The Genesis of Michif: A First Hypothesis

PETER BAKKER University of Amsterdam

Michif as a Mixed Since Richard Rhodes read the firstpape r on Michif at the Eighth Algon­ quian Conference in 1977, much work has been done on the language. A number of additional papers have been read at the Algonquian Conference (Weaver 1983; Rhodes 1985, 1987; Papen 1987) and others have been pub­ lished elsewhere (see Bakker 1989c for a bibliography). Most of this work focussed either on description or on the problem of genetic classification that this language poses. Michif remains an unusual language, with its verb phrase from Cree and its phrase from French. Does the language have two half grammars, and two phonological systems? Is it a Romance or an Algonquian language, or a Creole, a pidgin, a mixed language, or whatever? These are the questions that people have tried to answer. It is now probably agreed that Michif is a mixed language. It is a convincing case, even for those linguists who maintain that mixed do not exist. Its mixture is also unique: Michif has (Plains) Cree verbs and French . No other language has a similar distribution of elements from two different languages. Nobody thus far has attempted to explain its genesis, although this is one of the more intriguing problems this language poses. In this paper1 I will present a preliminary answer to this question. The problem can be phrased as consisting of two sub-questions: first,wh y is Michif a mixed language? Second, why is the language mixed in this particular way? To

Fie dwork on Cree and Michif were made possible with a Canadian Studies Graduate Student Award in 1987-1988. This research was also supported by the foundation for Linguistic Research, which is funded by the Netherlands Orga­ nization for Scientific Research, NWO. I also thank the people who helped me doing myfieldwork, and Pieter Muysken for his comments. All mistakes remain my own. lem

12 THE GENESIS OF MICHIF 13 answer this, I will first present some facts that are not widely known from the study of sociolinguistics and languages in contact, giving examples of several other mixed languages, many of them unknown among linguists. These languages all appear to be of the same type, though Michif still appears to be very different from these. Then a brief typology of situations of multilingualism will be given. One of these will lead to the birth of mixed languages. Michif at firstsigh t seems very different in its mixture from the other mixed languages, but I will show that in fact it is the same social forces and the same linguistic process that lead to the genesis of these mixed languages, including Michif. If we accept this, a number of hitherto unexplained structural aspects of Michif can be explained with this hypothesis, such as the appearance of Cree obviation with French nouns, and the Cree demonstratives in the French noun phrase. I will conclude with some general remarks. French and Cree are given in standardized French and Cree spelling rather than a phonetic spelling. Cree spelling follows Wolfart and Ahenekew (1987). Most of the data cited are from the Turtle Mountain dialect and are taken from Laverdure and Allard (1983), although some are from my own fieldwork in Saskatchewan. In the Michif examples, the Cree elements are set in italics.

Some Other Mixed Languages A number of clearly mixed languages have emerged on all continents. These languages can be considered as belonging to language family A as well as belonging to language family B, with the same amount of justification. Here I will deal with a number of these. In these examples, the elements from one of the contributing languages (those that contribute grammatical elements) will be in italics. The first one is spoken in a number of mestizo communities in Namibia and South Africa called Basters (B), Oorlamse and Griquas. These people have Afrikaner and Nama Hottentot/Khoikhoi ancestry. Their history is very similar to that of the Canadian Metis (Kienitz 1983). In the mixed language spoken by these people, who also speak Khoikhoi and Afrikaans, the content are Afrikaans, a semi-creolized derivative of Dutch (D), and the grammatical elements are Nama (Khoikhoi or Hottentot) (K). The mixed language is used as an intragroup language. The following is an example (Besten 1988:26): (1) B: Heeltemaal-.se natuur-a-xu bedorven-/»e K: Hoaraga-se ub-a-xu gau-he totally-ADV nature-CAS-P rotten-PASS 14 PETER BAKKER

D: Van nature helemaal bedorven 'totally rotten in nature' It can be observed that the syntax and the bound are identical to Khoikhoi and that all the lexical morphemes are identical to Afrikaans. The second example is from South America. The language is called Media Lengua (M) or Utilla Ingiru ('little Quechua'). It is spoken in several dialects both as afirst language and as a second language by Ecuadorian Amerindians who form a geographical and cultural buffer group between the Quechua-speaking Indians in the mountains and the Spanish-speaking Europeans in the towns (Muysken 1981). It is spoken alongside Quechua (Q) and Spanish (S), both as a mother tongue and as a second language. This language is a mixture of Spanish and Quechua. The content words are Spanish and the grammar is Quechua. Some examples:

(2) M: dimas-fa llubi-pi-ga, no i-sha-chu Q: yalli-da tamia-pi-ga, mana ri-sha-chu too-much rain-SUB-TO, not go-lFU-NEG

S: Si llueve demas, no voy a ir. 'If it rains too much, I won't go.'

(3) M: miza despwesitu kaza-mu i-naku-ndu-ga, ahi-fci buda da.-naku-n Q: miza k'ipa wasi-mu li-naku-pi-ga, chi-bi buda ku-nafcu-n mass after house-to go-PL-SUB-TO there-LOC feast give-PL-3

S: Yendo a la casa despues de la misa, ahi dan una boda. 'Going home after mass, they give a wedding feast there.'

