219

EMERGING RULES IN NORTH WEST RIVER (SHESHA:TSHI:T) MONTAGNAIS Sandra Clarke and Marguerite MacKenzie Memorial University of Newfoundland I. BACKGROUND

In a recent article, Ford et al. (1980) classify North West River Montagnais (henceforth NWRM) or Shesha:tshi:t Montagnais1 as a dialect of Ua:sha:u innu comprising Seven Islands, Schefferville and Maliotenam Montagnais. In other words, NWRM would be most clearly affiliated with the Montagnais subgroup known as Moisie. A closer examination of both phonological and morphological features of NWRM, however, reveals this dialect to be more closely aligned with Lower North Shore Montagnais (henceforth LNSM), comprising the dialects of Mingan, Natashquan, La Romaine and St. Augustin, than it is with the Montagnais of Seven Islands and Schefferville. Among the vocalic features shared by NWRM and LNSM are the fol­ lowing:2 (1) A tendency to retain word initial Proto-Algonquian */ua/ (ty­ pically pronounced [wa] or [WA]) rather than development to /u/ through assimilation of /a/ to /u/ (contrast Seven Islands /ucu/ 'mountain' with North West River /uacu/ [wajo]).

(2) A tendency to retain word-final /au/ rather than simplification to /u/ as in Moisie (contrast Moisie /neku/ [nego] 'sand' with the ty­ pical NWRM form /nekau/ [negaw]).

1 Much of the data used in this project was collected in North West River by Janet Kergoat, with the financial support of a Northern Scientific Training Grant.

2 The transcription used in this article to represent Montagnais shares certain features with the orthography developed for Moisie Montagnais by Jose Mailhot (Mailhot and Lescop 1977). The most obvious of these shared features are: the use of /u/ and /i/ rather than /w/ and /y/ for high back and high front semi-con­ sonants; the use of vowel length markers to represent what today are essentially qualitative rather than quantitative features; the differentiation of short /a/ and short I'll even though these two vowels seem to have been largely neutralized in NWRM; and the representation of syncopated short vowels. Further details on the phonetic processes characterizing NWRM may be found in MacKenzie (1980), and Clarke (Forthcoming). Where appropriate, phonetic transcriptions of lexical items are provided in square brackets: [ ]. Slant lines / / are used for underlying phonological repre­ sentations, as well as for our essentially but not entirely phonemic transcription. 220 Sandra Clarke and Marguerite MacKenzie

(3) Lengthening of short vowels before original pre-aspirated stop clusters: /ua:pa:tam/ 'he sees it' from earlier /ua:pahtam/, or /pimu:- teu/ 'he walks' from earlier /pimuhteu/.

(4) Blocking of this vowel lengthening rule in the environment /n-ht/, i.e., between the homorganic stops /n/ and /t/: /minuenitam/ 'he likes it' from earlier /minuenihtam/.

Among the consonantal features shared are the following:

(5) A tendency to change /§/ -*• /h/ in intervocalic and final po­ sition: the pronunciation of /si:si:p/ 'duck' as [sihip], and of /sa:§/ 'already' as [sa:h].

(6) Fricativization for some speakers of the original pre-aspirated clusters /hk/ as [x] and /hp/ as [f] in word-final position.3

Some morphological features shared by the two dialects are:

(7) Retention of final short vowels that serve as morphological markers, notable the /-a/ of the inanimate plural—that is, no loss of such markers with compensatory segmental and suprasegmental (particularly tonal) features, as is found in Seven Islands and Schef­ ferville Montagnais.

(8) Innovation of /-k/ as a conjunct suffix of II n-stem verbs: /apu: cimua:k/'it isn't raining'.

(9) Independent preterit singular forms generally in /-V(h)/ rather than /-Vti/as in Moisie Montagnais (contrast NWRM /niua:pama:(h)/ 'I saw him' with Moisie /niua:pama:ti/.

