126 Cree Relative Alan Ford and Jim Lees Universite de Montreal

Methodological and Theoretical Preliminaries At first glance the title of our paper may look quite innocuous and may seem one ought to be able to deal with its subject matter in some perfectly straight-forward manner. Anyone, however, is even slightly conversant with current issues in syntactic theory or who has had occasion to dabble with Cree or any other Algonquian language will be aware of the large number of theoretical questions which our title seems to presuppose answered. Questions such as the syntactic or semantic nature of relative clauses, whether in fact such a term is well- defined in linguistics or if in fact it has any pertinence for the description of Algonquian languages. Obviously we do not presuppose that these questions have been resolved and it is as much the object of this study to throw light on them as it is to make some positive contribution to the description of Cree.1 For this reason we shall be concerned with questions of methodology and our descriptive results can be considered only as tentative approximations. We began this research as most who are faced with similar undertakings by defining initially as the object of our study a domain in a language other than that with which we were primarily concerned. That is, we took English relative clauses and had them translated into Cree, thus obtaining a corpus on which to base our initial analyses. The dis­ advantages of this approach are numerous and probably obvious. Firstly, there is some question about the well-definedness of relative clauses in English. 1. They asked the foreman what the manager had suggested. 2. It struck me as a miracle that she had never believed. 3. It's the name that counts. Examples 1-3 all illustrate structures whose relative is only one of at least two possible descriptions of the constituents in question. 1. may also be described as an indirect question, 2. as a complement clause construction and 3. as a cleft or focus construction. Traditionally,2 such sentences have been termed syntactic ambiguities and different structural descriptions, deep or surface have been attributed to them but one may also wish to term this type of ambiguity semantic or functional in which case3 the syntactic representation of all these structures could be identical and notions like , indirect oTherquestiohavconcentratinsyntacticallf ethie carefullsaren papeetc., howeveygr y , woan enavoidebecomd rwha hav semanticallproblemetd nosemantiseestructuralltm s take twitoyc nbhe relativconcepts sidebotanalyzey hsambiguou eitype n.dsourc thisaFo ssor e fbotsentences debatthdefinitionsstructureshe purpose and,e . . 127 Briefly the problem is as follows. Supposing one agrees with Brame 1978 that "intuitively it makes sense to think of relativization as the operation of restricting an argument to a proposition, or, put differently, of relativizing a proposition to an argument," then, taking as a theoretical framework something akin to the grammatical model proposed by Chomsky in On Binding, relativization can be seen as a rule of interpretation associating a logical form with a syntactic configuration. The question then arises as to the domain of application of the proposed universal term "relative clause". Is it the logical form itself which one might presume identical for all languages (ignoring remarks to the contrary in Chomsky 19 75) "* or is it some aspect or subset of the, syntactic configurations given that these can vary from one language to another? The answer that we have tentatively come up with is that relative clause will be used to refer to syntactic structures associated with a 5 logical form something like: wh [x ]nD[..