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How to Swear in Maliseet-Passamaquoddy and Penobscot

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How to Swear in Maliseet-Passamaquoddy and Penobscot How to Swear in Maliseet-Passamaquoddy and Penobscot Philip S. LeSourd Indiana University Conor McDonough Quinn Massachusetts Institute of Technology Abstract. In the Eastern Algonquian languages Maliseet-Passamaquoddy and Penobscot, evaluative forms of verbs are derived by inserting one of several morphemes, not meaningful in themselves, within the verb stem. Corresponding derivatives of nouns and particles are formed by suffixation. This article documents the shapes that these derivatives take and the ways in which they are used to express anger, scorn, impatience, or intensity. Comparative evidence suggests that the source of these formations is an old process by which morphemes making reference to intimate body parts and other off-color concepts were added to verbs and nouns. 1. Introduction The Eastern Algonquian languages Maliseet-Passamaquoddy and Penobscot employ a system of morphological modifications of nouns, verbs, and particles to indicate anger, scorn, impatience, or intensity—and sometimes to show approval or to signal closeness.1 Forms of the type in question were noted in Penobscot by Speck (1918), who referred to them as objurgatives, from the verb objurgate ‘reproach or denounce vehemently’, and we adopt Speck’s term here. The objurgative forms of verbs raise particularly interesting issues, since they are derived (descriptively speaking) by inserting one of several morphemes, specialized for this use, within the verb stem. This article provides an analysis of the objurgative forms of Maliseet- Passamaquoddy and Penobscot and illustrates their use. Maliseet and Passamaquoddy are mutually intelligible dialects of a single language. Maliseet is spoken today primarily in several communities along the Saint John River in New Brunswick and in the area around Houlton in Aroostook Co., Maine. Passamaquoddy is spoken in two communities in the St. Croix Valley in Washington Co., Maine. Estimates from the mid-1990s place the total number of fluent speakers of the two dialects at around 500, a minority of the population (Leavitt 1996:1). Penobscot, spoken into the 1990s at Indian Island in the Penobscot Valley of Maine, is a dialect of Eastern Abenaki. The two languages were long in contact and share a large proportion of their vocabulary. One of the textual examples of an objurgative verb form pointed out by Speck in his Penobscot work is presented in (1), while three Maliseet-Passamaquoddy examples are given in (2). The objurgative morphemes are in boldface. Corresponding non-objurgative forms are provided for comparison. It will be observed that the other components of the stems are subject to different modifications in the two types of forms. These are the result of regular morphophonological processes, to which we return below. 2 (1) a. nòhkcm-i, nct-clcm-ccé-hte-law-á wáp-skw. grandmother-VOC 1-away-OBJURG-strike-by.projectile-DIR white-bear ‘Grandmother, I have shot that damn White Bear.’ (Pen., Speck 1918:240, our translation) cf. nct-clcm-íhte-law-á ‘I shot him’ (Pen., Siebert 1996a:155) (2) a. Naka nìt=te=hc=4na qen-al4kittiye-hp4nol-t-uhtí-hti-t. and then=EMPH=FUT=too length-OBJURG-fight-RECIP-MPL-PROX.PL-3AN ‘And then they (pl.) would go on fighting like hell with each other, too.’ (Mal.) cf. qen-ihp4nol-tí-mok ‘during the war (i.e., while people are fighting)’ (MPD), with unspecified subject suffix -mok b. Wòt=kahk skàt meht-4liqe-nè-w. this.PROX=CONTRAST not finish-OBJURG-die-(3)-NEG ‘This damn thing (a bear) isn’t dead after all!’ (Pass.) cf. mehc-íne ‘he dies, is dead’ (Pass.) c. Téhpu=yaq qeni=l-ahké-hti-t 4tuhk-ol only=REPORT length=thus-throw-PROX.PL-3AN deer-OBV.SG 3 naka mace-luttiye-phuwá-n0-ya. and away-OBJURG-flee-N-PROX.PL ‘They just dropped the deer and ran the hell away.’ (Pass.; Newell 1974:5, retranscribed) cf. mace-phúwe ‘he runs away’ (Pass.) The way objurgative morphemes are inserted into verb stems may remind readers of the process of Expletive Insertion in English, analyzed by McCarthy (1982), which gives rise to forms like fan-fuckin-tastic. McCarthy proposed a morphological rule of Expletive Insertion for English that operates in terms of the prosodic structure of the word, inserting the expletive at the edge of a foot. The distribution of the objurgative morphemes of Maliseet-Passamaquoddy and Penobscot is not prosodically conditioned, however, but is entirely a matter of morphology: the position that an objurgative morpheme occupies within a stem is a function of a tightly organized system of stem structure. Moreover, we will see that the process by which objurgative forms are derived may not, in the end, involve insertion. It should be noted as well that Zonneveld (1984) has argued that English Expletive Insertion may better be analyzed as a language game rather than a rule of grammar. However this may be, the Algonquian