A number of features are clearly shared, of course, by NWRM and Moisie Montagnais. Yet these are much fewer in number, and include:

(10) The raising of /a/ before /i/ to /e/: NWRM /sa:keikan/ 'lake',

3 Since many younger speakers regularly produce word-final stops rather than fricatives in such instances, it is quite possible that the spread of the fricativiza­ tion rule has been blocked in NWRM by a competing rule, namely the loss of pre-aspiration in /h/ plus consonant sequences. The fricativization rule, inciden­ tally, is extremely widespread in the Naskapi (i.e., Davis Inlet and Schefferville) dialects to the north, where it appears to have originated. In these northern dia­ lects it has spread to intervocalic as well as word-final position (see MacKenzie 1980 for further details). North West River Montagnais 221

/meikan/ 'wolf'.4

(11) Procope, or loss of initial short vowels: /aku:p/ 'dress, coat' is regularly pronounced [gop], and /iskuess/ 'girl' is pronounced [skwes].5

(12) Extensive neutralization of the short vowels /i/ and /a/, and occasionally /u/: /amisku/ 'beaver' and /masku/ 'bear' would both regularly be pronounced [maskw].

(13) Complete depalatalization of the cluster /sc/ and the sequence /c(i)s/ to /ss/: NWRM /assi:/ 'land', /massin/ 'shoe'.

NWRM, then, seems to be more closely aligned with the LNSM than with the Moisie dialects of Montagnais. In actual fact, however, most of the features mentioned above as evidence of the relation­ ships between NWRM and other Montagnais dialects are variable in NWRM. Such a situation should not be surprising, given that even if NWRM is most closely affiliated with LNSM dialects, many of its speakers have had a degree of contact with Moisie speakers. For the traditional hunting lifestyle meant that people spent their time far inland, so that many present-day NWR families would in fact have wintered in areas far to the west of the present-day community—that is, in areas neighbouring those of the Moisie speakers. As such, they would have been subject to influences from Moisie Montagnais, which in turn has been affected by a wave of change spreading from Bersimis in the southwest (e.g., loss of pre-aspiration, procope—see Figure 1.) At the same time, change has spread to NWRM from the so-called Naskapi dialects of Davis Inlet and Schefferville to the north (e.g., vowel lengthening before pre-aspirated stops, fricativi­ zation of original pre-aspirated stops). Perhaps as a result of its position in the path of waves of change spreading from these two different directions, NWRM appears to be more conservative than are the closely-related LNSM dialects to the south. Thus while the /s/ -» /h/ rule mentioned in (5) above has clearly spread to younger LNSM speakers, it is still variable—and for some speakers fairly infrequent—for NWRM speakers in their teens and early twenties. Such speakers are quite capable of restoring /§/

4This raising rule is also to be found in the Naskapi dialects to the north. 5 Certain words in initial short /i/, however, seem to have undergone a tensing or lengthening of this initial vowel. Further details on this phenomenon as it applies to the Bersimis dialect are to be found in Drapeau (1981). 222 Sandra Clarke and Marguerite MacKenzie

FIGURE I

DAVIS INLET

LA ROMAINE

1) wa > u/# 2) hC> fricative 3)s>h V > 0/#J VhC> V:C VnC > VC hOC " North West River Montagnais 223 in slow or formal style, and may well deny that they themselves possess the /§/ -> /h/ rule. Further, these younger NWRM speakers have clearly not advanced to the stage reached by younger LNSM speakers, namely a shift from /§/ -* /h/ [c] in preconsonantal posi­ tion as well (contrast La Romaine /mahku/ 'bear' with NWR /mask"/, and /uhpwa:n/ 'pipe' with NWR /uspwa:(ka)n/.6 In similar fashion, the fricativization of original pre-aspirated clusters is much rarer in NWRM than it is in the LNSM dialects; the original /hp/ cluster, for example, is rarely realized as ft/ in Sheshta:tshit Montagnais. Investigation conducted to date has suggested that NWRM would appear to be a fairly heterogeneous speech community—even, some­ what surprisingly, when it comes to younger speakers. Consequent­ ly, the only practical approach to the study of NWRM as a whole would appear to be one that incorporates a notion of linguistic var­ iability. A large scale variability study of NWRM will be undertaken over the next several years by a team of researchers based at Memor­ ial University in St. John's, Newfoundland. The scope of this paper, however, permits a more detailed inves­ tigation of only two phonological rules that appear to be variable— that is, in the process of implementation—in NWRM. The two rules in question are Nasalization and U-Copying, the latter a version of a rule that may be more commonly known as Vowel Harmony. These two rules are of quite different geographical origin. Nasali­ zation seems to have spread to NWRM from the LNSM dialects to the south, while U-Copying is most likely a result of contact with the Naskapi dialects to the north. It must be stressed that the study re­ ported on in the present paper is highly preliminary in nature. It was conducted using a sample of only half a dozen younger speakers whose family origins are diverse, and who display the following char­ acteristics: Sex Age KR F 22 MPB F 21 MR F 17 AN F 18 PP M 17 EN M 17