•.x....] via the rule of relativization. We thus leave open questions like whether a structure has to fulfil some syntactic condition, for example "has to contain a proposition or finite verb" in order to be called a relative, or how in fact one chooses between two possible candidates for relative clause status. We also leave aside the question of whether the ultimate syntactic definition of a relative clause is best described in terms of base generation as proposed by Brame or as the result of a transformational rule as proposed by Chomsky. This brings us to a second type of disadvantage that one might expect to find with our approach but one which strangely enough fails to materialize. English relative clauses might have conceivably been calqued in several different ways in Cree thus posing a problem of choice with regard to which structural type is ultimately to be called relative in a Cree grammar. As it turns out consistently only one structural type is used to caique unambiguous English relative clauses thus eliminating any potential problem for Cree. The third problem is a very real one. Obviously unless English and Cree relative clauses are in a one to one mapping relation, the method used to elicit Cree relative clauses will exclude those which have no English counterpart. That English and Cree relatives are not in a one relationship can be demonstrated quite simply by making reference to one structure, namely adjectivals, frequent in English but rendered in Cree by a structure superficially indistinguish­ able from that used to render relative clauses. It is thus quite clear that any study of Cree relatives must be based on a hypothesis concerning the fundamental nature of this structure. Consequently our study is divided into three wcorpuspartsEnglisdescriptioconstitutesentencestructuragivfoer ehav whic .a.he mor hsabstracteFrorelativel Thesen oucontainin mdescriptionrnwhicdetaile a thdatworkinfoeshr da initia wondgeifro ges elementhavcalstructura.dialecmhypothesissomewhal le al corpuSecondlylCreabstracte tsavailablet ls ocorrespondin frelativricheodescriptio ,f,Cree an dCrew der a,eusinCrehavtha namelsurfacclausecaiqueengn datthefoyothit efroMontagnaissan .sou othethstructuraprocede aoreThifhypothesi corpurextendetrus dialecteds l,o tdfos s 128 we have presented in another paper, read at this conference (A. Ford, this volume), evidence for distinguishing between different structural types underlying this one surface structure. Finally, projecting the validity of these distinctions onto all dialects of Cree and ultimately onto all Algonquian languages we shall make some tentative claims concerning the nature and representation of this aspect of Cree syntax. In this paper we shall be concerned largely with stage one. Stage two is presented in the article referred to by Ford, but needs to be tested empirically for other dialects hopefully in Lees (to appear), and stage three will be hinted at here but is being developed more fully in current research by the authors. In providing English source sentences for our initial corpus of Cree relatives we confined ourselves to restrictive relative clauses with a referential or specific rather than an attributive or non-specific interpretation. We thus used sentences of type 4a. and excluded the non- restrictive 4b. and the attributive 4c. 4a. The men who knew the woman came up to her. b. The men, who knew the woman, came up to her. c. The men were looking for a woman they knew. The reason for eliminating 4b. and 4c. is that they may be conceived of as structurally different types, 4b. being clearly marked by a different intonation pattern and 4c. being conditioned by semantic properties of the matrix verb. We were sure if in fact Cree did represent these structures in the same way as restrictive relatives, examples would turn up in stage two of our investigation indicating that the distinctions pertinent for English might not be so for Cree. This in fact turns out to be the case at least for non-restrictives. There seems to be no reason for post­ ulating a difference between restrictive and non-restrictive relatives in Cree. With regard to the specific non-specific interpretations recent work has shown that this may correspond to the usage of ka: or e:6 as complementizers but this remains an hypothesis that we shall not develop here. Relative Clause Structure What then is a relative clause in Cree? Abstracting from our initial corpus, its general form is illustrated by the underlined constituents in 5a. and 5b. below. 