Journal of Multilingual Theories and Practices, 2024
This article addresses key issues related to diverse cases of migration to complex multilingual e... more This article addresses key issues related to diverse cases of migration to complex multilingual environments within Europe. Data came from three case studies carried out within the scope of the MIME project: (ex-)Yugoslavian refugees to South Tyrol (Italy); Portuguese work migrants to Andorra; and international managers in Vasa (Finland). Data were elicited using qualitative methods (biographical narrative interviews and focus groups) and thematically analysed to identify emic causes of 'linguistic unease', the speakers' perception that their linguistic repertoire is inadequate for communicating with others and the consequent fear that their linguistic performance will be met with judgemental and negative attitudes. Our results show that in all situations, irrespective of the diverse conditions that exist prior to migration or in the destination country, the complex linguistic environment of the recipient society is puzzling for mobile people. In all cases, numerous migrants target the language that they perceive to be easier and most accessible to them, but this also exposes them to some level of linguistic unease. Crucially, migrants' learning choices rub salt in the wounds of old conflicts that have roots in the historical dynamics of multilingualism of the recipient societies. We argue that raising sociolinguistic awareness about this is crucial to mitigate unease and discrimination in the most vulnerable sections of the migrant population.
This paper examines the relationship between the ethnolinguistic vitality of the Arabic language ... more This paper examines the relationship between the ethnolinguistic vitality of the Arabic language and the linguistic landscape of dairy products in Israel, which we label the linguistic 'productscape' of milk products. The research stems from the following research questions: What is the social and political meaning of the printed language(s) on dairy products in Israel? How do they reflect the linguistic diversity of the country and how do they impact the visibility and, therefore, the vitality of Palestinian Arabic in Israel? Based on the analysis of ethnographic data of language on milk products and advertising campaigns from Tnuva, Tara and Yotvata, collected in Israel between 2015 and 2023, we argue that the realm of commercial products (and crucially of basic necessities, like milk products) has a prominent role in shaping the symbolic capital of languages within multilingual societies. Specifically, we highlight the responsibility of private dairy company managers, specifically in their choices of language on products packages and advertising campaigns, which contribute to the linguistic landscape, influence ethnolinguistic vitality, and ultimately play a role in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
World Englishes and Creole Languages Today, Vol. 1, 2022
Tone has been recognised as a prominent feature in many Atlantic creoles, likely inherited from t... more Tone has been recognised as a prominent feature in many Atlantic creoles, likely inherited from the Niger-Congo substrate languages (Rivera-Castillo and Faraclas 2006). However, the role of tone has been addressed differently in different creoles. For instance, Saramaccan tones have been traditionally studied since Voorhoeve (1961) and Rountree (1972). Instead, there has been some reluctance among researchers to address Naijá, the English-based pidgin/creole spoken in Nigeria, as a tonal language (Agheyisi 1971; Elubge and Omamor 1991; Faraclas 1985, 1996: 263). In this paper, I present experimental evidence concerning the prosodic realization of the item /de/ in the elicited production of three speakers of Naijá with different level of nativization of the language. In Naijá, /de/ is a complex item used as locative/existential verb, attributive copula and imperfective marker. Most of the speakers testify that pitch level is determinant to distinguish the existential/locative (EX.LOC) uses from the aspectual/non-finite (IPFV) uses. However, until now no experimental data has been elicited to test this hypothesis on Naijá prosody. This paper establishes that tonal specifications on the item /de/ are categorically produced by speakers of both native and non-native varieties of Naijá in response to written stimuli whose spelling is tonally underspecified (dey). The results also show multiple inconsistencies in reading decisions, both intra- and inter-speaker, before intransitive (intended) non-stative property verbs, and in the co-occurrence of two dey. This entails some consequences for Naijá spelling. The ongoing debate on the development of writing systems for creole languages has highlighted a gap between the orthographic systems devised by linguists and speakers’ practice (Deuber and Hinrichs 2007). Here, I argue that, although speakers use consistently unspecified dey in spontaneous productions, the written form of Naijá should indeed differentiate between the two tonal specifications, for example by using IPFV low-tone dè and EX.LOC high-tone (unmarked) de, in line with Faraclas (1996) and Ofulue (2010).