Obviously, similar tests with a larger sample including males and

6The source of the La Romaine words is Ford et al. (1980:95). The /s/ -* /h/ rule is shown to be an age-graded phenomenon by Cowan (1976). 224 Sandra Clarke and Marguerite MacKenzie females of a maximum range of ages and backgrounds would be de­ sirable, if the full nature of the changes is to be comprehended. Nevertheless, as the two rules under investigation are variable and have not yet reached the categorical stage, they offer an excellent opportunity to examine the nature of phonological change in pro­ gress. In particular, they permit comparison of two competing theories of sound change:

(a) Traditional or Neogrammarian model: sound change is phone­ tically gradual but lexically abrupt—that is, once a phonological change is implemented, it will apply simultaneously to all lexical items which meet its description (Labov 1981). (b) Lexical Diffusion model: sound change is phonetically abrupt, but lexically gradual—that is, it spreads bit by bit to the whole of the potential word class to which it could apply (Wang 1969).

According to this latter approach, a sound change spreads from indi­ vidual word to individual word, so that at any given stage in its pro­ cess of diffusion it will not necessarily be conditioned by any phono­ logical or morphological factors.

II. NASALIZATION

The nasalization rule to be found in NWRM consists of the loss of intervocalic /n/ with compensatory nasalization of the preceding vowel, as in:

(14) /mamitenis/ [mandenis] 'sheep' -> [mandeys]

At first glance, nasalization would seem to be an entirely random process, affecting certain /VnV/ sequences and not others. That is, Montagnais nasalization would appear to be best accounted for by the lexical diffusion model, which predicts that such a change will be implemented lexical item by lexical item. Yet in order to test the full extent to which the nasalization rule has spread in NWRM, and hence to gain some insight into the nature of linguistic change, an attempt was made to determine whether the change in question might in fact be phonologically conditioned. Consequently, a list of words was prepared containing a number of possible vowel sequences, in com­ bination with a variety of possible consonant environments. This list is reproduced in (15) to (18) below:

(15) V:nV sequences North West River Montagnais 225

(15.1) /_ stop (oral or nasal) maka:nipa:kan 'shovel' nakamam 'he stops it' ma:nika:§u 'he sets up a tent' itenitam 'he thinks it' mamiteu 'stranger' minuenitam 'he likes it' ni:ka:niteu 'he walks forward' natuenimeu 'he wants him'

(15.2) /_ fricative or affricate ni:ka:nis* 'my relative' tamispis* 'when' nita:ni§* 'my daughter' a:niskuta:peu 'he makes a knot' paciuia:nis* 'shirt' pacluia:niciua:p 'tent' a:niseni:u* 'angel' ma:niteni§* 'sheep' kua:nisamu* 'it (path) goes na:mu:niskam 'he walks with the through a hollow' wind in his back' ispa:nisi:u 'he is high' ci:nikua:nisam 'he reduces its circumference by cutting' (16) VnV sequences

(16.1) /_ stop animessu 'he says mass' akunikan 'picture' neueikanat 'pemmican'

(16.2) /_ fricative or affricate asama:kanis* 'soldier' uanisam (unisam)* 'he cuts it to shape' kaxipaikanis* 'room' macunis* 'clothing' sa:kueikanis* 'swallow' ka:ikunicest 'photographer' uanisinu (unisinu)* 'he is lost'