There is a similar language called Callawaya (C) or Machaj-Juyai, spo­ ken as a ritual language by Amerindian curers in Bolivia, which is our third example. The language is a mixture of Quechua and Pukina, an extinct language formerly spoken in the area. Basically the is Pukina and the grammar is Quechua (Stark 1972).

(4) C: lurisitu-ga yani k'ata-pun: Pedro-manto k'i:-hti-n Q: Luwisitu-qra aswan hatun-puni Pedro-manta ka-sa-n Luis-TOP more big-EMPH Pedro-ABL be-DUR-3 'Luis is bigger than Pedro.'

An example from Asia is Senkyoshigo (S), a mixture of English and Japanese which is the in-group language of American Mormon missionaries who work in Japan (Smout 1988). An example:

(5) S: Hey dode, have you benkyo-ed your seitens for our shukai today vet? companion study scripture meeting toda COm|,ani°n' have you studied vour scriptures for our meeting THE GENESIS OF MICHIF 15

Here, again we see that the grammatical system is English and the lexicon is mostly Japanese. Comparable, but not exactly identical examples are reported from Aus­ tralia, where most aboriginal communities have a taboo language which is used in presence of certain in-law relatives, apart from the normal language. Both languages have separate names. The two languages are identical in structure, but differ in the shape of the lexical morphemes. An example from the Dyribal community, where the languages are called Guwal (G) and Jalnuy (J) (Dixon 1980:62-63):

(6) G: jaban-^u bayi wagay-mam'-nt/tim:, wuurba-nyu J: balbiji-pu bayi nyirrinda-rrj-nyum:', wuyuba-rn'-nyu eel-PURP he-ABS spear-REFL-PERF.REL tell-REFL-PRES 'He was saying that he'd been spearing eels.' Finally two examples from Europe. Both are Romani dialects spoken by Gypsies. The firstexampl e is the dialect of Britain, called Poggedi Jib 'broken tongue' (P) or Angloromani by linguists (Hancock 1984): (7) P: ma: roka, you dlv, the gD:ja'« shun-in' NEG speak you fool the non-Gypsy is listen-ing 'Don't speak, you fool, the non-Gypsy is listening.' The grammatical elements are English, the content elements are Romani. The second is the (now almost extinct) language of Gypsies in the Basque Country, called Motzaileen Hizkuntza 'sheep-shearers' language' by the lo­ cal Basques and Basque Romani (R) by linguists (Ackerley 1929; Bakker 1990). It was spoken alongside Basque (B), but probably most of its speak­ ers, after 1850 at least, did not know standard Romani. (8) R: xaua, goli keau-2afc, mol but-ei-ago akhin-en child-DET sing-IMP wine much-COMP-COMP have-FUT d-u-k it-have-you B: Haurro, kanta zak, arno gehiago ukanen duk. 'Child, sing, you will have more wine.' There are other cases of Romani mixing with the languages of the host country, among others in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Armenia, Spain and France. In all these mixed Romani dialects, and in the other languages mentioned above, the pattern is identical: the lexical material is from one language, and the grammatical material is from another language. Those elements that have lexical and grammatical meaning (personal pronouns, demonstratives, question elements, etc.) show some variability. These ele­ ments can be in either of the two languages, or in both. 16 PETER BAKKER

We see that the languages in contact are typologically very diverse. There are relatively isolating languages such as English or Swedish, and somewhat heavilier inflecting languages such as Romani and Spanish, lightly as Nama/Khoinkhoi and highly agglutinative lan­ guages such as Quechua, and heavily inflecting/agglutinative languages such as Basque. Whatever their language-typological properties, the re­ sult is the same: there is a rigid separation of grammatical and lexical material. Clearly this is the unmarked way to create a new language. A mixed language is created using elements from both languages: the gram­ mar is taken from one language and the lexicon from the other language. The language spoken in the immediate surroundings usually provides the grammar (phonology, , syntax) since the new language is of­ ten intended to sound like this language. In this way one can give the impression of speaking the local language, and still remain unintelligible. Several grammatical distinctions seem to play a role in the formation of these languages: first, the distinction bound morphemes versus free mor­ phemes. Bound morphemes tend to be in language A, free morphemes tend to be in language B. Second, the distinction grammatical morphemes vs. lexical morphemes: bound grammatical morphemes tend to be in lan­ guage A, whereas free grammatical words (also called function words) can be in A or B or both, whereas lexical morphemes (content words) and lexi­ cal stems tend to be in language A. As there is variation among the mixed languages concerning language sources in the free grammatical morphemes in several of the languages, both distinctions (free vs. bound; grammatical vs. lexical) must play a role in this process of language mixture, in degrees that have not yet been established. Two more language typological properties also seem to play a role. The separatability of a bound from the must influence the na­ ture of the mixed language. In agglutinative languages, which by definition have no morphonological processes that could make the morpheme bound­ aries vague, the separation of morphemes from other morphemes must be easier than in some types of flectional languages (fusional languages), where it is often impossible to draw precise boundaries between morphemes. Also the phonological distance between the two languages must be important. Most of the mixed languages have one phonological system, namely that of the language that contributes its grammar, but some have mixed systems. We may expect problems where languages with a large number of phonemes are integrated into a system with a small number of phonemes. This would create an undesirable amount of ambiguity. Also when two languages have very different phoneme systems (e.g., a large num­ ber of clicks in one language vs. a purely egressive phonological system) we may expect consequences for the phonological system of the mixed 1 lan- THE GENESIS OF MICHIF 17 guage. It is possible that other factors also play a role in forming constraints in the mixture of the languages. It is clear that the first generation of speakers must have been fluent bilinguals, speaking both languages that contributed to the genesis of the new language. The process that lead to these mixed languages is sometimes called "relexification" (cf. Muysken 1981; Bickerton 1988), as it seems that the languages borrowed lexical items so extensively that apparently the complete lexical stock is replaced by foreign words. This term may not be correct. The process seems to be more or less conscious and sudden, whereby the lexicon of one language is combined with the grammar of another. From the perspective of one language it is relexification, from the perspective of the other language it is regrammaticalization. These are the two sides of the same coin. If one thinks it is relexification, it would be hard to explain that we have approximately ten dialects spoken by former speakers of Romani where the grammar is not Romani, but another language. If it were relexification, one would expect dialects of Romani with Romani grammar but a borrowed lexicon. The latter do not exist, although all dialects of Romani borrowed extensively from the surrounding languages (cf. Boretzky 1989). Furthermore even among the languages that have borrowed lexical items most extremely, there are no cases where this exceeds 40% of the total vocabulary. And in cases where there is extreme lexical borrowing, the language will not borrow basic lexical items to the same extent as non-basic lexical items. Whereas in these mixed languages, over 90% of the basic lexical stock has been replaced by borrowed lexical items. Summarizing, we can say that certain social conditions of bilingualism can lead to the formation of mixed languages. In principle, the grammatical system of one language (A) will be mixed with the lexical stock of another language (B). The languages will be mixed in the following way: (1) bound morphemes (always of a grammatical nature) are in language A (2) free lexical morphemes are in language B (3) free grammatical morphemes can be in either language (4) syntax is that of language A The result is a mixed language. The social conditions in which these lan­ guages emerge are discussed in the next section.

