Menominee Preverbs as Functional Categories*
REBECCA SHIELDS University of Wisconsin-Madison [email protected]
This paper is one piece of a larger work exploring the proposal that Menominee preverbs occupy head positions in a functional hierarchy like that proposed in Cinque (1999). The behavior of several preverbs is considered in light of cross-linguistic properties of similar morphemes, in order to establish their categorial identity among the set of functional heads presumably supplied by UG.
PREVERBS AND ADVERBS Menominee has a number of morphemes, called “preverbs” in Algonquianist literature, which encode various meanings including modal, temporal, spatial, and aspectual. A given clause can have several such morphemes, which are often thought of as verbal prefixes because they occur between an agreement morpheme and the verbal stem.1 The position of preverbs in the Menominee verbal complex is shown in (1) below (numerous details about agreement omitted). Arguments and other expressions appear both to the left and right of this complex. (2) provides an example of a preverb in the preverb space. * I am sincerely grateful to elders Marie Floring, Lillian Nelson, Bill Penass, Lavina Shawano, Sarah Skubitz, and Tillie Zhuckkahosee for sharing their time and knowledge of Menominee. Thanks also to the Language and Culture Commission of the Menominee Nation for facilitating research and language preservation, and to the participants of the 36th Algonquian Conference for helpful comments. I am much indebted to Monica Macaulay and Marianne Milligan for their extensive support and encouragement. Examples in this paper are cited with the source in brackets. Data from published sources have the citation along with a page or line number. All other data are taken from elicitations conducted by the University of Wisconsin Menominee Language Project (UWMLP). Unpublished data from elicitation sessions I conducted are marked with elicitation number plus sentence number, e.g. [4.02] – the second elicited sentence from the fourth session. Unpublished data elicited by other linguists are cited by title of text and line or page number (if available). Examples are given in modern tribal orthography, meaning that data from published sources may have the original spelling modified. 1 However, there is evidence that preverbs do not form a phonological word with the verb stem in Algonquian languages: see for example Bloomfield (1962) for Menominee, Leavitt (1985) for Passamaquoddy-Malicite, and Russell (1999) for Cree. 2 (1) AGR-PREVERB1-PREVERB2-. . .-PREVERBn-V-AGR
preverb “space” (2) [11.101]
ne-kēs-anohkīm.
n- kēs- anohkī -m 1- PAST- work.AI -1/2 I was working.
As is well known, preverbs obligatorily occupy this space. For example, they cannot appear to the left of the preverbal agreement morpheme, as shown in (3).
(3) [11.102]
*kēs-netānohkīm.
kēs- n- anohkī -m PAST 1- work.AI -1/2
However, certain elements other than preverbs can also occur in the preverb space: some adverbial expressions, and, according to Bloomfield (1962) and Guile
2 Abbreviations used: 1/2 – first or second (local) person agreement, AGR – agreement, AI – animate intransitive, AN – animate, AOR – aorist, CONJ – conjunct order (i.e. embedded clause morphology), CPL – completive aspect, CTR – contrast marker, DNA – dependent (i.e. obligatorily possessed) noun animate, DNI – dependent noun inanimate, EPIS – epistemic, HAB – habitual, IC – initial change (morphological ablaut morpheme), II – inanimate intransitive, IMP – imperative, INCEP – inceptive aspect, INF – infinitive, INV – inverse theme sign, NEG – negation, NONREF – nonreferential subject, PL – plural, PRED – predicative, PROX – proximate, QUOT – quotative, SG – singular, SIMUL – simultaneous, TA – transitive animate, TH – theme sign, TI – transitive inanimate. Menominee parses and glosses created with the aid of a Toolbox parsing database created by Monica Macaulay and Marianne Milligan, based primarily on the morphological analysis of Bloomfield (1962). Glosses of some preverbs have been changed to fit the analysis proposed in this paper.
2 (2001), pronouns and certain locative expressions. These other expressions have a much freer distribution than preverbs. For example, adverbials may appear between the agreement prefix and the verb stem, to the left of the agreement prefix, to the left or right of a preverbal NP argument, or postverbally, as shown for ahpnenew ‘always’ below.
(4) [10.81]
nekēs-ahpnenew-anohkīm.
n- kēs- ahpnenew anohkī -m 1- PAST- always work.AI -1/2 I was always working. (5) [10.86]
ahpnenew nekēs-anohkīm.
ahpnenew n- kēs- anohkī -m always 1- PAST- work.AI -1/2 I was always working. (6) [1.08]
ahpnenew, nōhnq kēs-anohkīw.
ahpnenew n- ōhn kēs- anohkī -w always 1- father.DNA PAST- work.AI -3 My father was always working. (7) [1.10]
nōhnq kēs-anohkīw ahpnenew.
n- ōhn kēs- anohkī -w ahpnenew
1- father.DNA PAST- work.AI -3 always
3 In this work I therefore use syntactic distribution criteria to distinguish two distinct lexical categories: preverbs and adverbs. Preverbs obligatorily appear in the “preverb space,” between the preverbal agreement morpheme and the verb stem. Adverbs may appear in the preverb space, but may also precede or follow the verbal complex.3 The focus of this paper is limited to preverbs as defined in this way. Preverbs generally appear in a fixed position and relative order in the clause, they constitute a closed class, and their meanings are those typically identified as “functional” or grammatical as opposed to lexical. This paper begins an exploration of the hypothesis that Menominee preverbs are functional categories.