Papers of the Fifty-Second Algonquian Conference. Michigan State University Press. 161–184. ISBN: 9781611864465, 2022
In this paper I consider data from Algonquian languages and argue that the concept of morphologic... more In this paper I consider data from Algonquian languages and argue that the concept of morphological productivity is a key tool to better define Algonquian word formation properties and morphological typology. I take the perspective of usage-based and cognitively oriented models, and use the concept of schema or construction, as put forward in Relational Morphology (Jackendoff 2002; Jackendoff and Audring 2020), to distinguish between relational (non-productive schemas) and productive schemas. I focus on lexically heavy bound components in the Algonquian verb stem, and discuss the availability and productivity of incorporated nouns, medials, and concrete finals in Algonquian. The argument in this paper also depends on the claim of a structural distinction between primary and secondary finals.
Naijá (also known as Nigerian Pidgin) is an extended pidgin with millions of speakers in Nigeria,... more Naijá (also known as Nigerian Pidgin) is an extended pidgin with millions of speakers in Nigeria, and it is also a creole since some communities use it as a first language (Faraclas 2013; Mazzoli 2017). It is a common lingua franca in former English colonies in West Africa and has potential for transnational use. Notwithstanding its importance at multiple levels, Naijá is not mentioned in language-related policies in Nigeria, and its use in education is limited and stigmatized. This is due to aggressive ideologies that identify Naijá as an inferior language, especially with respect to English in Nigeria. In this paper, based on fieldwork data collected in southern Nigeria, I outline positive and negative ideologies related to Naijá, and argue that innovative ideologies have emerged among Naijá native speakers, which constitute a base for elaborating endoglossic policies and introducing Naijá into the classroom.
In this paper, we illustrate the different Michif constructions that permit word-internal mixing ... more In this paper, we illustrate the different Michif constructions that permit word-internal mixing in the verbal domain, and which morphological slots in the Michif verb template allow insertion of non-Algonquian material (mainly French). We assess whether stem internal mixing has added in any way to the non-lexical Michif verb morphology, and whether the stem-internal mixing attested in Michif differs in some way from similar phenomena in other mixed languages or comparable borrowing situations. The data come from the Michif dictionary by Laverdure and Allard (1983) and, when the source is not specified, from Mazzoli’s fieldwork corpus (collected in collaboration especially with Verna DeMontigny)
In Perez, Danae M. and Eeva Sippola (eds), Postcolonial varieties in the Americas. Berlin/Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
This is a preprint for:
Mazzoli, Maria (accepted), Secondary derivation in the Michif verb: Beyon... more This is a preprint for: Mazzoli, Maria (accepted), Secondary derivation in the Michif verb: Beyond the traditional Algonquian template. In Perez, Danae M. and Eeva Sippola (eds), Postcolonial varieties in the Americas. Berlin/Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Derivation in Algonquian linguistic literature is an ambiguous term that indicating processes related to word formation (Goddard 1990). In Plains Cree, as in the other Algonquian languages, scholars use the terms primary and secondary derivation to describe stem formation, and in a way that does not highlight the substantial difference of the processes involved and do not create a distinction between FINAL morphemes (involved in primary derivation) and derivatives of the stem (involved in secondary derivation) (Wolfart 1973, Pentland 1999, Rhodes 2016, Tollan & Oxford 2018). In this paper, I focus on the difference between primary and secondary derivation in Michif (Bakker 1997, Mazzoli 2019), recognizing that: (1) so-called primary derivation is affixation of categorizing items (FINALS) to lexical roots (INITIALS), it is mostly unavailable to speakers as a conscious process, and non-productive, while (2) so-called secondary derivation is canonical derivation of affixes deriving autonomous stems (Spencer 2015), it is available to speakers and productive. Therefore, I propose for Michif a verb template independent to the ones created for Plains Cree, since it is based on Michif occurrences only. I also provide the complete list of 20 secondary derivatives in Michif, their semantic functions and their linguistic behaviour, based on the analysis of the text of La pchit Sandrieuz (Fleury & Bakker 2004) included with glosses as an Appendix.
