
TITLE: Nominal Contact in Michif
PUBLISHER: Oxford University Press
YEAR: 2018

REVIEWER: David Douglas Robertson, University of Victoria

SUMMARY

In Nominal Contact in Michif  (xxi + 202 pp.), linguists Carrie Gillon and
Nicole Rosen, with native speaker Verna Demontigny (thus GRD hereafter),
analyze selected traits of noun phrases in Michif. They propose these as
evidence for a novel view that rather than a Cree (Algonquian) and French
(Indo-European) “mixed language”, this is instead a fundamentally Algonquian
language. 

Prefaced with a List of Abbreviations (xv-xvii) and a “Pronunciation Guide: A
Note on Michif Orthography” (xix-xxi), Chapter 1 “Introduction” (1-22)
outlines the known history of this young language and its current status,
briefly contrasting mixed languages with other language-contact outcomes.
Features of Michif DPs (Determiner Phrases, which I will consider broadly
equivalent to 'noun phrase') and verb structure that are relevant to the
book's theme are introduced, followed by an overview of the arguments in
following chapters. 

Chapter 2 “Mass/Count” (23-47) summarizes the diagnostics of this grammatical
distinction that are typically invoked in the linguistic literature:
pluralizability; countability without a classifier/measure; disambiguation by
quantifiers/determiners. GRD bring up the important related idea of two kinds
of “coercibility” from mass to count interpretation of a noun, that is, into
types of that noun via the “universal sorter” and into portions of it via the
“universal packager”. Individual sections then investigate mass/count
properties in Algonquian languages and in Michif. In the latter, the numerous
French- and the (two known) Algonquian-derived mass nominals replicate the
properties of their respective source languages. Among the implications of
this finding, contra previous proposals, are that Michif indeed has a
mass/count distinction, and that a language is not necessarily either
mass/count or non-mass/count in type. 

Chapter 3 “Plurality” (49-74) opens with a glance at two of the exponences of
plurality in Michif noun phrases, the French-derived plural article lii and
Algonquian-derived suffixes -a/-ak. The former is usable with all nouns
regardless of etymology, the latter only on Algonquian-sourced nouns; thus, on
the latter set, both markings can cooccur. This seeming redundancy leads GRD
to ask whether each of these morphemes has a distinct function and/or meaning.
In search of possible positive answers, they examine five distinct theories of
plurality from the Generativist literature. Algonquian and Michif plurality
are then compared with other languages having multiple exponences thereof, and
an analysis is proposed that Michif's plurals are respectively “counting” and
“dividing” in nature.

Chapter 4 on nominal “Gender” (75-106) surveys Michif's coexisting sex-based
and animacy-based system with reference to its French and Algonquian
ancestors. GRD forecast that the daughter language's complex mixed-gender
system will prove to be diachronically unstable.  

Chapter 5 “Articles” (107-142) contrasts the syntax and semantics of French
definite articles both with the articlelessness (and definiteness effects in
incorporation) of Algonquian and with Michif's French-derived article system.
Distinctly from its ancestor languages, Michif's articles incorporate into
verbs along with their noun heads, and lii marks only plurality, not
+/-Definiteness. From the latter facts, the authors for the first time overly
conclude that Michif is “really an Algonquian language that has heavily
borrowed from French” (141). 

Chapter 6 on Michif “Demonstratives” (143-168) shows that these replicate the
Algonquian system (+/-Animate; Singular/Plural/Obviative;
Proximal/Medial/Distal) and looks at their semantics, arguing that they have
little to do with historical French input. The claim of Michif as an
Algonquian language is asserted for the second time. 

Chapter 7 “Status of the Category 'Mixed Language'” (169-178) makes the point
that any understanding of a mixed language's workings has to look more deeply
than vocabulary percentages from each parent language. GRD specify that the
Michif DP is “mainly” Algonquian (170-176). They close their argumentation
with a two-page suggestion that mixed languages are not structurally distinct
from other kinds of languages; nor do they violate crosslinguistic
observations on historical change. 

For readers' reference, Appendix A schematizes “Plains Cree Verbal Paradigms”
(179-181) and Appendix B “Michif Verbal Paradigms” (183-185). References fill
pages (187-198), followed by a brief Author Index (199), Language Index (200),
and Subject Index (201-202). 