Sociolinguistic Typology of Situations of Multilingualism The sociolinguistic situation in which these languages came into existence was one of multilingualism, but it seems to differ in some respects from other sociolinguistic situations of multilingualism. A bi- or multilingual 18 PETER BAKKER

situation can be of several types, which are not always as neatly classifiable as I will do here:

Type I: the community is in the process of shifting from language A to language B. The oldest generation speaks A, the youngest generation speaks B, the middle generations are bilingual. Language B is dominant in the society, is taught in school and its knowledge is required for succeeding in the society. Language A has no prestige, it will probably disappear. This is the situ­ ation with many Amerindian languages and immigrant languages in North America. Type IT. Two or more languages are used, but in different situations. Both lan­ guages have different functions. One could call this diglossia (in the wide sense of the word). It is a situation of stable bilingualism, in which most individuals speak both languages. Examples: Occitan at home and among farmers, French in other situations in southern France. Type III: Two languages are used in practically all situations. The languages do not have specific functions. The people identify as being bilingual, and they have two identities. These are situations in which code-switching and code-mixing are very frequent. The people who mix codes, express their dual identity by using the two languages at the same time. Examples are Puerto Ricans in New York, or French/English in some parts of Canada. Type IV: People speak two languages A and B, but for some reason these people do not want to identify either with the group speaking A or with the group speaking B, or they intend to remain unintelligible to speakers of language A or B. Among each other they speak a mixture of A and B which we will call C, which is a new language more or less consciously created. The people have a new identity C. No language is dominant. If there is no use for continuation of speaking A or B, these languages may disappear, leaving C as the only language in the community, or as spoken beside either A or B.

It is clear that all of the mixed languages mentioned until now, have come into being under the conditions mentioned under Type IV, having the key terms: new identity, in-group language, desire to remain unintelligible, mixed language, no norms imposed from outside. These are the conditions under which these new languages develop. This is apparently the case for all of these mixed languages including Michif. Why then does Michif look so different from the other mixed languages? Why does Michif have verbs from one language, and nouns from another? Why doesn't it combine the affixes of one language with the lexicon from another? An answer will be proposed in the next section.

Why is Michif Different? The Problem and a Possible Solution

As the languages that contributed to these mixed languages dealt with above are of diverse types, and still yield the same result, one wonders why Michif does not combine the lexicon of language A and the grammar THE GENESIS OF MICHIF 19 of language B. The sociolinguistic circumstances were such that one would expect a mixed language just as in the other cases. However, when we try to compare French and Cree, taking the grammar from either and the lexicon from the other languages, we are left with problems: what is grammar and what is lexicon in Cree? In order to combine French grammar with Cree lexicon, the firstprob ­ lem is: how are the Cree lexical items stripped of their grammatical mor­ phemes to get to the lexical stems? For nouns this is not difficult. The main inflectional affixes for nouns are the locative -ihk, inanimate /animate obviative -a, the animate plural -ak and the possessive and suffixes:

(9) a. maskisin 'a shoe, the shoe' b. maskisin-ihk shoe-LOC 'on, in the shoe' c. maskisin-a shoe-PL 'shoes' d. ni-maskisin ' my-shoe'