SEMANTICS OF SELECTED PREVERBS An extensive hierarchy of functional categories is argued to be universal in Cinque (1999). Cinque claims that Universal Grammar (UG) determines both the inventory of functional categories from which a language selects a subset to instantiate and the order of the projection of these categories in the clause. Before we can investigate the extent to which Menominee preverbs conform to this hierarchy, we first need to establish exactly what the preverbs mean. I consider only a small subset of preverbs in this paper, and argumentation is presented only for those cases where I believe the description in Bloomfield (1962)
3 This usage differs from that in Bloomfield (1962). Bloomfield assumes a single lexical category “particle,” which he further divides into various subcategories including “preverb particle” and “independent particle.” Any particle is considered an independent particle when it occurs outside the preverb space. A particle occurring inside the preverb space is analyzed as a preverb particle if it bears Initial Change or is immediately preceded by the agreement morpheme; otherwise a particle in this space is either a preverb particle or an “incorporated” independent particle. Bloomfield further subcategorizes preverb particles into preverbs of the first class and preverbs of the second class, primarily by morphophonological criteria. He also states that most preverbs of the first class do not have corresponding independent particles, while most preverbs of the second class do. Bloomfield’s view requires massive homophony in the Lexicon, with a very large number of preverb particles having homophonous entries as independent particles. My use of the term preverb as functional head corresponds roughly, but not exactly, to Bloomfield’s preverb of the first class.
4 must be changed or refined. To simplify the task, the discussion is limited almost exclusively to the interpretation of preverbs in matrix clauses. The case of embedded clauses is more complex, because interaction with preverbs in dominating clauses must be taken into account. In trying to identify the semantics of preverbs I draw on observations about the behavior of functional categories cross-linguistically. An important assumption underlies this method: that while variation in lexical morphemes is limited only by the human experience that makes such morphemes useful, yielding an essentially infinite number of possible lexical denotations, the inventory of possible functional morphemes is provided by UG, and is therefore small and highly constrained. It is thus fruitful to compare unrelated languages and to consider the question of whether two functional items are “the same thing.” If this assumption turns out to be false, an entirely different approach is required.
Interpretation of verbs with no preverb For the purposes of comparison, we should first consider how verbs are interpreted in the absence of aspectual or temporal preverbs. Such verbs can receive a variety of interpretations, including habitual/generic, present, and past. A future interpretation does not seem to be possible. The following sentences show examples of each of the possible interpretations. habitual/generic (8) [8.15]
ahpnenew mēkāhtowak.
ahpn new mēkāhti -w -ak always fight.with.each.other.AI -3 -PROX.PL They are always fighting.
5 (9) [2.44]
māwaw new anmok nōcpenhwak opōswwanan.
māwaw new anmw -ak all dog -PROX.PL
nōcpenh - -w -ak follow.TA -TA.DIR -3 -PROX.PL
o- posww -an -an 3- boss -OBV -PL All dogs follow their (own) boss. present (10) [8.21]
mēkāhtowak.
mēkāhti -w -ak fight.with.each.other.AI -3 -PROX.PL They're fighting (right now). (11) [9.47] Q: If you look out the window, and you see someone picking berries, what would you say to describe the situation?
A: nawēnw.
nawen -w gather.berries.AI -3 He's picking berries.
6 past (12) [2.05]
Mesn netkwah, kan 's nēwahkont.
Mesn n- N -Eko -w -ah kan Michael 1- say.so.to.TA -TA.INV -3 -3.SG NEG
as nēwahkon -t AOR be.very.hungry.AI -3.CONJ Michael told me that he’s not hungry. (13) [Bloomfield 1920-1949, The Bead Man, line 7]
nīs kīqsēhsan meyāhkiwwen.
nīsw kīqsēhs -an myāhkiw - -w -en two girl -OBV meet.TA -TA.DIR -3 -QUOT He met two girls. kēs: Past Tense Bloomfield (1962) describes the meaning of kēs as “completed, past.” Cook (2003) concludes based on textual data that this morpheme denotes completive aspect. In fact, as I show here kēs does not have any of the properties of completive or perfective aspect. Rather, it shifts interpretation to a time prior to some other time (typically speech time in a matrix clause), consistent with the meaning of Past Tense posited in e.g. Enç (1987). I present several ways in which kēs does not behave like a completive aspect.4 First, completive aspect delimits an event (the viewpoint includes the endpoints of the event) (Smith 1997). It is therefore ungrammatical to continue a sentence with a
4 See James (1982) for arguments that the Cree cognate of kēs is likewise a Past Tense rather than a perfective aspect morpheme.