process that concerns us here is unquestionably a grammatical phenomenon. The stems of Algonquian verbs typically have either a bipartite or a tripartite structure: they consist either of an initial component plus a final component, or of an initial, a medial, and a final (Bloomfield 1946, Goddard 1990). (The situation is complicated, however, by the fact that 4 components of any of these position classes may be internally complex.) The objurgative elements that appear within verb stems may be understood in these terms as belonging to the class of medials. When we look a little more carefully at the properties of objurgative formations, however, it turns out that things are not quite as simple as this. First, there can ordinarily be at most one medial in a verb stem (apart from cases involving compound medials or other internally complex components). But at least one of the objurgative morphemes of Maliseet-Passamaquoddy can freely cooccur with another medial, suggesting that these elements are not ordinary members of this class of components. Second, some objurgative formations (attested only in Maliseet- Passamaquoddy) appear to be derived not from simplex verb stems, but rather from compound stems consisting of a preverb plus a formally complete stem. The preverbs in question (like most preverbs) are themselves derivatives of components that may also appear as initials within verb stems. In a derived objurgative form of this type, the initial component of the underlying preverb- verb compound functions as an initial, and the stem of the underlying compound functions as a complex final. Thus these objurgative formations effectively masquerade as ordinary verb stems, even though they are based on compounds rather than on stems. This is a unique morphological construction, quite unlike anything else in the language. Objurgative forms of nouns are common in Maliseet-Passamquoddy, but are not securely attested in Penobscot. The Maliseet-Passamquodddy examples are interesting, since they appear to be derived not from the phonological underlying forms of nouns, but rather from their surface forms. In general, however, the nominal forms are much less varied than the corresponding 5 verbal forms, and only one objurgative morpheme is used in making these derivatives. Objurgative particles are also relatively restricted, but are attested in both languages. The objurgative forms of Maliseet-Passamaquoddy are used by both men and women. Their characteristic morphemes are regarded by contemporary speakers as having no literal meanings; but as we demonstrate, at least some of them have their origins in off-color expressions. Presumably as a function of this etymology, objurgative forms are still regarded as potentially offensive language; and in the days when the language was still in active use among children such forms were regarded as inappropriate for their use. In contemporary Maliseet and Passamaquoddy, objurgatives continue to serve a variety of functions. They are often used to express anger or annoyance, but frequently it is not the speaker’s attitude but that of one of the participants in the situation that the speaker describes that an objurgative serves to signal. As verbal intensifiers, these morphemes may also be used to indicate that the action or state named by the verb is itself intense or extreme. For this reason, objurgative forms are a useful device in story-telling. Finally, objurgative forms can be used as a humorous device to signal approval or as a sign of the closeness of the relationship between individuals. Below we first analyze the formation of objurgatives of various categories, focusing on their morphologically interesting properties. We then turn to the question of the functions that these forms serve. Finally, we consider objurgative formations from a comparative point of view, showing that the semantically empty character of the objurgative morphemes is the result of bleaching. 6 2. Objurgative verb forms in Maliseet-Passamaquoddy The objurgative verb forms of Maliseet-Passamaquoddy, as we have already noted, may usually be described as derived from the corresponding nonobjurgative form by inserting one of several specialized morphemes into the stem of the verb as a medial. The most frequently encountered objurgative morphemes are -al4kittiye- and -4liqe-. These are illustrated in (3) and (4). (3) a. ’tawi=wol-ihpúksu know.how=good-taste-(3) ‘it (an.) is good eating (tastes good)’ (MPD) b. ’tawi=wol-al4kittiye-hpúksu know.how=good-OBJURG-taste-(3) ‘it (an.) is damn good eating’ (MPD) (4) a. n-mat-4n-óku-n (< /n-mat-4n-4ku-n/) 1-fight-by.hand-INV-N ‘he attacked me’ (Pass.) b. n-mat-4liqé-n-ku-n (< /n-mat-4liqe-4n-4ku-n/) 1-fight-OBJURG-by.hand-INV-N ‘the damn thing (a bee) attacked me’ (Pass.) 7 Note that the final -ihpuksu in (3a) (underlying /-hpuksi-/ plus the third-person suffix /-w/) begins with /i/. This is actually an epenthetic vowel, added to a consonant-initial final component after a nonsyllabic.
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