(10) a. napew 'a man, the man' (proximate) b. napew-a man-OBV 'the (other) man, the (other) men' (obviative) c. napew-ak 'men, the men' (proximate) The unmarked, proximate form is usually identical to the noun stem. Only in the case of dependent stems (nouns which obligatorily have possessive affixes), it is difficult to say where the noun ends and where the affix starts. In these cases, stem and affix form an organic whole:

(11) nistikwan 'my head' *(i)stikwan 'a head, someone's head' mistikwan 'a head, someone's head' Thus, apart from the dependent stems, separating the stem from its affixes poses no problems for nouns. As for the French nouns, though, there is a problem: spoken French nouns have no inflectional affixes of any kind. Thus, combining Cree nouns with French nominal affixes would lead to Cree nouns without affixes, which could lead to undesirable ambiguities. 20 PETER BAKKER

What if we analyze Cree and French verbs? If we want to strip Cree verbs of their affixes, we are confronted with numerous and serious prob­ lems. Take an average Cree verb form like: (12) nohte-wap-am-ito-w-ak want-look-AN-REC-3-PL 'They want to see each other.' Where is the boundary between stem and affixes? It is clear, if we start from the right of this verb form, that the morphemes -ak and -w- are bound, inflectional morphemes, thus belonging to the class of grammatical elements, not lexical elements. The morpheme -ito- is also clear: it is a productive derivational morpheme marking reciprocity, also a grammatical morpheme. From then on it is unclear: is -am a lexical element or a grammatical morpheme? The traditional analysis is that it is part of the stem, since it has different stems for animate and inanimate objects, viz. wdpam- for animate objects and wdpaht- for inanimate objects. But one can also say that these are a kind of morpheme. Both -am and -aht also occur in other verb stems for animate and inanimate verbs. The inflectional morphemes that follow also differ according to the animacy or inanimacy of the object or subject: (13) a. wapam-ew see-AN-3-3'(an) 'He sees him.' b. wapaht-am see-INAN-3-4 (inan) 'He sees it.' In this (as in most cases of Cree verbs) it is clear that these stems are etymologically related. But other verbs have completely different stems for animate or inanimate subjects or objects: (14) a. ni-wi-mow-aw kinosew l-VOL-eat-AN-3 fish(an) 'I am going to eat fish.' b. ni-wi-mict-n wiyas l-VOL-eat-INAN-3 meat(inan) 'I am going to eat meat.' Therefore it is best to consider the verbs wdp-am- and wdp-aht- as paired stems, one for animate objects and one for inanimate objects. In some cases parts of these stems show similarities in shape with inflectional morphemes. The next element in the verb form (12) is wdp-. Superficially it looks hke a lexical element with the meaning 'to see'. But actually this could THE GENESIS OF MICHIF 21

also be considered as a formative with a more or less abstract meaning visibility, clearness'. We find the same element in verbs and nouns like: (15) a. wap-iw e. wap-oho 'he sees' (i.e., he is not blind) 'white owl' b. wap-an f. wap-iskaw 'it is dawn, east' 'it is white' c. wap-ahki g. kit-apam 'tomorrow' (i.e., when it gets light) 'he observes it' d. wap-os h. kimot-apiw '(white tailed) hare' 'he looks secretly'

It could therefore be argued that wap-, -am- and -aht- are all grammatical more than lexical elements. Even if one considers them to be lexical ele­ ments, still it is clear that these morphemes can never be used in isolation. These elements do not have independent meaning. At least two have to be combined to create lexical stems. A probably clearer example is that of some movement verbs. All these verb stems consist of two (bound) morphemes, often with little or no lexical meaning if taken by itself, but most of these can be freely combined: (16) pim- along' -paht- run papam- about' -ohte- go' most- on foot' -asi- sail' sipwe- away' -iwi- take with' it- someplace' -iha- fly' is- in such a way' -payi- start, wak- curved' -pici- move oneself wayawi- outside' -iska- on water' paci- wrong' -isi- be' kimoti- in secret' -atisi- live'

The verb stems must therefore consist of two or more formatives, that only in combination make up the stem. The last element to be discussed in the Cree verb of example (12) is the morpheme nohte- 'want', which precedes the stem wdpam- in (12). This is one of a number of preverbs that can be placed before the core stem of the verb. These can often be equated with auxiliaries in European languages. These, again, express grammatical rather then lexical meaning, and again, these elements cannot be separated from the verb stem, with the exception of other preverbs. Tense and mood prefixes, and person prefixes (for first and second person) may precede these preverbs. The structures discussed are very typical of Cree (or Algonquian) verbs. Virtually all Cree verb stems consist of two or more bound morphemes (tra- 22 PETER BAKKER ditionally called initials, medials and finals) that are grammatical elements rather than lexical elements. These stems must consist of at least two of these elements, none of which can be used in isolation. Two common ex­ amples of Cree verbs, with initial, medial and final(example s from Wolfart 1971):

(17) a. paw-apisk-ahw-ew INIT-MED-FIN-3 — 3' brush-metal-with tool-he —• him 'He brushes him (pipe, stove) with or as metal.' b. pim-ap-am-ew along-see-AN-3 —• 3 'He sees him pass.'