(17) VnV: sequences

(17.1) /_stop a:tanu:kan 'legend' mina: kuan 'it smells' ninu:ta:u 'he lets it rot' ma.tinet 'blouse'

(17.2) /_ fricative or affricate tiseikana:sku 'broom handle' na:mina:s 'molasses' ninu:su 'he is rotten' peikupuneSu 'he is one year old' ma:mina:ceu 'he sniffs'

(18) V:nV: sequences 226 Sandra Clarke and Marguerite MacKenzie

(18.1) /_ stop ena:t 'below' astua:na:kan 'cupboard' nakameu 'he stops him'

(18.2) /_ fricative or affricate na:ni:su 'two by two, in pairs' mi:nu:s 'cat' neka:ni:ss 'tin, can' si:ka:uni:ss 'fine-tooth comb' uta:pa:ni:ss 'little car' All six subjects tested produced forms with deleted /n/ and com­ pensatory nasalized vowel only in those words followed by '*' in sec­ tions (15.2) and (16.2) of the nasalization wordlist, i.e., in those items involving the sequences /amis/ -* [ays], /enis/ -» [eys],/anis/ -* [eys]7, and /uni§/ -*• [eys]. Since all such cases are affected by the nasalization rule in this manner, it might be concluded that this rule does not apply randomly, along the lines predicted by the lexical dif­ fusion model, but rather highly systematically. That is, the rule in question applies only when a vowel plus /n/ sequence is followed by a short /i/ which in turn is followed by a single fricative /s/ (and not by a stop, an affricate, or a consonant cluster). Yet though the rule appears to be regular, it cannot be viewed as categorical in its appli­ cation. Indeed, it would seem to be subject to both inter- and intra- subject variability. Thus several of the subjects spontaneously gave forms which did not undergo the nasalization rule—i.e., in which the /n/ was maintainedHln the case of the words for 'angel', 'he is lost', and 'he cuts it to shape' (that is, in instances in which /amis/ sequen­ ces occur in non-word-final position). All informants were capable of restoring the underlying /n/ in formal style or—when it came to the words for 'daughter' and 'relative'—at least recognized that such forms existed in the speech of older members of the community. The nasalization rule, then would appear to be highly regular, and subject to the phonological conditioning environments listed above. Yet it must be pointed out that even though the rule is triggered by a certain phonetic environment, and not on a random lexical basis, not all words containing /amis/ sequences appear to be affected at the same rate. The two non-asterisked examples at the bottom of the left-hand column of (15.2) above, (i.e., the words for 'he is high' and 'he reduces its circumference') suggest that less familiar words in which the /amis/ sequence is not word-final have not yet undergone nasalization in the speech of the younger generation. That is, the rule does not affect all members of the /amis/ class at exactly the same 7Note that younger speakers, at least, typically raise the [ays] (< /Vnis/) se­ quences to [eys]. Whether or not this raising is always found in the case of word- final /unis/ sequences is not as yet known. North West River Montagnais 227 point in time—a fact which confirms one of the preditions of the lexical diffusion hypothesis. This hypothesis is further corroborated by the existence of a form in the list which is not a member of the /amis/ class as previously defined, yet which undergoes the nasali­ zation rule. This is the form /tamispiS/ 'when', in section (15.2), even though in casual speech it is regularly heard as [tayspas], other /amis/ sequences in which the /§/ is followed by a stop (e.g. /amis- kuta:peu/ 'he makes a knot') do not undergo nasalization. In conclusion, then, there is some support, if scanty, for the lexi­ cal diffusion hypothesis when it comes to the nasalization rule; for while the rule is highly regular, it is not completely so. Let us turn now to the second rule to be treated in this paper—the rule of U- Copying—to determine whether the lexical diffusion hypothesis is more applicable in this case. III. U-COPYING