EVALUATION

GRD's study is a refreshingly detailed examination of an important area of
mixed-language grammar, teasing out semantic nuances (such as mass versus
count, and coercion from one to the other) that most languages do not mark
morphologically, and which consequently most grammar descriptions are liable
to ignore. Likewise we receive an incisive exposition of the differences
between the formally essentially identical, but functionally quite divergent,
definite-article systems of Michif and French. We learn much from this book
that is not easily discoverable from other sources, and it is reinforced with
many dozens of reliable examples direct from a first-language speaker. The
findings are laid out in a consistent, clear format of thematically concise
Tables, making it easy to follow the developing arguments. 

This volume will be a fairly accessible read for most scholars of language
contact, mixed languages, and Michif. A good deal – though not all – of the
argumentation is phrased in Generativist terms and illustrated with syntactic
“trees” whose nodes bear abbreviated labels, which may be an issue for some
portion of the intended audience. Contact linguists have tended either toward
other theories or to more descriptive, documentary approaches. I suspect such
readers might require a brief glossary of several consistently invoked terms
of art, especially the newer concepts such as “DP”, “little n”, and
“licensing”. A similar issue comes up in a few passages that draw on the
reader's assumed prior knowledge of the various languages involved, as when
page 17 refers to “the” Cree possessive prefixes, which are never introduced,
and when page 44 invokes research on Michif phonology that the text has not
described. At all events, I found it was not especially hard to follow the
ideas being put forth, as the authors do quite decent work of verbalizing the
issues, the evidence, and their interpretations thereof. 

Certain edits that can be suggested are very nearly inconsequential to a
review such as this one, since they would be afterthoughts to any scholarly
publication, but they would increase the continuity of the reading experience.
Various abbreviations found in the text, for example AGR, [lowercase] c, and
INT, are missing from the List on pages xv-xvii. To that List, an optimal
treatment could add the various notational conventions that are, as is usual
throughout linguistics, used without overt explanation, such as *( )
indicating non-optionality, the well-formedness gradations *, #, ??, and the
struck-through items in some trees such as on page 145. The Michif
pronunciation and orthography guide is missing some sounds encountered in
example data, such as <u> and <ae>, and its IPA representation of the rhotic
sound as /r/ technically leads us to expect a trill, while Michif typically
employs a flap. 

Perhaps a more substantial critical point is that when previous authorities
are referred to on analytic matters, the authors' Generative orientation leads
them to cite almost exclusively fellow practitioners of that school of
thought. This in itself is not necessarily problematic; however, it is typical
for Generative work to test narrowly focused hypotheses on a few, often
closely related first-world languages in depth rather than to evaluate
typological trends. Thus Chapter 2, in discussing previous work on mass/count
diagnostics, relies primarily on Chomskyan work on French and English. The
theories of plurality that are brought up in Chapter 3 expand this sampling to
Mandarin, Arabic, Greek, and Halkomelem Salish, representing a number of
families but only involving one really “less studied” language. In general,
the privileging of theory over observation can have pitfalls, as when page 57
claims “In English, plural marking is not found inside compounds” – ignoring
common expressions like “drugs gang” and “people power”. A specifically
Generativist instance is page 66's remark on the cooccurrence in Michif of
French- and Algonquian-derived Plural morphology, as in lii kimotiwin-a
'(amount of) stolen goods': “Since lii is a counting plural, -a/-ak cannot
also be a counting plural too.” Crosslinguistically, it is far from unusual
for a category to be reflected circumfixally or via other kinds of multiple
exponence, so such stipulations are not inherently convincing. Had the
burgeoning data-driven typological literature been invoked, one might imagine
how differently GRD's assumptions and findings might have been phrased.  

The concluding chapter purports to reevaluate the analytical and/or
descriptive category, “mixed language”. Two issues with it concern me. 