Thus, every Cree verb stem can be analyzed as consisting of a number of smaller units which are bound morphemes. There are many hundreds of these elements. Native speakers can combine most of these morphemes freely to create new verb stems with subtle shading of meaning. Cree nouns on the other hand are not necessarily complex (although some can be). They can even consist of some of the same elements as used in the verb. For nouns, however, (and usually not for verbs) it is always possible to mark a firm boundary between the noun and the affixes. As a conclusion concerning Cree verbs we can state that it is impossible to separate the affixes from their stem, since the stem also consists of de­ pendent elements that can be taken to have grammatical meaning. Taken in isolation, these smallest formatives beyond the phoneme have a rather abstract meaning, but when several of these are combined, a meaningful stem can be the result. For this reason it is impossible to combine Cree verb stems with French verb affixes. For Cree nouns, though, it is possible to separate affixes from the stem, and therefore it must in principle be possible to combine French noun stems with Cree affixes. Above we discussed the possibility of combining Cree stems with French affixes, which was found to be impossible. It is obvious that we would face the same problems if we tried to combine Cree verb affixes with French verb stems: in the firstplace , it would be impossible to decide where the verbal affixes start and where the stem ends. Are the elements -am- and -aht- agreement morphemes, or a part of the suppletive stem recurring in some other verbs? Furthermore, there are hardly any verb suffixes in spoken French either that could be added to these stems. This would require a major restructuring of the languages to be combined, as so many grammatical relations are expressed in the verb that would get lost if these affixes are lost. Therefore, we conclude, it is impossible to combine the Cree THE GENESIS OF MICHIF 23 verb stems or affixes with the affixes or stems of other languages (with the possible exception of other Algonquian languages). It would be better if we consider the whole Cree verb as consisting of bound morphemes, perhaps on a sliding scale of inflectionality, derivation- ality and lexicality. Then the logical step, if we want to combine lexicon A (French) with grammar B (Cree), would be that the whole Cree verb would belong to the grammatical part of the language and not to the lexical part. Thus, if we would combine Cree grammar with French lexicon, the result would basically be Cree verbs and French nouns. That is exactly what Michif looks like. Therefore Cree should be the language that provides the grammar, including the whole verb complex, and French the language that provides the lexicon. It is a form of relexification as in the other cases dealt with above, but due to the peculiar structure of the Cree verb, the grammatical part includes the whole verb complex. In the remainder of this paper I will illustrate my point with a number of structural peculiarities of Michif which corroborate this analysis.

Michif Structure and the Relexification Hypothesis The hypothesis suggested above can be formulated as follows: Michif struc­ ture is the result of the combination of Cree grammar with French lexicon, a process sometimes called relexification. The grammatical/bound elements are Cree and the lexical/free elements are French. The verb is Cree because the verb consists only of grammatical/bound elements. This hypothesis about the lexical and grammatical structure of Michif predicts a number of things concerning the language. First, as Cree nomi­ nal affixes can easily be separated from the noun itself, we should expect to see Cree nominal affixes attached to French nouns. These affixes are: the animate obviative singular/inanimate plural -a and the animate plu­ ral suffix -ak, the preterite suffix -ipan 'deceased', the prefixed '', the possessive affixes, the locative suffix -ihk and the suffix -is. These will be discussed in the section entitled "French nouns and Cree af­ fixes". Second, where Cree nouns appear in Cree verbal forms, e.g., verbal­ izations of nouns, we would expect to have French nouns in a construction with Cree verbal affixes in Michif. We can think of the suffix -iwi-, which is added to nouns, roughly meaning 'to be a . . .', the suffix -ihke- meaning 'to make . . .' and incorporation of nouns into verb stems. These will be dealt with in the section "French nouns as part of Cree verbs". Third, we would expect Cree grammatical elements that are not bound morphemes to appear also in Michif, possibly beside French elements. This is discussed in "Cree free grammatical morphemes". Fourth, where a French verb has no equivalent verb stem in Cree, we 24 PETER BAKKER would expect French verbs to have Cree derivational and inflectional affixes. This is discussed in the section "French verbs with Cree verb affixes .

French nouns and Cree affixes

Obviation/plural: Obviation and plural cannot be clearly distinguished in Plains Cree. Only animate nouns can be marked for obviation, with the suffix -a. The obviation is neutral for number. Animate proximate plural is marked with the noun suffix -ak. Inanimate plural is marked with the suffix -a on the noun, and the same suffix also marks animate obviative. The animate plural morpheme -ak and the inanimate plural -o are not combined with French nouns in our material. Both -a and -ak are found as plural markers of Cree nouns, though. The French plural marker les (/li:/) is used to pluralize French nouns. The French indefinite plural marker des is only used in fixedFrenc h expressions, so that it can be said that les is the only productive plural marker, used for both animate nouns and inanimate nouns (see also the section "French articles with Cree nouns"). The Cree obviative suffix -a is also used in Michif where it is added to both French nouns and Cree nouns in all dialects. But its use seems to be more restricted in Michif (M) than in Plains Cree (C). In the first place, it is not used after a third person possessive construction, where its use is obligatory in Cree: (18) a. C: o-temw-a (*o-tem) his-dog-OBV b. M: son chien (*son chien-a) 'his dog' In first (and second) person possessive constructions, the obviative is not used in either Cree or Michif: (19) a. C: ni-stes nipa-w my-brother is sleeping b. M: mon frere nipa-w 'My brother is sleeping.' The obviative subject agreement morpheme -yi- still shows up in the verb: (20) a. C: can o-stes-a nipa-yi-w John his-brother-OBV sleep-OBV-3 b. M: Baptiste son frere nipa-yi-w c. Baptiste son frere-a nipayiw 'John's brother is sleeping.' THE GENESIS OF MICHIF 25

In the second place, the use of the obviative seems to be more restricted even when distinguishing subject and object in the sentence. Although in Plains Cree the obviative seems to be used for all animate nouns in Michif it participates in a kind of obviation hierarchy. It is obligatory with personal names, often (but not always) used with humans, sometimes with animals and never with inanimates.