As previously mentioned, the rule of U-Copying corresponds in part to what in previous work (MacKenzie 1980) has been identified as Vowel Harmony. By Vowel Harmony is usually meant the tenden­ cy in many Montagnais dialects for a /u/ (as well as the sequences /-ku/ or /-mu/ to labialize or totally assimilate a short /i/ or /a/ in the preceding syllable. This rule would have such effects as the fol­ lowing: (19) /mistiku/ 'tree' -> [mastukw] (20) /atimu/ 'dog' -> [atumw] (21) /takusinu/ 'he arrives' -» [togosano]

The phenomenon is more complex, however, in that it may involve not only total labial assimilation of a front non-rounded vowel, but also in that certain dialects (e.g. Atikamekw, La Romaine, (NWRM) ex­ hibit what would appear to be a metathesis, whereby a /ku/ sequence may actually undergo inversion. This phenomenon is illustrated most clearly in NWRM in sequences involving /V:ku/ (the long vowel in certain of these cases being the result of the loss of /h/ in a pre- aspirated consonant sequence): (22) /ka:ku/ 'porcupine' -* [kawk] (23) /masseku/ 'marsh' -* [masewk] (24) /ati:ku/ 'caribou' -* [atiwk]

The above inversion would appear to be found principally among cer­ tain younger NWRM speakers, who typically have the non-inverted 228 Sandra Clarke and Marguerite MacKenzie form in more formal style. The metathesized form, in any case, alter­ nates with a non-metathesized version, since the domain of the inver­ sion is restricted to the same syllable; thus when the labial element occurs in the following syllable, no such metathesis occurs:

(25) /ka:kut/ 'porcupines' = [kagwut]

In this paper, however, we restrict ourselves to a rule which invol­ ves progressive rather than regressive labialization. This rules seems to have originated in the northern dialects and to have spread south to NWRM, where is appears to occur primarily among younger speak­ ers.8 Specifically, we are interested in the effect of a word-initial /u/ followed by a labial consonant /m/ or /p/ on the vowel of the fol­ lowing syllable. In such instances in NWRM, a metathesis of the lab­ ial element and the contiguous consonant may occur. Examples of this are as follows:

(26) /umasineikan/ [omasaneygan] 'his book' -*• [mwasaneygan] (27) /upa:ssikan/ [obasagan] 'his gun' -*• [bwasagan]

That more than mere metathesis is involved is shown by the fact that word-initial /u/ may be retained, producing the following alternative forms:

(28) [omwasaneygan] 'his book' (29) [obwasagan] 'his gun'

As a result, the rule to be discussed in this paper is best viewed as a

8Tapes of three Davis Inlet or Naskapi speakers made by Jose Mailhot in 1971 reveal that these speakers possessed the U-Copying rule in all items begin­ ning with /umV/ or /upV/, and as well optionally deleted the initial /u/. The rule has also been noted among the Schefferville Montagnais (Jose Mailhot, personal communication), as well as the Schefferville Naskapi (Marguerite MacKenzie, field notes). The U-Copying rule would appear to have existed for some years among Naskapi speakers: thus William D. Strong's fieldnotes from 1928 record /mweatcic/ 'partially digested stomach contents' (cf. Montagnais /umeci:/). The rule seems to have extended as far south as the Lower North Shore, where it is occasionally, if only rarely, found. Thus William Cowan's fieldnotes from Na- tashquan (Cowan 1974) reveal a single occurrence of this phenomenon, in the pronunciation of /umi:hku/ 'his blood' as [umwihw] by an 18 year-old female. U-Copying is also known to exist in the speech of at least certain older NWR in­ habitants. Interestingly enough, it is also found in Micmac (John Hewson, Donna Starks, personal communication). Thus, for example, while the Micmac form for 'my mother' is /nkiC/, the third person form, 'his mother', is /wkwi5al/, a U- Copying regularly occurring here when the third person possessive morpheme is followed by a velar stop. North West River Montagnais 229 case of U-Copying, which may be followed by an optional initial /u/ deletion. As in the case of the nasalization rule, the rule of U-Copying was tested in a variety of linguistic environments, in order to determine the extent to which the rule is linguistically (i.e., phonologically or morphologically) conditioned. A list of words was drawn up with the initial sequence /umV/ or /upV/, and was tested with the six infor­ mants previously mentioned. The words were chosen to exemplify the following four morphological classes: (a) nouns/pronouns/particles in which initial /u/ is part of the verb stem. (b) nouns in which initial /u/ represents the 3rd person possessive morpheme, as in /u-masineikan/ 'his book'. (c) dependent nouns, in which the /u/ possessive morpheme is insepatable from the verb stem. (d) verbs with initial /um/ or /up/ sequences. The list of words used to test each of these classes is as follows:

(30) Nouns/pronouns/particles in initial /umV/ or /upv/: uma:tiskut 'toad' upanu 'adult male caribou' ume 'this' upime 'beside, on the side of

(31) Nouns in initial /m/ or /p/ to which a /u/ possessive mor­ pheme was prefixed:

(31.1) ma- maka:ceu 'white sucker' mask" 'bear' ma§ineikan 'book' maskumi: 'ice'

(31.2) ma:- mamitenis 'sheep' ma:tinet 'blouse' mamiteu 'stranger' ma.fiesu 'fox'

(31.3) mi- mini: 'pus' mistiku 'tree' ministiku 'island' mistikus 'box' misineu 'turkey'

(31.4) mi:- mi:kun 'wing mi:nu:s 'cat' mi:n 'berry' mi:t 'piece of firewood' mi:na:pui 'jam' mi:cim 'food' 230 Sandra Clarke and Marguerite MacKenzie

(31.5) me- metaua:kan 'game, toy' meskanau 'road, path'

(31.6) pa- pakuteun 'belt' paciuiam 'cloth'

(31.7) pa:- pa:kuesikan 'bread' pa:ssikan 'gun' pa: kupeucikan 'wharf pa:steuia:§ 'dried meat' pa:panama:n 'candy'

(31.8) pi- pi mi: 'grease' pinesu 'bird' piminuam 'cooked food' pisu 'lynx'

(31.9) pi:- pi:meikan 'screwdriver' pi:skueun 'hair' pimekan 'pickles' pi:teikan 'cartridge' pi:pi:teun 'smoke, ashes' pi:uesikan 'slipper'

(31.10) pe- pesfcikan 'painting'

(32) Dependent nouns, 3rd person. uma:ma:ma 'his eyebrow' umkku'his blood' umastatei 'his stomach' (caribou) umisa 'his older sister' upana 'his lung' upi:uei 'his body hair' (33) Verbs in initial /umV/ or /upV/. uma:cesi:mi:kueu 'he gives upa:ssikanu 'he has a gun' him a fox' upa:u 'he flies' umamitemu 'he has a visit' upineu 'he lifts him up' umassinika:ti:su 'he makes himself mocassins' The results of testing this list with the six respondents previously mentioned are provided in Table 1.

The preponderance of "Yes" answers in Table 1 suggests that the U-Copying rule does typically apply in the speech of these younger NWRM speakers. The large number of "Var" options, or variable ap­ plications of the rule, indicates nevertheless that these speakers are well aware of the existence of the rule, and may well correct those words which undergo it to a non-metathesized version in more for- North West River Montagnais 231

RESULTS OF U-COPYING WORDLIST yes: U-Copying var: variable U-Copying no: no U-Copying

I. Words in which initial /u/ is part of the root morpheme. (a) words without original pre-aspiration KR MPB MR AN PP EN ves yes yes yes yes yes

(b) words with original pre-aspiration: /uhpV/ (/upanu/, /upime/)

no no no no no no

II. Non-dependent 3rd person possessives.

ma- yes var var yes var yes ma:- yes var var yes yes yes mi- yes var yes yes yes yes mi:- yes yes var var yes yes me- yes yes var yes var var pa- yes yes yes yes var var pa:- var no var var var var pi- yes var var var var var pi:- yes var var var var yes pe- — yes yes yes — yes III. Dependent nouns in /umV/ and /upV/

uma- — yes — yes yes yes uma:-yes no yes var yes yes umi- — — — — yes yes umi:-no no no yes yes yes upi:- — — — — yes yes

IV. Verbs in initial /umV/ and /upV/

(a) verbs without original pre-aspiration

var var var var var var

(b) verbs with original pre-aspiration:/uhpV/ (/upau/, /upineu/)