5a. na: pew ka: -ki: -wa: pama:t iskowa man Comp PM see 3-3' woman 3 TA-C The man who saw. the woman runs away. b. ka: -apisi: sit awa:sis kihci:pataw Comp small 3-AI child run away 3-AI C The small child (child who is small) runs away. These structures are composed of three major constituents: i) a Noun Phrase, na:pew in la. and awa:sis in lb., the internal structure of which we return to later. ii) what we will refer to, following Bresnan 1972, as a Comp or 129 complementizer. (Bresnan takes the English complementizers to be those sentence-initial morphemes which distinguish clause types: they include that, for, than, as and why or Q. In Cree we define a complementizer as a member of the set ka:, e:, ke:, kihci: and changed forms). These comp­ lementizers are prefixed directly to the stem of the embedded verb. iii) a skelton sentence containing an anaphore or variable or other anaphoric element whose antecedent is the noun phrase, and a verb normally in the conjunct mode - (we say normally because it may prove to be the case in Cree, as it is in Montagnais, that certain verbs, i.e. dream verbs, do not take conjunct mode7; rather the verb is in the independent mode). The S (sentence) in la. is ki:wa:pama:t iskowa and apisi:sit in lb. These constituents can occur in two of several logically possible orders: (NP) Comp S, Comp S (NP) as shown by 5a. and 5b.; but the following orders are not possible: Comp (NP) S, S (NP) Comp, S Comp (NP). In general the NP Comp S is preferred for transitive verbs and the Comp S NP order for intransitive verbs belying what looks like a conspiracy to avoid V V sequences. However, these constituents are not sufficient to define relative clauses as a unique structural type in Cree. Several other constructions display the same constituents. The following examples (6a. to 6f.) illustrate the generality of this structural type. Adverbial Clauses 6a. bob e:-pimiskat ci:ma:niliw wa:pamew iskowa nipi:hk Bob Comp paddle 3-AI boat ' see 3-3' woman 3' water Loc. 0 Bob while paddling the boat sees the woman in the water. Subject Clauses 6b. ali:man kihci:milowelimak meri: hard Q Comp like 1-3 Mary II It's hard for me to like Mary. Complement Clauses 6c. ni :-ki:-ihteli : ten cam e:-kitimit I PM think 1-0 John Comp lazy 3-AI TI C I think that John is lazy. Comparative Clauses 6d. ni:-wa:pamaw na:pew ta:piskoc ki:la ka:-isi:-wa:pamat I see 1-3 man as you Comp P see 2-1 TA _ TA-C I see the man as well as you see the woman. iskow woman Direct Questions 6e. aweni:ka:na ca:n ka:-wa:pama:t? who 3' John Comp see 3-3' TA-C Who does John see? 130

Indirect Questions 6f. albert mola kiskelitam kekwa:liw betty ka:ki:-otini:ket Albert not know 3-0' what 0' Betty Comp PM buy 3-AI TI C Albert doesn't know what Betty bought. In another paper presented at this conference we have given evidence to show how, for at least one dialect of Cree, namely Uashau innu Montagnais these structures can be differentiated on the basis of syntactic tests and co- occurence restrictions. Whether or not all of these tests can be applied to the other dialects of Cree remains to be seen but certainly structural differences do exist. For example the complementizers ka: and e: are not mutually substitutable throughout, the latter being seemingly reserved for Complement and Adverbial clauses. The negative marker is different; i.e. mayew in Cleft constructions. Adverbial constructions are of course optional constituents, question constructions contain an obligatory wh constituent and comparatives too have a distinctive mark of comparison, tapiskoc, miam etc. Certainly, these forms are semantically related to quite different interpretations or logical forms. We will thus suppose that each one of these structures is to be identified by reference to a separate rule of inter­ pretation. Our grammar thus contains rules of Cleft Interpretation, Indirect Question Interpretation, Subject and Complement Clause Interpretation, Comparative and Adverbial Interpretation as well as the Relativization to which we have already referred. As far as we can see all of these rules act on syntactic structures of the same type and there seems to be no motivation for postulating different underlying syntactic structures for each rule. They could all be produced by the base rule 7. below. 7. S •* (NP) Comp V (NP) The rules of interpretation for relatives containing intransitive verbs are given in 8. 8a. [X] ka V [e]; -> [X] V (x;) or i i b. ka V[e]; [ X ]„p - [X] V (x; ) i i where [e] is an anaphor8, [X] is constant or lexical NP and [x] is a variable. The rules need to be extended a little however in order to take account of relatives containing transitive verbs. Thus a structure like 9., 9. na:pew ka:wa:pama:t iskowa man Comp see woman can be interpreted both as 10a. or 10b.

