Papers of the Thirty-Fifth Algonquian Conference/Actes du trentecinquième congrès des Algonquinistes (review)

The volume measures 23 × 15 × 2.5 cm, with white lettering and a floral beadwork design on a purple cover. It contains 22 of the contributions presented at the annual meeting, held at the University of Western Ontario, in October of 2003. Perhaps the colour photos of Native artwork justify its exorbitant price, but one hopes it will not become a habit, as it increases the cost far beyond its value to most readers.

Andrew Cowell and Alonzo Moss, Sr. show that the Proto Algonquian independent indicative partially survives in Arapaho traditional stories, in personal names, and in old place names (that refer to Colorado and Wyoming). They also find cognate features in Atsina, and conclude that the replacement of the old independent indicative dates back at least 250 years. The authors suggest that cognate features are unlikely to date back much further than that, but here I think they underestimate Arapaho linguistic conservatism. In personal names, they find a short form of 'woman'—-s, vs. regular hísei—that at least appears to have a cognate in Menominee—-e:kw 'woman' (p. 252; also used in personal names). Menominee personal names also often have static vowels, which may reflect the same thing as does their contraction in Arapaho. If Arapaho and Menominee have been going their separate ways for about a thousand years, as I suppose, then irregularities can be preserved at least that long.

In this volume as well, we welcome the return of Peter Denny to Algonquian lexical semantics, where he has made very valuable contributions over the years. His point here is that classificatory medials and finals reflect semantic categories expressing common experience in traditional Algonquian societies. Not in the least surprising, once he points it out.

Using Fox data, Ives Goddard explores that grey area between regularity and exception, where minor analogical extensions disturb the more general rules of phonology and grammar. It is a paper every doctoral candidate should read before undertaking her/his dissertation. On one or two minor points, however, Goddard seems to revert to the hocus-pocus linguistics of the Chomskyan '60s. Some Fox conjunct order verbs have initial change (or the aorist preverb), but comparable verbs with future wi:h- do not. Goddard sets up an "abstract" or underlying initial change or aorist preverb in all these conjunct verbs, and has a rule deleting them in the presence of wi:h- 'future'. And lest we be skeptical, he states that some speakers do sometimes have initial change, but with wi:hi- for the same meaning. All this unfortunately denies us the clear and correct explanation of the data to which we are entitled and which he is surely capable of providing.

Looking at Goddard's examples numbered (9), I see the use of initial change just where I expect it: in verbs describing action or state that the speaker (or someone else) is sure of, either because it has already happened, or is underway. It is absent with respect to future actions, because Algonquians rarely are totally sure of the future. It doesn't get deleted; it simply was never there.

As for initial change or the aorist together with wi:h (or wi:hi-), his examples in (10) suggest that two separate actions are being described. First, there is a very real action that the speaker is sure about, as it took place in the past. Second, there is a later or consequent action mentioned, that might or might not take place in what would be the actor's future (though perhaps not the speaker's). This leaves a lot of fascinating questions unanswered. For example, why wi:hi- instead of wi:h-? And why put the aorist on the same verb, rather than the one it would logically seem to go with?

His example (12) on p. 105 also involves the deletion of an element...