Speaker: Conor McDonough Quinn (University of Southern Maine)
Title: Animacy, obviation, inverse, and delightful phonological subtleties: a call to look more at Passamaquoddy-Wolastoqew(Maliseet) and relatives, and helps for formal theory from endangered language pedagogy
Time: Thursday, 4/18, 12:30-1:50pm
Location: 32-D461
Abstract:
Starting with core discussions of three traditionally thorny phenomena Algonquian morphosyntax:
- Algonquian grammatical animate status as formal “mission creep” from semantic animacy, via highly constrained analogical “families” that shift over time and space, but are reliably productive for any given speaker.
- Proximate-obviative as marking referential entailment dependency: in 3rd+3rd Goal-Theme configurations (verbal-ditransitive or nominal-possessive), the Theme cannot be proximate relative to the obviative Goal; only the reverse. E.g. in [HER MOTHER], [MOTHER] must always be obviative. This restriction seems tied crucially to the observation that knowing the complete reference of [MOTHER] in [HER MOTHER] entails knowing the reference of HER.
- Inverse for 3→{1,2} configurations in Algonquian languages being only strictly required for clause-types realized morphosyntactically as possessed nominals: in them, core transitive arguments are introduced via a Goal-Theme (Possessor-Possessee) configuration, and so are subject to a Person-Case Constraint effect.
We then briefly note three other features in desperate need of in-depth research: (a) head-marking for oblique (spatial, manner, temporal, etc.) arguments; (b) nominal tense; (c) standalone Secondary Objects (= morphosyntactically same as ditransitive Themes, but with no overt/interpreted Goal argument). Also briefly sketched are three under-researched phonetic-phonological phenomena: (a) iambic weak/strong-schwa alternations + related rich initial/final consonant clusters; (b) contrastive pitch-accent + final vowel deletion alternations; (c) preaspiration and gemination in a voicing-noncontrasting phonational system. Finally, we observe how being “reduced to” minimalist, non-technical, and pragmatic-communicatively-grounded presentations of these kinds of unfamiliar linguistic phenomena—namely, doing what it takes to teach them genuinely effectively to adult learners—creates fertile ground for innovative rethinking.
A longer version of the abstract can be found here.