In Perez, Danae M. and Eeva Sippola (eds), Postcolonial varieties in the Americas. Berlin/Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
"La Pchit Sandrieuz aañ Michif" is a Michif story first published by Norman Fleury and Peter Bakk... more "La Pchit Sandrieuz aañ Michif" is a Michif story first published by Norman Fleury and Peter Bakker in 2004. Currently, it is the only available source providing the audio recording, its transcription and English translation for a Michif text. Here, I provide the linguistic analysis of the text of the story that served as a basis for my study of derivation in Michif as discussed in the main paper. In the text, the first line is the original transcription (Fleury & Bakker 2004) and the second line is my transcription following the spelling conventions developed in Rosen & Souter (2009, 2015). The third line contains the glosses and the fourth line is the original English translation. List of abbreviations is provided in the paper in footnote number 4.
This text is an Appendix to:
Mazzoli, Maria (accepted), Secondary derivation in Michif: Beyond the traditional Algonquian template. In Perez, Danae M. and Eeva Sippola (eds), Postcolonial varieties in the Americas. Berlin/Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
This is a pre-print version including non published pictures of the published paper "Michif loss ... more This is a pre-print version including non published pictures of the published paper "Michif loss and resistance in four Metis communities (Kahkiyaaw mashchineenaan, “All of us are disappearing as in a plague”).
Glossed and translated Michif excerpt in section 3.4.
Thirty-three years ago Crawford (1985) described Michif use in four Metis communities in Canada and the USA, and singled out Michif as a stable language, common to several communities in the North American prairies. This paper focuses on four Metis communities as of 2017, and describes pattern of Michif loss and strategies of resistances within those. First, I describe the different varieties of Michif and locate some communities within central Canada and the USA where Michif is still spoken. Then, I focus of the communities of the Turtle Mountain Reservation (USA), Boggy Creek and San Clara (Manitoba), Muskowekwan First Nation (Saskatchewan) and Brandon (southern Manitoba).
Kataluna Esperantisto. Llengua internacional i drets lingüístics, 2017
In this paper I present a case study on language learning trajectories and language ideologies of... more In this paper I present a case study on language learning trajectories and language ideologies of Portuguese migrants residing in Andorra. The case study was conceived as parte of the MIME project, which focuses on ways to ease the trade-off between mobility and social inclusion in different immigration settings in Europe. This paper is based on a collection of 19 interviews, video-recorded as linguistic biographies, during two stays in Andorra. The paper examines how the Portuguese consultants see the languages of their environment (Catalan, Spanish and French and Portuguese). The paper further addresses the interaction between Spanish and Catalan in the Andorran territory, as embodied in the Portuguese community who mainly targeted Spanish especially in the 1980s. Then, I present the possible attitudes and the language behaviour of families with Andorran-born children, noting that shift to Spanish and/or Catalan is often occurring in the second generation. Finally, I discuss the issues of language awareness and evaluation of the learning needs for the people in mobility, given that the languages involved are close enough for limited mutual comprehension.
In this paper, I outline the challenges and opportunities of doing collaborative research on Mich... more In this paper, I outline the challenges and opportunities of doing collaborative research on Michif, the Cree-French mixed language of the Metis. Michif is critically endangered and pockets of speakers are far apart in small communities within the Metis homeland. In this paper, I present the Michif languages and the Metis people, providing up-to-date assessment of the vitality of the mixed variety of Michif, with detailed information on the numbers of speakers and their location. Also, I provide an account of the activities, past or present, to better describe and revitalize Michif, highlighting community members’ own role in this work. The revitalization efforts have produced some young adult second language speakers, especially in the context of the Mentor-Apprentice programs run for several years by Rita Flamand and Grace (Ledoux) Zoldy in Camperville. My research project aims to continue this collaborative work by running similar programs in Brandon (southern Manitoba). My research project involves a combination of theoretical, descriptive, and revitalization efforts. I will address issues related to the methodology of data collection when working with a polysynthetic, oral, under-described, and severely endangered language. In fact, part of my work will concentrate on the development of an adequate methodology of elicitation aimed at assessing morphological knowledge and representation in older, multilingual speakers who have never written in their language.