7 completive verb with an assertion that the event still continues. Compare the Russian example (and its English translation) below with the Menominee example: in English and Menominee the continuation is possible, but in Russian it is possible only if the initial sentence has an imperfective verb, as in (14a).
(14) Russian a. Oni side-l -i v parke vchera, (i do six por tam sid-jat). they sit -PAST-PL in park yesterday, and to these times there sit-3PL ‘They sat in the park yesterday, (and they’re still sitting there).’ b. Oni po- side-l -i v parke vchera, (*i do six por tam sid-jat). they PFV-sit -PAST-PL in park yesterday, and to these times there sit-3PL ‘They sat for a while in the park yesterday, (*and they’re still sitting there).’ (15) [10.52] kēs-aptw, (meciw new aptw). kēs- apt -w meciw new PAST- be.warm.II -3 still
apt -w be.warm.II -3 It was warm, and it's still warm.
Second, cross-linguistically completive and perfective aspect markers are incompatible with a stative interpretation (Smith 1997). This is because the stative interpretation requires a non-delimited event, whereas a completive verb denotes a delimited event. If a language with a completive/perfective aspect marker allows it to occur on stative verbs, the result is a change-of-state event verb. The following Russian and Chinese examples illustrate this phenomenon; compare the addition of the Past
8 Tense morpheme to a stative verb in Russian and in English, which simply yields a past stative interpretation.
(16) a. On zna -et. Russian: Completive + stative = change of state he know-3sg ‘he knows’ b. On u- zna -et. he CPL-know-3sg ‘he will find out (NOT: he has known/he knew)’ (17) a. ta gao. Chinese (Comrie 1976): Pfv + stative = change of state 3sg tall. ‘he or she is tall.’ b. ta gao-le. 3sg tall- PFV ‘he or she became tall (NOT: he or she was tall)’ (18) a. On zna -et. Russian: Past + stative = past state he know-3sg ‘he knows’ b. On zna -l. he know-PAST ‘he knew’ (19) a. He knows/He is tall. English: Past + stative = past state b. He knew/He was tall.
Menominee kēs patterns with the Past Tense morphemes in this respect; when added to a stative verb, the result is a past state, not a change of state.
9 (20) [9.21] Menominee: kēs + stative = past state
kēs-aptw nēk.
kēs- apt -w n- ēk PAST- be.warm.II -3 1- house.DNI It was warm in my house. (NOT: It became warm or it stopped being warm) (21) [Bill’s Life Story, line 2]
taq whcetaw new aphnīhsh pepēhsh nekēs-āwem.
taq whcetaw new aphnīhs ppēhs well really CTR boy baby
n- kēs- āwe -m 1- PAST- be.AI -1/2 Well, I was really a little boy (NOT: I became a little boy).
Finally, completive and perfective forms are typically used to refer to both past and future delimited events (Smith 1997). See the Russian example (16b), which shows a completive aspect marker on a non-past verb that yields a future reading. In Menominee, however, kēs is incompatible with a future reading in matrix clauses – it always yields a past interpretation (22).5 In embedded clauses, if a dominating clause shifts interpretation to a future time, kēs can denote a time anterior to this time, which may in fact be in the future of speech time (23), but this is of course exactly the behavior we expect from a Past Tense morpheme (Enç 1987).
5 When it occurs in the same clause with a future shifting morpheme, the interpretation involves both a shift to the future and a shift to the past. See the discussion of katw below.
10 (22) [9.10]
kēs-onīkwak.
kēs- onik -w -ak PAST- build.house.AI -3 -PROX.PL They built a house. (NOT: they will build a house) (23) [Bloomfield 1928, The Red Swan, lines 304-307] Kēs-pōset, […] enehpeh aw-pahksamah. kēs- pōse -t PAST- ride.in.vessel.AI -3.CONJ
enehpeh aw- pahkEs -am -ahk then IRR- cut.off.TI -TI.TH -1PL.CONJ When he has ridden in the basket, […] then we’ll cut it off.