— — — — no no

TABLE 1 mal speech styles. U-Copying, then, would appear to be an optional or variable rule that is phonologically conditioned—that is, a com­ pletely regular rule dependent for its realization on the initial pho­ netic sequences /umV(:)/ or /upV(:)/. The sole conditioning on the 232 Sandra Clarke and Marguerite MacKenzie rule, indeed, would seem to be phonological and not morphologi­ cal; thus U-Copying may occur whether the word in question is a noun, pronoun, particle, or verb, and whether or not word-initial /u/ is separated from the following /m/ or /p/ plus vowel sequence by a morpheme boundary. A further piece of evidence for phonolo­ gical conditioning is provided by the failure of the rule to apply in certain well-defined phonetic environments. Thus in those cases con­ taining the historical pre-aspirated consonant sequence /hp/ (e.g. the items for 'adult male caribou' and 'besides' in (30), 'his lung' in (32), and the verbs 'he flies' and 'he lifts him up' in (33)), no U- Copying occurs among any of the six subjects. The U-Copying rule, then would appear to be triggered by word- initial /u/ plus a single labial consonant.9 To thisjpoint, however, we have ignored a second environment in which U-Copying likewise var­ iably occurs, namely 1st and 2nd person verbs in initial /u/ as in the following examples: (34) /numassinimin/ [nomasanaman] 'I have a shoe' -»• [nomwasanaman] (35) /nuphuesikanimin/ [nobiwesaganaman] 'I have a slipper' -> [nobwiwesaganaman]

As the rule occurs in environments in which the /u/ is no longer word- initial, it could be suggested that this rule is in fact morphologically based, that is, triggered by the 3rd person /u/ possessive morpheme found in the above forms. Weight is added to this suggestion by the fact that no U-Copying occurs in similar environments (e.g. word- initial consonant plus /u/ plus /m/ or /p/ plus /V/) in which the /u/ in question is not the possessive morpheme. Such cases are as follows: (35) mu:mesu 'he eats fish mu:meieu 'he eats shit' su:ma:pa:§u 'he is almost kupe§i:u 'he confesses' thawed out, melted' innu-pa:kuesikan 'Indian bread' innu-mi:6iua:p 'tent' innu-ni:mu 'he does Indian dances'

It is also the case, however, that a sequence of two labial consonants may trigger the rule. Thus /upimi:m/ 'his fat or gasoline' may be pronounced [opmim] or [opmwim]. Incidentally, there is evidence that for some younger speakers a nasal stop-like element is inserted before words in initial /p/ which undergo the U-Copying rule: thus 'his bread' has occasionally been heard as [umbwagwesagan]. Note also that the report that half the speakers tested fail to realize the U-Copying rule in dependent nouns beginning with /umi:/ may be somewhat misleading, given the fact that only one such noun was tested. North West River Montagnais 233

Tentatively, then it might be safest to conclude that the principal constraints governing the realization of the U-Copying rule are pho­ nological in nature—namely, the presence of a word-initial /u/ imme­ diately followed by a labial consonant. There exists a further con­ straint or conditioning factor, however, that is clearly of a morpho­ logical order, namly the categorization of the /u/ as the third person possessive morpheme. It is interesting to note that, of all the lexical items listed in sections (30) to (33) above, only two that undergo U- Copying have been found in which the /u/ in question is not the third person possessive morpheme, /uma:tiskut/ 'toad' and /ume/ 'this'. IV. CONCLUSION