(21) Peter le bon Dieu-wo ki-pimicisahw-ew Peter the good God-OBV PST-follow-3 — 3'

'Peter was a disciple of Jesus.'

(22) le prisonnier(-wa) ki-pe-ndt-ew le marechal the prisoner-OBV PST-come-fetch-3 - 3'

'The marshall came after the prisoner.'

(23) Pete il va dompter le marron-wa Pete he goes tame the wild-horse-OBV 'Pete is going to tame the wild horse.'

Suffix -ipan 'deceased': The suffix -ipan can be added in Cree to nouns denoting humans who are no longer alive: (24) ni-musum-ipan my-grandfather-deceased 'my deceased grandfather' This affix is also used productively in Michif, added to French nouns: (25) mon vieux-ipan 'my deceased husband' It is even used occasionally with English nouns when speaking English: his first wife-ipan.

Prefixed : Cree has no separate categories of adjectives. Words corresponding to adjectives in other languages are either verbs, functioning as a kind of relative clause, or modifying elements prefixed to the noun. These Cree relative clauses, being verbal forms, exist in Michif too as ex­ pected, and, as predicted, there are also examples of Cree quasi-adjectives prefixed to French nouns, especially in the more Cree-oriented dialects of northwestern Saskatchewan. Some examples: (26) napafo'-le-poisson (cf. Cree napakaw 'he is flat') flat-the-fish 'flatfish' 26 PETER BAKKER

(27) a. mtsi-la-maison (cf. Cree misaw 'it is big') (NW Saskatchewan) big-the-house 'big house' b. fcayds»-le-chemin(cf . Cree kayas 'long time ago') (NW Saskatchewan) old-the-road 'the old road' Possessive prefixes: dependent and independent stems: Cree possessives can be of two kinds: those with suffixes that are added to dependent stems and those having suffixes added to independent stems. Dependent stems are mostly inalienable possessions such as body parts and kin. There are three grammatical differences between dependent stems and independent stems: i) Dependent stems have an obligatory possessive prefix and occur only with such prefixes; independent stems do occur with or with­ out the prefix:

(28) ni-stes 'my brother'

(29) a. ni-pdskisikan 'my gun' b. paskisikan 'gun', 'a gun', 'someone's gun' ii) Dependent nouns have a separate prefix mi- marking non-possession, whereas independent stems have no such prefix:

(30) a. ki-stikwan 'your head' b. mi-stikwan 'a head, someone's head'

(31) a. ki-pdskisikan 'your gun' b. paskisikan 'gun', 'someone's gun' iii) Dependent stems beginning with a vowel do not have an epenthetic consonant between the prefix and the vowel, whereas independent stems which begin with a vowel do have a -t- between the prefix and the stem:

(32) n-ohkum 'my grandmother'

(33) a. astotin 'cap' b. ni-t-astotin 'my cap'

For independent stems, one would expect possessive prefixes to occur with French nouns in Michif. There are, however no such examples. In northwestern Saskatchewan, however, I recorded some hybrid forms such as ton oncle-inaw'ouT uncle (inclusive)', where -maw is a Cree suffix added to the Cree second person singular to indicate plural inclusive possession THE GENESIS OF MICHIF 27

Further it is striking that with French nouns whose Cree equivalents would be dependent stems, a possessive prefix is obligatory in Michif. A question like "How do you say 'head'?" in Michif, is answered either with "It depends whose head", or with one of the following: ma tele, ta tete, sa tete, but never la tete or tete which would be the answer given by speakers of French. Apparently the alienable/inalienable distinction is still important in Michif, despite the disappearance of the Cree stems. The possessive element might function as a prefix in Michif rather than a separate element, as it is in French. Locative marking: -ihk and da: Cree has a locative marker -ihk, with an allomorph -ohk. One would expect this to be added to French nouns, but this is not the case. Instead the preposition da from French dans 'in' is used. There are two remarkable aspects of Michif locatives, however, that show Cree influence. The word da is used as a general locative preposition in Michif, meaning 'in, on, at', whereas dans in French can only mean 'in'. The preposition da apparently copied the wider functions of the Cree locative. In the light of the following, there does not seem to have been a process of generalization of meaning. The da preposition in Michif is sometimes combined with other Cree or French adpositions in Michif, which is an impossibility in French. An example: (34) en arriere da le char in back in the car 'behind the car' Note that this can be French too, but in French it would mean 'in the back of the car', and not 'behind the car' which would be derriere la voiture. The more Cree-oriented dialects of northwestern Saskatchewan show exactly the same features, although they use Cree adpositions rather than French prepositions to combine with French da: (35) dans le fridge ohci LOC the fridge from 'out of the fridge' (36) utahk da le char behind LOC the car 'behind the car' Although this might seem strange at first sight, this is obviously a direct copy of the Cree construction, where a number of locative adpositions gov­ ern nouns in the locative case, e.g.:

(35r) tahkascikan-ihk ohci fridge-LOC from

'out of the fridge' 28 PETER BAKKER

(36') utahk otapanask-ohk behind car-LOC 'behind the car' We conclude that da in Michif has exactly the same function as -ihk in Cree: a general locative marker instead of an inessive, and a kind of case marker for some adpositions. Apparently the suffix -ihk relexified into French da. The reason why is not clear. It might have to do with the fact that there are two allomorphs for the Cree locative, but this does not seem to be a sufficient reason. Diminutive -is and petit: The final nominal affix used in Cree is the derivational suffix -is (allomorph -os) which is the diminutive suffix. Con­ trary to our expectations, there are no instances of -is used with French nouns in any dialect of Michif. The only thing one can notice is the rela­ tively frequent use of the French adjective petit, which may have taken over the function of the Cree diminutive. The same element is also frequently used in French based Creole languages with a similar function. Summary: If we summarize this overview of the use of Cree nominal end­ ings with French stems, we see that three Cree affixes are used extensively in Michif with French stems, though all in fewer contexts than in Cree (obvia­ tive, -ipan, prefixed adjectives). Three Cree affixes have French equivalents that have taken over the functions of the Cree affixes (dependent possessive prefixes, , locatives). One could say they are French in shape, but Cree in function. Only one Cree affix is not used in Michif with French elements (plural markers), but here again the French element may have taken over Cree functions, as no distinction is made between definite and indefinite .

French nouns as part of Cree verbs I proceed with the use of Cree nouns with verb affixes in verbalization constructions, in which case I predicted the possibility of replacing these Cree nouns by French nouns.

N + -iwi-: In Cree, the suffix -iwi- can be added to nouns, meaning something like 'to be a X'. A Cree example: (37) ka-nehiya-wi-yahk REL-Cree-be-11 'we who are Cree' This suffix is used productively in Michif too, but only with French nouns (and adjectives): THE GENESIS OF MICHIF 29

(38) le temps fcd-le-roi-ttv-tt the time REL-the-king-BE-3.AN 'the time when he was king'

(39) la-brume-tu;-an the-fog-BE-3.INAN 'It is foggy.'

(40) le-sale- iw-an the-dirty-BE-3.INAN 'It is dirty.' This is very productive in Michif (although apparently not in north­ western Saskatchewan). It is striking that all examples in our data have French nouns and adjectives but no Cree nouns. As nouns normally occur in almost any Cree sentence, this cannot be due to a supposed rarity of nouns in Cree. It seems that only French nouns can combine with this verbalizing suffix -iwi-. N + -ihke-: The suffix -ihke can be added to nouns in Cree to form a verb 'to make X', e.g: (41) maskisin-ihke-w shoe-make-3 '(S)He makes shoes.' This is possible with French nouns and adjectives in Michif too:

(42) mina fca-le-boudin-»7j&e-w again FUT-the-sausage-make-3 'She will be sulky again.' (lit. 'she will make sausage again')

(43) miyoweyihtam alentour sa maison e-le-joli-iMe-t she-likes-it around her house COMP-the-nice-make-3 'She likes to make her garden beautiful.'

Incorporated nouns: Nouns can be incorporated into verbs in Plains Cree, but not much is known about the constraints and possibilities of noun incorporation in this language as this is only little studied (Wolfart 1971; for a theoretical approach see Mellow 1989a, 1989b). It is my impression that it is much less productive now than it was in the 30s or in the 19th century. The prediction that incorporation will be possible in Michif is not borne out by the facts. The only example that I have come across so far, which only vaguely resembles incorporation, is: 30 PETER BAKKER

(44) un canard kd-le-veit-istikwan-e-t a duck REL-the-green-head-3

'a duck that has a green head, mallard' In this example the incorporated noun is Cree, but it is modified by a French adjective. Mellow's (1989) study of incorporation in Cree argues that it is a syn­ tactic process. Many of his arguments are sound, but there are important arguments against such a syntactic analysis: it seems to be of very limited productivity in contemporary Cree, and furthermore the incorporated form of the noun is often not identical to the free form of the noun, which also makes the full productivity of noun incorporation (and a syntactic analysis) doubtful for contemporary Cree. For example, although iskwew 'woman' has an identical incorporated form -iskwew-, the noun mohkomdn 'knife' has the incorporated form -hkomdn-, and atim 'dog, horse' has an incor­ porated form -astimw-. These two factors together may be an explanation for the fact that French nouns cannot be incorporated into Cree forms.

Cree free grammatical morphemes The presence of Cree demonstratives in otherwise French noun phrases is noteworthy in Michif, particularly since it seems to be the only major exception to the observation that the verb phrase is Cree, and the noun phrase is French. Some examples: (45) anima le livre that-INAN the book 'that book'

(46) ana l'homme this-AN man 'this man' These demonstratives agree in number and animacy (of the original Cree noun) with the nouns they modify. As demonstratives, especially those that show agreement as in Cree have more grammatical meaning than lexical meaning, it is not at all surprising that this category is drawn from the language providing the grammatical part of the language. It will come as no surprise that other free grammatical elements can be ol Cree origin as well, especially in the more Cree-oriented dialects of northwesterri Saskatchewan, such as adverbs, conjunctions, particles with various functions, etc. THE GENESIS OF MICHIF 31

French verbs with Cree verb affixes There are a few French verbs that are always used with Cree verbal mor­ phology, which might seem to pose problems to our hypothesis. Some examples:

(47) ni-nitaweyiht-dndn une batterie ifcd-le-charg-er-t we(excl.)-need a battery REL-the charge-INF-3 'We need a battery charger.'