First, in §7.2, GRD summarize their case that Michif's DP displays more
Indigenous than Indo-European traits, primarily by listing nine probably
Algonquian features that they contrast with seven attributed to French.
Quibbles with their argument are possible (e.g. trait (vii) in favor of
Algonquian, “nominalizers like -win (only on Algonquian-sourced verbs)”, isn't
fundamentally a DP feature; conversely the French-derived verbalizing suffix
-ii < -er (pages 129-132, 171) operates only on French-derived nominals so
that it is a weak example of supposed French non-DP morphology). But the tally
is if anything even more convincing than GRD claim, since three “French”
characteristics are actually non-inherited Michif innovations! (“(i) a new
plural form lii, (ii) new singular articles and possessive forms, (iii) new
adjective positions...”) However, the authors' argument is made almost
entirely in morphosyntactic terms, again a standard approach for Generativist
work, and this non-engagement with the lexicon and with noun-root semantics
sidesteps the fact that there are few etymologically-Algonquian nouns in
Michif (as acknowledged on page 8), which in itself would seem a powerful
argument against the basically Indigenous nature that GRD claim for the DP
system. And indeed, as the authors try to undermine a supposed French
DP/Algonquian VP split that they attribute to Peter Bakker's pioneering work
(1997), they veer into a straw-man misrepresentation of his views as
“Michif...ONLY tak[ing] the vocabulary from French” (page 171, cf. 177-178),
despite earlier having more accurately portrayed him as describing mixed
languages taking “MOST of their vocabulary from one language and MOST of their
grammar from the other” (page 6; my emphases). My point is that the purported
ideas of Bakker's that are being debated do not accurately reflect either his
claims or the variation among Michif varieties that he is at pains to
document, nor do the authors keep close track of the strengths and weaknesses
of their own arguments. Many readers will find GRD's repeated comparison of
the divergent properties of Michif's French- and Algonquian-derived nouns with
the historically accrued lexicon of modern English (which contains distinct
Germanic, Latinate, Hellenic, etc. morphological strata; e.g. page 24 and
prominently right on page 171 of this chapter) a simpler, more compelling
description and explanation. 

Second, Chapter 7's titular mission of (re)conceptualizing the nature of mixed
languages is barely addressed. The bulk of the chapter is devoted to the
above-mentioned polemic on Michif DPs being Algonquian. Unfortunately, only
the last two pages of text generalize. There, GRD broadly invoke a couple of
representative works by previous contact linguists, and again rely on
stipulation as a strategy, pronouncing that “mixed languages – like creoles –
are grammatically no different from any other language” (176). Numerous
problems exist with this claim. The works cited refer to creole languages, not
to mixed ones. Work that is more recent is ignored – and it is interesting
that it is research conducted primarily by Bakker and associates (e.g. Bakker
et al. 2011) – which has convincingly demonstrated that e.g. pidgins and
creoles are indeed typologically distinct categories from other languages.
There are no a priori grounds nor any backing earlier in this book for GRD's
concluding statement, and on the contrary, every reason to suspect that mixed
languages too will turn out to be a typological group (which appears to be the
intuition of Bakker 2003). Thus the closing chapter, which could be expected
to stimulatingly situate this volume in the literature on contact linguistics,
instead does not really engage with it. 

I want to conclude, however, by reiterating the overall value of this novel
contribution to mixed-language and Michif research and documentation, and I
strongly hope that it will inspire many future studies to tackle the kind of
careful and substantial questions it poses.

REFERENCES

Bakker, Peter. 1997. A Language of Our Own: The Genesis of Michif, the Mixed
Cree-French Language of the Canadian Metis. Oxford: Oxford University Press,
Inc.. (Oxford Studies in Anthropological Linguistics, 10.)

Bakker, Peter. 2003. Mixed languages as autonomous systems. Pages 107-150 in
Yaron Matras and Peter Bakker (eds.), The mixed language debate: Theoretical
and empirical advances. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. 

Bakker, Peter, Aymeric Daval-Markussen, Mikael Parkvall, and Ingo Plag. 2011.
Creoles are typologically distinct from non-creoles. Journal of Pidgin and
Creole Languages 26(1):5-42.


ABOUT THE REVIEWER

David Douglas Robertson PhD is a linguistic archaeologist specializing in the
Pacific Northwest's history of language contact. He focuses on Chinuk Wawa
(Chinook Jargon), Shoalwater-Clatsop Lower Chinookan, and on Salish languages,
especially łəw̓ál̓məš (Lower Chehalis) and its sisters in the Tsamosan
branch.





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