10a. [na:pew]Np wa:pamew ([e]NPi iskowa) b. [iskowa ]Np wa:pamew (na:pew, [e]NP.) 131

What ultimately determines this is of course the main verb which will select 10a. or 10b. according to whether it is marked proximate or obviative. For 11a. and lib. the corresponding logical forms are thus 12a. and 12b. 11a. na:pew ka:wa:pama:t iskowa kichi:pataw b. na:pew ka:wapama:t iskowa kichi:pata:liwa 12a. kichi:pataw [na:pew] wa:pamew (x, iskowa) b. kichi:pata:liwa [iskowa] wa:pamew (na:pew, x)

Further complications arise with inverse forms of TA verbs so that we need other interpretive rules like (13) for these. 13a. [x] ka Vinv t [Y] ->([X]NP V(Y,X) : x 3 (JY]NP V (Y,X) b. [x] ka Vinv t. [Y] - j[X]NP V (X'Y) NP X NP i j (jY]Np V (X,Y)

Given the independent existence of relative clauses in Cree based on the criteria that we have briefly sketched out, we can now examine the internal structure of these constructions. Examples 14a.-14b. illustrate some of the types of constituents that can function as the head noun phrase of a relative clause in Cree. 14a. (ana) na:pew ka:-takiskadahk ci:ma:niliw ma:diw that man Comp kick 3-0' boat 3' cry 3-AI TI-C (That) man who kicks the boat is crying. An animate noun can optionally occur with either a proximate or obviative pronoun according to the status of the noun functioning as the head. It is specific with the demonstrative pronoun and non-specific without it. 14b. (anima) ci:ma:n ka:tawihtik asinihk ki:naw that boat Comp hit 0-11 rock Loc. long 0-11 C (That) boat that hit the rock is long. An inanimate noun exhibiting the same behaviour as an animate noun. 14c. Ca:n ka:-wa:pama:t iskowa mi:lelimew wi:yasisa John Comp see 3-3' woman 3' like 3-3' meat 3' TA-C TA John who sees the woman likes meat. A proper name which we also take to exclude the use of a demonstrative pronoun. 132 14d. awa ka:-otamaha:t iskwesisa kichci:pataw this one Comp hit 3-3' girl 3' run away 3-AI TA-C This one who hits the girl runs away. A demonstrative pronoun alone can function as the head noun phrase. 14e. ki:la ka:-otamawi:yan ki:papin you Comp hit 2-1 you laugh 2-AI TA-C You who hit me are laughing. A that can occur when the referent is 'emphatic.' There are other possibilities such as demonstrative pronoun + indefinite pronoun, anima kekwa:n 'that sort of; quantifiers, miswe 'all'; and quantifier + pronoun, miswe aweni:ka:n 'all the others'. Similarly, examples 15a.-15d. illustrate some of the different functions that can be attributed to the head noun phrase with respect to the embedded sentence constituent. There are, of course, many other functions which can be realized by the head noun phrase, however these suffice to show how relative clauses are formed and the process is the same for other possible formations not included here such as relativization on the subjects of comparative clauses and on relative clauses. 15a. na:pew ka:-ki:-ojemat notinew wi:wa man Comp PM kiss 2-3 beat 3-3' wife 3' TA-C TA The man who you kiss beats his wife. The head noun phrase in this sentence functions as the direct object of the embedded sentence. Note that the foregoing examples provide ample illustration of the head noun phrase functining as the subject of the embedded sentence. 15b. mi:losiliwa iskowa ka:-ki:mi:la:t masinahi:ka:n pretty 3' -AI woman 3' Comp PM give 3-3' book ana na:pew The woman who the man gave the book that man to is pretty. In 15b. the head is the logical indirect object and the grammatical direct object. A fact which may be accounted for by a movement rule suggested by Rhodes 19 76. 15c. apisa:siliw ihtawin ka:-ta:si:ket ana na:pew small O'-II town Comp live 3-AI that man C The town where the man lives is small. In 15c. the function of Locative is realized by the head. These forms display some interesting properties and are looked at more closely below. 133 15d. mistik ka:pimi:patat ana na:pew teti:pa mi:saw stick Comp run 3-AI that man around big O-II The stick that the man runs around is big. This example shows the head functioning as object of a preposition. A Problem for the Analysis All of the examples of structures that we have so far cited can of course be handled in a straightforward manner given the base rule 7. and rules of interpretation such as those of (8.-13.). There is some evidence however that this analysis may not in fact be the right one. For the dialect of Moose Factory we have found sentences of type 16. where the focus negator mayew is used to negate what we have so far been analysing as a relative clause. 