(48) m'-fci-le-gag-er-n sur le brun 1-PST-the-bet-INF-l on the brown 'I bet on the brown one.' This also happens with some :

(49) kahkiyaw le-celebrate-er-tu-afc le quatre de juillet all the-celebrate-INF-3-PL the four of July 'All celebrate the Fourth of July.'

I suggest as an explanation that these French verbs did not have a Cree equivalent when the French (or English) concept was introduced into the Metis community. Due to widespread knowledge of French a new Cree term was not coined as in other Cree-speaking communities, but the French term was borrowed. In some cases the Cree word with an equivalent meaning is also used, but limited to the more native oriented activities. The mean­ ing of the French verbs (always used in the infinitive form) used in this construction are: to bless in church, to arrange furniture, to embroider, to witness in court, to stutter, to bet with money, to vote, to domesticate, to mix plaster, to paint a house or furniture, to haggle, etc. The English verbs thus used are: to celebrate, to haul, to settle a disagreement, to deal, to save money, to can, to box as a sport, to gamble, to collect money. These verbs all seem to denote activities associated with non-Natives. Therefore these may be lexical borrowings fillinglexica l gaps, rather than the result of relexification. It is remarkable that always whenever French elements are used with Cree verbal affixes, the French element is preceded by the French definite article, whether they are nouns, adjectives or verbs. I have shown a number of examples. Although this phenomenon is not yet fully understood, its function might be to mark that what follows le or la must be interpreted as a foreign, non-Cree item, and often its end is marked by the French infinitive marker (even the English verbs). This explanation would parallel Drapeau's (1980) explanation of the obligatory use of the French definite article with French nominal borrowings into Montagnais. The infinitive 32 PETER BAKKER marker would function as a marker of the final boundary of the foreign element. If not marked as such, the foreign element would be subject to a Cree morphological analysis to make up its meaning, which is undesirable. But this hypothesis is preliminary and requires closer investigation.

Some Apparent Counterexamples Two structural features of Michif deserve mention here as they might be taken as counterexamples to the hypothesis suggested here.

No French verbs with Cree nominalizing suffixes First we would expect the Cree nominalizing affixes -kan and -win to attach to French verbs. This, however, does not happen. This might have to do with the great amount of irregularity of the French verb, but this does not seem to be a sufficient explanation.

French articles with Cree nouns The second is the fact that Cree nouns (whether real nouns or nominalized verbs) when used in Michif are frequently but not always preceded by French articles or possessive markers, especially the less common nouns: (50) le wepin-ike-win the throw-INTRANS-NOM 'garbage'

(51) une poyo-sk a-FEM quit-ITER 'a quitter'

Preliminary explanation This contradicts the prediction of my hypothesis. One preliminary expla­ nation I could suggest at this moment is the fact that the result of the relexification process was (unconsciously) analyzed by speakers of Michif as having Cree verbs and French nouns, so that when Cree nouns were used they were interpreted as belonging to the French noun phrase, thus getting a French article. Another possibility is that one considers these Cree nouns as borrowings into French; it is a fact that they often have the article that would be required when the noun would have been French, with the exception of the verbalized Cree nouns formed with the -win and -kan suffixes, which are always masculine. THE GENESIS OF MICHIF 33

Conclusion

We have seen that the predictions of my hypothesis are partly corroborated by the data, which show the existence of French lexical stems (both nouns and verbs) with Cree grammatical affixes. In cases where the Cree affix is not used, we clearly find a French element which functions unlike its French source, but exactly like the Cree element it replaces, with only few exceptions. We also find Cree grammatical elements when these are free morphemes. In conclusion I claim that Michif came into being via a process tenta­ tively called "relexification" (which is always accompanied by regrammati- calization). Most often the result will be a language with the grammatical system of language A and the lexicon of language B. Michif looks different from the other cases because in Michif the whole verb complex must be considered as consisting of only affixes, without a stem, so that the verb must be Cree. Relexification is a process that occurs under certain specific social circumstances. These are a bilingual community with no prestige norms of either language and a group that chooses not to belong to any the surrounding groups. This group has a separate identity. The mixed language, which is the result of the relexification process, is used as an intra-group language. If these circumstances are such that a mixed language is needed, the new language will have a lexicon which has an origin different from its grammatical system. The results may differ according to what is part of the lexicon and what is part of the grammar in these languages. If a language has a verb that consists only of bound morphemes (such as the Cree verb or the Basque auxiliary), these will be used in full. And if the two languages are closely related genetically, the results will be different too. If both languages are close to isolating, having few or no bound morphemes, the result may be an arbitrary mixture of the two . But in the other cases, the grammar will be from one language and the lexicon from another. It is quite possible that some languages that are now considered unmixed languages came into being in the distant past as the result of this process. This can be shown only when both languages are known. In any case the social facts thus precede the linguistic facts in relexification.

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