In summary, this paper has presented a first glance at the status of two rules in NWRM: Nasalization and U-Copying. These rules have been shown to be variable in NWRM, and hence in the process of change or implementation. Among the younger generation speakers tested, the two rules have been seen to be subject to both non- linguistic and linguistic conditioning: non-linguistic in the form of degree of formality of speech style, linguistic in the form of phone­ tic or grammatical conditioning. What is clearly needed, however, is further investigation with many more NWRM subjects, in order to obtain firmer answers to such questions as the following: (a) Are there other non-linguistic constraints on the operation of these rules, in terms of such subject variables as age, sex, and histori­ cal band affiliation? (b) What are the weights of the various linguistic—i.e. phonologi­ cal and morphological—constraints proposed to account for the rea­ lization of the rules? (c) Are the linguistic constraints proposed the only linguistic conditioning factors that determine the variable output of the rules? Among the speakers investigated to date, there is insufficient evi­ dence to support the lexical diffusion hypothesis, that is, the pre­ diction that linguistic change is implemented in an irregular fashion, lexical item by lexical item. Among these younger speakers, the rules appear to apply, albeit variably, to a full set of items exhibiting given linguistic conditioning factors. If there are any lexical constraints on the application of the rules, these may simply turn out to be the de­ gree of familiarity of the lexical item in question. Since the two rules investigated in this paper would belong to the class of low-level out­ put rules, as defined in Labov (1981), they could be expected to be 234 Sandra Clarke and Marguerite MacKenzie regular in their behaviour. Nevertheless, it should be pointed out that the absence of support for a diffusion model of change in this in­ stance could be largely the result of a lack of depth in our investiga­ tion. That is, the two changes under examination may well be near- ing the end of their cycle of implementation in the speech of the NWRM younger generation, the only subjects studied to date. In­ deed, since it appears to be typically the case that lexical diffusion is discovered not in the middle period of its implementation, but rather at one extreme or the other, owing to a more rapid rate of change during its middle stages than at its beginning or end (Cham­ bers and Trudgill 1980:177), this last suggestion seems highly plausi­ ble. The question may well be posed as to the significance to the non- linguist of the type of linguistic investigation described in this paper. We feel that a more in-depth study of the kind of language changes we have dealt with here can be of benefit to scholars interested in the social history of the Naskapi and Eastern Montagnais groups. For there is clear evidence that NWRM speakers have in the past been subject to linguistic contact with speakers of closely related dialects. The two changes under discussion, for example, point to both a nor­ therly or Naskapi contact (U-Copying), and a more southerly, LNSM contact (Nasalization). We would hope that detailed examination of the various waves of change to which speakers of NWRM have been exposed will provide an indication as to the extent of association with members of other migratory Montagnais/Naskapi bands, as well as to the possible time-depth of this association. In other words, we would hope that the extensive variability in linguistic output obser­ vable today among NWRM speakers will be found to possess syste­ matic non-linguistic correlates, one of which will be the degree of affiliation of these speakers with speakers of dialects that are close­ ly related geographically.

REFERENCES

Chambers, J.K., and Peter Trudgill 1980 Dialectology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Clarke, Sandra Forth- A Grammatical Sketch of North West River Montagnais. To be pub- coming lished by the National Museum of Man (Mercury Series).

Cowan, William 1974 Resultats preliminaires d'une enquete sur les dialectes montagnais. Ottawa: Carleton University. North West River Montagnais 235

1976 The Generation Gap in Montagnais Dialectology. Pp. 323-339 in Papers of the Seventh Algonquian Conference. William Cowan, ed. Ottawa: Carleton University.

Drapeau, Lynn 1981 Le point sur les /i/. Pp. 35-49 in Linguistique amerindienne II: Etudes algonquiennes. Lynn Drapeau, ed. Recherches linguistiques a Montreal 16. Montreal.

Ford, Alan, et al. 1980 Phonologie et morphologie des flexions. Pp. 85-118 in Inuktitut et langues amerindiennes du Quebec. Cahier de linguistique 10. Quebec.

Labov, William 1981 Resolving the Neogrammarian Controversy. Language 57:267-308.

MacKenzie, Marguerite 1980 Towards a Dialectology of Cree-Montagnais-Naskapi. Ph.D. thesis, University of Toronto.

Mailhot, Jose, and Kateri Lescop 1977 Lexique montagnais-francais. Quebec: Ministere des affaires culturelles

Wang, William S.-Y. 1969 Competing Sound Changes as a Cause of Residue. Language 45: 9-25.

Wang, William S.-Y. (ed.) 1977 The Lexicon in Phonological Change. The Hague: Mouton. 236