16. mayew na:pew ka:-wa:pama:t iskow kichi:pataw be not man Comp see woman run away It is not the man who sees the woman run away. As we previously pointed out mayew is only used as a negative marker with cleft or focus constructions. The structural parallelism exhibited by relative clauses and focus constructions in Cree gives rise to the question: Are relative clauses in fact focus constructions? We do not attempt to answer the above question here and, in fact, we would like to suggest that before a satisfactory answer to this question can be provided, we may need to readjust our persepctive of the nature of Cree grammar. That is, the preceding analysis is premised on the view that Cree is what Li and Thompson 1976 have termed a subject- prominent language in which the structure of sentences favours a description in which the grammatical relation subject-predicate plays a major role. However, not only the data of sentence 16. but also the following sentences suggest that Cree can also be investigated as a topic- prominent language in which the grammatical relation topic-comment plays a major role. Consider for example sentence 17a. below. 17a. na:pew apatisiw waskahi:kanihk man work 3-AI house Loc. The man works in (at) the house. If the locative noun waskahi:kanihk is moved to the front of the sentence, i.e. topicalized, as in 17b. this triggers the appearance of a particle isi:- on the verb. 17b. waskahi:kanihk na:pew isi:-apatisiw house Loc. man there work 3-AI As for the house, the man works there. Interestingly, there are two possible ways in which the equivalent of an English relative clause on the locative noun phrase can be realized. One way, exemplified by 17c, adheres to the pattern outlined above for the formation of relativinvolvese clausetopicalizatios in Cren eo fan dth eth eLocativ othere wayand, thshowe nus eby of17d. a , 134 focus construction. This latter structure is preferred by our informants. 17c. waskahi:kan ka:-apatisit na:pew mi:saw house Comp work man big O-II The house where the man works is big. d. waskahi:kanihk na:pew ka:-isi:-apatisit mi:saw house Loc. man Comp there work big O-II As for the house, it is the man who works there, it (house) is big. Clearly there is a close relationship between the notions of topic and focus and it also appears that these relations play a meaningful and substantial role in the grammar. The exact nature of these notions and their relevance to the grammar are as yet indeterminate, but we suggest that an adequate grammar of Cree must take into consideration these essentially semantic9 discourse-conditioned notions. Only further research can show if our interpretative rules can be adjusted to take account of these additional facts. NOTES 1 We would like to claim that our data represents Cree irrespective of dialect but we have chosen to illustrate with examples from Moose Factory. 2 Such is the approach so far adopted in most generative studies, most recently for example in Chomsky 1978 and Bresnan 1972. 3 Such an approach is inherent in work by Kuno 1976 and Brame 19 78. 11 Chomsky 1975 Reflections on Language. 5 This is the logical form postulated by Chomsky 19 77. As we shall show, there is need to generalize this form is one wishes to include languages without the equivalent of wh in relatives as is the case with Cree. Brame 1978:52 gives a representation of the form (Frel (x)) (f (...x...) which we take to be equivalent. 1 For similar results obtained for the Algonquian dialect of Ojibway see D. Daviault (in preparation). 7 See Ford (this volume). 6 In the sense of Chomsky 1978. 9 See Schachter 1973 and Kuno 1976 for analyses of this nature. 135 REFERENCES BRAME, M.K. 1978 Base Generated Syntax. Seattle: Noit Amrofer. BRESNAN, J. 1972 Theory of Complementation in English Syntax. Doc. Diss., M.I.T. CHOMSKY, N. 1977a Reflections on Language. New York: Pantheon. 1977b On Wh. Movement, in Culicover P., Wasow I. and Akmajian A. (eds.) Formal Syntax. New York: Academic Press. 1978 On Binding. Mimeo, M.I.T. DAVIAULT, D. 1979 La distribution de ka et e dans les propositions enchassees de l'Algonquin du Nord, M.A. thesis, Universite de Montreal (in preparation). FORD, A. 1979 Une ambiguite syntaxique de surface en montagnais, (in this volume). KUNO, S. 1976 Subject, theme and the speaker's empathy. A reexamination of relativization phenomena in Li, Ch. (editor) Subject and Topic. New York: Academic Press. LEES, J. Ms Syntax du Cri, these de doctorat, Universite de Montreal (to appear). LI, Ch. and Thomas S. Subject and Topic: a new typology of language in Li, Ch. (editor). RHODES, R. 19 76 The Morpho-syntax of the Central Ojibway Verb, Ph.D. dissertation, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. SCHACHTER, P. 1973 Focus and Relativization. Language 49:19-46.