All the evidence therefore points to an analysis of kēs as Past Tense, not as completive or perfective aspect. One more point about past interpretations in Menominee: as mentioned above, a past interpretation is possible even on verbs that lack a preverb (12, 13). This apparent optionality of kēs is not in fact as strange as it seems; compare for example the use of English bare verbs known as “historical present”:
(24) So I walk into this bar the other day, and this guy comes up to me and says…
Historical present in English may be a stylistic device, but it is clearly a grammatical way of referring to past times in pragmatically constrained contexts. I suggest that what accounts for the availability of the past interpretation in (12), (13), and (24) is that the
11 reference time6 of the matrix clause is some contextually salient past time, rather than the default speech time. Therefore no tense is needed to shift interpretation into the past.7 The option of identifying the reference time of a matrix clause with a past time rather than with speech time is obviously contextually constrained. On my proposal the difference between English and Menominee lies in variation of these contextual constraints, not in the denotation of Past Tense itself. Bare verb past interpretations are more widespread in Menominee because Menominee allows the matrix reference time to be identified with a past time in more contexts and speech genres than does English. Finally, note that the lack of a future reading with kēs is predicted given the asymmetry in bare verb interpretations noted in section 2.1.1: the reference time of a matrix clause cannot, for some reason, be a future time under any circumstances, and therefore a Past Tense in a matrix clause can’t shift to the past of a future time. cew: epistemic modal Bloomfield (1962) describes the meaning of this morpheme as follows: “‘might, ought to, must, is said to’, means that the speaker does not certify actual occurrence, but views it as probable.” In fact, the meaning of cew is more restricted than this characterization suggests; it does not have the full range of meanings of English might, must, and ought to, and it is used in only a subset of situations where “the speaker does not certify actual occurrence.” Furthermore, cew may indicate either that the speaker views the assertion as probable or necessary. Cew always has an epistemic modality, i.e. it indicates that the assertion contained in the utterance was deduced as true based on some domain of knowledge of the world. It does not have the deontic interpretation of must or ought to, i.e. universal quantification over worlds that conform to a requirement of some societal or religious code. In other words, cew corresponds to the must or may in There’s a light on, so
6 i.e. the time in C in the theory of Enç (1987). 7 It is still mysterious why English allows a bare verb in this context, however, rather than the progressive form, which is generally what English requires for identification with the reference time.
12 somebody must/may be home, but not in According to the law, you must/may park here. The use of cew was also rejected by speakers in non-epistemic reported speech contexts, even though here too “actual occurrence” cannot be certified. Cew therefore does not simply indicate that the speaker views the occurrence as probable or possible, but gives information about the source of this view – deduction according to the laws of some domain of knowledge. Interestingly, it can have either universal or existential force. In other words, it can indicate that the speaker views the truth of the proposition as necessary (like English must or ought to) or possible (like English might or may). This can be seen in the following examples.
(25) [8.01] ce-kēs-mācīw. cew- kēs- mācyā -w EPIS- PAST- go.away.AI -3 He must have left; perhaps he left; he might have left. (26) [9.01] Q: Suppose Ron is in the room. You leave the room to go make a phone call. When you get back, Ron is not there. How would you say “He must have left?” ce-kēs-mācīw. cew- kēs- mācyā -w EPIS- PAST- go.away.AI -3 He must have left. (27) [9.04] Q: Same situation. How would you say "He may have gone home. Or maybe he just went outside."?
(kanapac) ce-kēs-esīw akuaceh, kh men new kotqnas ce-kēs-esīw.
kanapac cew- kēs- syā -w akwāceh
13 maybe EPIS- PAST- go.thither.AI -3 outside
khmen new kotqnas cew- kēs- syā -w or somewhere EPIS- PAST- go.thither.AI -3 Maybe he went outside, or maybe he went somewhere else.
Speakers identified the sentence in (25) as ambiguous: it can mean either that the person in question must have left or might have left. The situations in (26) and (27) are designed to force a universal and an existential interpretation, respectively. Cew is indeed possible in both situations. I will therefore assume that there are two homophonous cews in Menominee: one universal epistemic modal and one existential.8 mk – simultaneous interpretation
Bloomfield (1962) says of mk that it means “action under way.” This suggests that it may be a progressive morpheme, like English -ing. Indeed, when mk occurs on a verb, it is always translated into English with a progressive.
(28) [The Farmer and the Visitor, line 8]
eneq 's mk-anohkīt enoh nekot
enew -q as mk- anohkī -t enoh nkotw that.INAN.PRED -INDIC AOR SIMUL-work.AI -3.CONJ that.AN one That's where that one was working.
8 Alternatively, there may be one epistemic modal in the lexicon with underspecified quantificational force. This situation is unusual in human language to my knowledge: many languages appear to be like English in having one lexical item (like must) which quantifies universally but may have varying modalities, and another (like may) which quantifies existentially.
14 (29) [UWMLP]
pkwasekan mk-mīcwah.
pkwasekan mk- mēc -w -ah cooked.squash SIMUL- eat.TI3 -3 -3.SG He or she is eating the cooked squash.
However, the distribution of mk does not match that of the progressive. Mk is often (but not always) used when the time of interpretation includes the present, or the time of interpretation of another clause; for this reason I call mk a “simultaneous interpretation” morpheme. But as will be seen below, the conditions of its occurrence are not entirely clear. At the moment I have nothing positive to suggest beyond ruling out the progressive. One possibility is that at an earlier stage in the development of the language mk was a true progressive, but is now in the midst of undergoing a transformation to another type of category. Let us begin by considering how mk is different from a progressive. First, if a language has a progressive morpheme, it may not be used with a stative verb (Comrie 1976, Smith 1997). Thus English she is thinking but *she is knowing. It has been suggested that this is because the progressive derives a non-delimited verb from a delimited one, and stative verbs do not meet the input specification for the progressive because they are already non-delimited. But Menominee mk occurs on all types of verbs, including statives like the next two examples:
(30) [9.49]
mk-tahkīw.
mk- tahkī -w SIMUL- be.cool.II -3
15 It is cool. (31) [Bill’s Life Story, line 1]
nahāw eneq nkōts nāqs th ‘s mk-aphnīhseweyan. . .
nahāw enew -q nkots nāqs th well.then then.PRED -INDIC at.one.time may.it.be and
as mk- aphnīhsēwe -an AOR SIMUL- be.a.boy.AI -1/2.SG.CONJ Well, then, once when I was a boy. . .
Second, it has been observed that languages tend to have either a progressive morpheme (which can be added to non-stative verbs to yield a present reading), or a morphologically unmarked imperfective (which yields a present reading for all verb types) (Smith 1997). English is a language of the progressive type, while French and Russian do not have a progressive and are of the imperfective type. In other words, if a language has a progressive, it is required for the present reading. Only languages which lack a progressive allow a present reading on an unmarked verb. As mentioned above, aspectually unmarked verbs can in fact get a present reading in Menominee. Compare the habitual interpretation of the English She picks berries with the Menominee examples (10) and (11) above. In light of this it seems incorrect to identify mk as a progressive, given that functional/inflectional categories are not generally known to have optional spell-out. A third property of the progressive is that it is required for the overlapping event reading, in languages that have a progressive. This can be viewed as essentially the same property as the one just discussed: if a language has a progressive morpheme, its presence is required for the interpretation time of the clause to be simultaneous with the reference time. Compare for example the Russian sentence below, where an overlapping
16 event reading is possible with an aspectually bare verb, and the English equivalent, where the overlapping reading is only possible with the progressive -ing.
(32) Vanja e -l, kogda ja vo- she-l. Vanja eat-PAST, when I in.PFV-go-PAST ‘Vanja was eating when I walked in.’ (33) a. John ate when I walked in. (Sequential reading only: first I walked in, then he ate) b. John was eating there when I walked in. (Overlapping reading only: he was in the process of eating when I walked in)
Menominee once again patterns with the non-progressive languages here: an overlapping reading is possible without mk.
(34) [9.22-23]
tahnnoh pepōn kēs-esīqtawakuaq, kēs-(mk-)ahpnenew-nawēnwak.
tahnnoh pponw every.time.LOC year
kēs- sīqtaw -ak -wāw PAST- visit.TA -PROX.PL -3.PL.CONJ
kēs- (mk-) ahpnenew nawen -w -ak PAST- (SIMUL-) always gather.berries.AI -3 -PROX.PL Whenever I went to visit them, they were always picking berries.
17 (35) [Bloomfield 1920-1949, The Bead Man, lines 5-6] nekōts new mamāceqtawak 's nīmihtituaq, enewen siat sekēmh. nkots new mamāceqtaw-ak as nīmihti -t -wāw one.time CTR Indian -PROX.PL AOR dance.together.AI-3.CONJ-3.PL
enew -en syā ay- -t sekēmhs there.PRED -QUOT go.thither.AI IC- -3.CONJ diver.duck One time while the Indians were dancing, diver duck went there.
Sentence (34) was judged to be grammatical and to have the same meaning with or without mk. The context of the story from which (35) was taken makes it clear that an overlapping reading is intended: diver duck’s arrival occurs in the midst of the Indians’ dancing. Bloomfield’s (1928) texts contain other similar examples as well. The fact that mk is not required for the present reading or the overlapping event reading indicates that it is not a progressive. Nevertheless, mk is often used in sentences which have these readings, and when it is used the result is always the undelimited reading we would expect from a progressive. I suggest therefore that mk is a morpheme indicating that the interpretation time of the clause includes some other relevant time (either speech time or the time of an embedded or dominating clause). It thus disambiguates between the habitual and present readings that would be possible for a bare matrix verb, and between the sequential and overlapping readings that would be possible for a bare embedded verb. One final piece of data concerning this morpheme: for one elicited sentence speakers found mk to be required.
18 (36) [9.45]
Mesn sewas mk-apēw 's pīhtikian.
Mesn sewas mk- ape -w as Michael already SIMUL- sit.AI -3 AOR
pēhtik -an go.into.a.place.AI -1/2.SG.CONJ Michael was already sitting there when I came in. (37) [9.46]
*Mesn sewas apēw 's pīhtikian.
Mesn sewas ape -w as Michael already sit.AI -3 AOR
pēhtik -an go.into.a.place.AI -1/2.SG.CONJ *Michael already sat there when I came in.
This is true even though the verb apēw, like other verbs in Menominee, can receive a present interpretation without mk:
(38) [WMLP] nāh! apēw enoh kahkīk. nāh! ape -w enoh kahkīk look! sit.AI -3.SG that.AN chipmunk Look! The chipmunk is sitting there.
19 It is not clear to me why mk should be obligatory in (36) but optional in sentences like (34) and (35). It is possible that the presence of sewas ‘already’ has something to do with it, but further research is clearly needed to understand the distribution of this morpheme. aw: irrealis, katw: ‘going to’ future In this section I will consider two morphemes together, because it is useful to compare and contrast them. These are morphemes that have both been claimed to entail a future interpretation. Bloomfield (1962) says of aw that it means “‘will, shall, going to’ denotes a future event, without regard to an inner impulse.” His definition of katw is “‘intend to, want to, going to’ […] denotes that the actor […] has an inner tendency to the action which he will presumably carry out.” Both morphemes indeed often shift interpretation to the future, and katw is often used when an actor’s desire or “inner tendency” is involved in determining the future.
(39) [8.9] aw-mācīw. aw- mācyā -w IRR- go.away.AI -3 He will leave. (40) [8.30]
katw-mianāceqtawak.
katw- myānāceqtā -w -ak going.to- play.AI -3 -PROX.PL They're gonna play.
20 (41) [Bloomfield 1928, Boy Blessed by Mosquitoes line 105]
[. . .] katw-nweyan, kena-nwem.
katw- nw -e -an going.to- see.TA -TA.1.ACC -1/2.SG.CONJ
k- aw- nw -e -m 2- IRR- see.TA -TA.1.ACC -1/2 [if ever] you want to see me, you will see me.
But two refinements to these observations are necessary. First, aw does not always shift to the future, as Bloomfield himself notes. When combined with Past Tense, aw yields “uncertain past events,” as Bloomfield puts it.
(42) [9.32]
netowak 's aw-kēs-pītōk kkōh. netowak as I.wonder.PRED AOR
aw- kēs- pīt -ō -k kkōh IRR- PAST- bring.TI2 -TI2.TH -3.CONJ something I wonder if she brought me something. (43) [9.37]
nekēs-nōhtān Mānīh 's aw-kēs-anēhewt.
n- kēs- nōht -ā -n mānīh as 1- PAST- hear.TI1 -TI1.TH -LCL.TI Marie AOR
21 aw- kēs- anehew -t IRR- PAST- win.from.people.AI -3.CONJ I heard that Marie might have won.
If aw were the equivalent of English will, we would expect (42) to mean something like ‘I wonder if she will have brought me something’ – a shift to the future followed by a shift to the past. However, there is no shift to the future in (42-43) at all. Rather, native speakers explain that these sentences differ from their counterparts without aw only in that with aw “you’re making it doubtful.” This morpheme is therefore probably best described as an irrealis marker, as in Cook (2003). Unfortunately the term “irrealis” is used in various ways, and I am not aware of a rigorous semantic definition of it or of specific behaviors that distinguish it from evidentials and other types of modals. The intuitive idea is that an irrealis morpheme indicates a low degree of certainty (or a lack of commitment to any degree of certainty) on the part of the speaker with respect to the truth of the assertion (in any world). Statements about future events, since their truth is in principle unknowable, therefore often include an irrealis marker. Irrealis markers do not entail a shift to the future, however. The important conclusion for the current discussion is that it is not necessary to posit lexical ambiguity for aw: one ‘future’ and one ‘doubt.’ Aw is in fact neither a Tense morpheme nor a future-shifting modal like English will. Aw can be viewed as making a consistent “irrealis” contribution to the semantics of sentences like (39) and (42).9 The use of aw together with kēs appears to have limited distribution. All textual and elicited examples I am aware of with this combination are in clauses embedded under intensional verbs, such as ‘wonder’ and ‘hear’ in the examples above. Furthermore, speakers rejected the combination in the absence of the embedding verb, as in the following sentence: 9 Costa (2002) arrives at a similar conclusion for the Shawnee preverb -ih-.
22 (44) [8.33-34]
kkōh (*aw-)kēs-pītōq?
kkōh aw- kēs- pīt -ō -q
something IRR- PAST- bring.TI2 -TI2.TH -INT
Did she bring me something?
Katw, unlike aw, does always shift to the future. This can be seen in the following examples, where it co-occurs with Past Tense:10
(45) [Bloomfield 1962, p 217]
kēs-katw-nātamoww.
kēs- katw- nātamow - -w PAST- going.to- help.TA -TA.DIR -3 He had meant to help him. (46) [Bloomfield 1962, p 217]
kēspen kat kēs-katw-mamātāweqtah.
kēspen kat kēs- katw- mamātāweqta -hk if NEG PAST- going.to- perform.marvelous.action.AI-AI.NONREF.CONJ If there had not been a theatrical performance planned.
Both of these examples show a shift to the past, followed by a shift to the future, just as in English He was going to…. This is unlike the case of aw just discussed, which does not shift to the future when combined with Past Tense. Unlike aw, katw is
10 Only textual examples are given in support of this claim. Native speakers I consulted rejected sentences with combinations of katw and kēs in either order. It is not clear to me if this is simply because the sentences presented were otherwise degraded, or if the language has changed since Bloomfield collected his data in the 1920s. The argument that katw always shifts to the future therefore relies crucially on textual examples, but the claim is consistent with all elicited examples as well.
23 therefore a consistently future-shifting morpheme.
However, katw does not always involve intention, desire, or the “inner tendency” of an actor. First, as Bloomfield noted, it can be used to talk about things like the weather, which have no volitional component.
(47) [10.3]
kanapac katw-tahkīw wāpah.
kanapac katw- tahkī -w wāpan -k maybe going.to- be.cool.II -3 be.day.II -3.CONJ Maybe it’s going to be cool tomorrow. (48) [Bloomfield 1962, p 217]
katw-kemēwan
katw- kemewan -w going.to- rain.II -3 It’s going to rain.
It can also be used with other impersonal verbs that take non-referential subjects, such as ‘happen’ in the following example.
(49) [The Farmer & the Visitor, line 26]
eneq saqyh kkōh macēq kkōh 's katw-sekemakah.
enew -q saqyh kkōh maceq kkōh then.PRED -INDIC now something bad something
24 as katw- sekemakat ay- -k AOR going.to- happen.II IC- -3.CONJ Something bad is going to happen.
Clearly, katw does not require any particular properties on the part of an actor, since it can be used with verbs which have no actor argument. These apparently different meanings of katw (‘intend to, want to’ and ‘going to’) are in fact quite similar to the range of meanings for English going to. Note that going to, in contrast to will, often has something of a volitional component, and can be used when declaring intentions that are at present certain. In a context where someone is communicating their previous decision to attend a party, for example, I’m going to go is much more natural than I’ll go. I’ll go, on the other hand, would be more natural if the person in question was not previously planning to go, but has just been talked into going by a friend, or has just at this moment decided to attend. Going to, like katw, can also be used with impersonal predicates where no intention is involved, as in it’s going to rain. In contexts where we have some evidence that it is in fact going to rain (for example a weather report predicting rain, or dark storm clouds), it’s going to rain tomorrow is much more natural than it will rain tomorrow. In Menominee, katw is preferred in similar contexts:
(50) [10.1] Q: Suppose you hear the weather report on TV. It says it will be cool tomorrow. You report this news to your friend.
25 A: Eneq tam enakah eneh mahkāh 's katw-tahkīk wāpah.
enew -q that.INAN.PRED -INDIC
ay- t -am enakah IC- say.X.so.TI1 -TI1.TH over.that.way
eneh mahkahkw as katw- tahkī -k that.INAN box AOR going.to- be.cool.II -3.CONJ
wāpan -k be.day.II -3.CONJ That's what the box said, that it's gonna be cool tomorrow.
Speakers judged the equivalent of (50) with aw instead of katw to be ungrammatical.
The following minimal pair also brings out this difference between aw and katw.
(51) [10.13]
Wāpah nqniw tepāhekan nenaw-awēh-mōnahekm.
wāpan -k nqniw tpahekan be.day.II -3.CONJ three hour
n- aw- aweh- mōnahek -m 1- IRR- go.off.to.perform.action- work.in.garden.AI -1/2 Tomorrow at 3:00 I may be going to work in the garden.
26 (52) [10.16]
Wāpah nqniw tepāhekan nekātaw-awēh-mōnahekm.
wāpan -k nqniw tpahekan be.day.II -3.CONJ three hour
n- katw- aweh- mōnahek -m 1- going.to- go.off.to.perform.action- work.in.garden.AI -1/2 Tomorrow at 3:00 I'm going to work in the garden (definitely).
I therefore propose that katw is a future-shifting morpheme that requires that the future event has a sufficient degree of certainty, similar to English going to. The judgment of certainty may be based on various types of information, including but not limited to an actor’s known intentions or desires. Much more work needs to be done to understand the semantics of aw and katw (as well as will and going to). For now, we have established that katw is a future-shifting modal like going to, while aw is an irrealis marker which is compatible with but does not necessitate a shift to the future.
Additional preverbs For the remaining preverbs presented here, I essentially agree with the characterization of their semantics given in Bloomfield (1962). I give below a brief restatement of this characterization without further argument, along with some representative examples. For some of the following morphemes, there is little information about the cross- linguistic behavior of similar items.
27 kew: habitual aspect (a pattern that holds consistently over an interval – Smith 1997) (53) [8.47] kew-yāh-pīwak. kew- yāh- pyā -w -ak HAB- back- come.AI -3 -PROX.PL They keep coming back. (54) [8.71] kew-mēcehsowak. kew- mēcehsi -w -ak HAB- eat.AI -3 -PROX.PL They eat (every time, e.g. after a funeral). (55) [8.73]
kew-mk-mēcehsowak.
kew- mk- mēcehsi -w -ak HAB- engaged.in- eat.AI -3 -PROX.PL They would be eating (e.g. every time I went to see them). (56) [8.103] kew-awēh-anāmehāw. kew- aweh- anamehā -w HAB- go.off.to.perform.action- go.to.church.AI -3 She goes to church regularly/often. anīh: completive aspect (a delimited event with focus on the endpoint, ‘finish’) (57) [8.130] anīh-anāmehāwak. anīh- anamehā -w -ak
28 CPL- pray.AI -3 -PROX.PL They're finished praying. (58) [8.148]
nekēs-anīh-awēh-anohkīm.
n- kēs- anīh- 1- PAST- CPL-
aweh- anohkī -m go.off.to.perform.action-work.AI -1/2 I finished going to work, stopped. (59) [8.133] aw-anīh-anāmehāwak. aw- anīh- anamehā -w -ak will- CPL- pray.AI -3 -PROX.PL They will be finished praying. (60) [Bloomfield 1928, Sweet Root line 77] taq, kayēs-anīh-ackīt… taq ay- kēs- anīh- aki -t well IC- PAST- CPL- be.tired.AI -3.CONJ When his weariness had gone, … awēh: distantive (‘go off and do X’) (61) [8.93]
awēh-nēpowenon enes wīhkikn.
aweh- nēpowe -n -on enes go.off.to.perform.action-stand.AI -2SG.IMP -IMP there
29 wīhkikn make.a.corner.II Go stand in that corner.
(62) [8.35] awēh-mianāceqtawak. aweh- myānāceqtā -w -ak go.off.to.perform.action-play.AI -3 -PROX.PL They're going out to play. wp: inceptive aspect (a delimited event with focus on the entry point, ‘start, begin’) (63) [8.112]
wp-anohkīw.
wp- anohkī -w INCEP- work.AI -3 He's starting to work. (64) [8.121]
katw-wp-anāmehāwak.
katw- wp- anamehā -w -ak going.to- INCEP- pray.AI -3 -PROX.PL They're going to start to pray.
30 yāh: repetitive aspect (repeated or reverse traversal of a temporal or spatial path, ‘again, back’) (65) [8.44]
yāh-etah.
yāh- t -am -h again- say.so.TI1.FO -TI1.TH -2.SG.IMP Say it again. (66) [8.79] yāh-mēcehsowak. yāh- mēcehsi -w -ak again- eat.AI -3 -PROX.PL They're eating again. (67) [8.10] yāh-mācīw. yāh- mācyā -w back- go.away.AI -3 He went back. (68) [8.45] yāh-aqtōh. yāh- aqt -ō -h back- place.TI2 -TI2.TH -2.SG.IMP Put it back.
BIBLIOGRAPHY Bloomfield, Leonard. 1920-1949. Leonard Bloomfield Papers. National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution, Washington.
31 Bloomfield, Leonard. 1928. Menomini texts. Publications of the American Ethnological Society 12, New York. Bloomfield, Leonard. 1962. The Menomini language, ed. by Charles F. Hockett. New Haven: Yale University Press. Cinque, Guglielmo. 1999. Adverbs and functional heads. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Comrie, Bernard. 1976. Aspect. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cook, Clare. 2003. A semantic classification of Menominee preverbs. Papers of the 34th Algonquian Conference, ed. by H.C. Wolfart, pp. 35-56. Winnipeg: University of Manitoba. Costa, David J. 2002. Preverb usage in Shawnee narratives. Papers of the 33rd Algonquian Conference, ed. by H.C. Wolfart, pp. 120-161. Winnipeg: University of Manitoba. Dahlstrom, Amy. 2000. Morphosyntactic mismatches in Algonquian: affixal predicates and discontinuous verbs. CLS 36: The panels, pp. 63-87. Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society. Enç, Mürvet. 1987. Anchoring conditions for tense. Linguistic Inquiry 19:633-657. Guile, Timothy. 2001. Sketch of Menominee grammar. An anthology of Menominee sayings, with translations, annotations and grammatical sketch, pp. 452-501. München: LINCOM Europa. James, Deborah. 1982. Past tense, imperfective aspect, and irreality in Cree. Papers of the 13th Algonquian Conference, ed. by William Cowan, pp. 143-160. Ottawa: Carleton University. Leavitt, Robert M. 1985. Passamaquoddy-Malicite preverbs. Papers of the 16th Algonquian Conference, ed. by William Cowan, pp. 73-90. Ottawa: Carleton University.
32 Russell, Kevin. 1999. The “word” in two polysynthetic languages. Studies on the phonological word, ed. by T. Alan Hall and Ursula Kleinhenz, pp. 203-221. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Smith, Carlota. 1997. The parameter of aspect. Dordrecht: Kluwer.
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