Language & Communication. Special Issue: Language Ideologies in Music: Emergent Socialities in the Age of Transnationalism. Eeva Sippola, Britta Schneider & Carsten Levisen (eds) , 2017
Ajégúnlè is a suburb in southern mainland Lagos, near the international harbor of Àpápá. In Ajégú... more Ajégúnlè is a suburb in southern mainland Lagos, near the international harbor of Àpápá. In Ajégúnlè, the PMAN (Performing Musicians Employers’ Association of Nigeria) meetings are reunions of the young Reggae artists of the area and are held in Nigerian Pidgin. I recorded and analyzed around eight hours of speech produced during the meetings and interviewed 17 PMAN members. In this paper I deal with language shift occurring among the young PMAN members who are abandoning the heritage African languages of their parents and concurrently show ideological investment in the Nigerian Pidgin language. I also claim that solid sociolinguistic evidence of the emergence of a creole variety of Nigerian Pidgin exists in this area. The emerging identity of this community of practice is shaped through the discourse patterns elaborated in their regular meetings, where clearly Nigerian Pidgin serves as the main symbol of community membership and engagement. In fact, the expansion of the language is consciously conceived by some leading members of the PMAN collective as a means of elaborating a positive Ajégúnlè history and identity, with the concurrent aims of rooting this identity within the Yorùbá territory and waving ties to the global market of black and diasporic music.
This paper examines the rate of use and omission of the Italian verb essere 'to be' in its copula... more This paper examines the rate of use and omission of the Italian verb essere 'to be' in its copular functions in the speech of eight Italian L2 speakers from Ukraine and Moldova. They are female migrant workers, Russian L1 speakers, employed as caregivers by Italian families and long-term residents in Italy. They have no formal instruction in Italian L2, and they have diverse levels of integration into Italian society. We performed a multivariate analysis with Goldvarb X on a corpus of 45.000 words of transcribed speech, collected through non-structured interviews conducted in Italian. In this paper we demonstrate that although all the speakers show great variation in their language performance, they share the same Italian L2 linguistic system. They share the same linguistic conditioning since variation within the examined categories conforms to the same direction of effect. Also, based on the overall and relative rates of copula use in their individual speech, we are able to group the participants into two sets of " less proficient " and " more proficient " speakers. Finally, we observe that among the social factors examined, the level of integration into Italian society plays the most significant role in predicting the speakers' variable performance.
In this paper I will demonstrate how a series of micro changes are related within the synchronic ... more In this paper I will demonstrate how a series of micro changes are related within the synchronic gradience of the item take in Western metropolitan varieties of Nigerian Pidgin (NigP). I will show that take functions as a main verb, as an instrumental serial verb and as an incipient modal verb. While the presence of serial verb constructions (SVCs) can be attributed to a calque from the Kwa/Benue-Congo substrates, I will make an argument for an internal and gradual path of grammaticalisation from serial to modal take, due to the re-bracketing of the collocation take+V2 as a non-serial VP. I will support my claims with an analysis of take’s occurrences in a corpus of NigP collected in Lagos in 2007.
[sic. also known as: DE, tone and property items in Nigerian Pidgin]
In this paper I will descri... more [sic. also known as: DE, tone and property items in Nigerian Pidgin]
In this paper I will describe the domain of attributive (copular) sentences in Nigerian Pidgin (NigP). Attributive clauses are sentences where a certain property is associated with a subject. In most Indo-European languages these types of sentences need copulas as predicate markers since property items do not normally behave predicatively and are syntactically coded as “adjectives”. However, this is not the case for all the world’s languages. In NigP we find attributive clauses where the property item behaves verbally, as the head of the predicate slot,, yet we also find attributive copular clauses where the copula 'de' is followed by the same property item. In NigP the verb de is a locative and existential predicate also performing the role of attributive copula as in example 2. The verb 'de' is distinguished from the imperfective marker 'dè' by means of tone: locative/existential verbs 'dé' are spelled with a high tone and all imperfective markers 'dè' are spelled with a relatively lower pitch tone. The variation in the attributive domain questions the syntactic nature of the elements expressing the property. Elements such as 'cheap', 'happy', 'sick' or 'good' can be alternatively used in NigP as verbs or adjectives and this is why I adopted here the more neutral term of “property items”. The central aim of this work is deal with the distribution of the attributive copula 'de' in NigP, to describe the conditions for its insertion in attributive contexts and the semantics/syntactic changes its insertion entails.
In this paper I make some remarks on the distribution of 'na' (focus introducer and copula) in Si... more In this paper I make some remarks on the distribution of 'na' (focus introducer and copula) in Sierra Leonean Krio and Nigerian Pidgin. I also present some comparative historical data and provide a tentative argument on how 'na' has entered into Nigerian Pidgin.
This article analyses the grammaticalization of the pre-verbal particle kom (from the English ver... more This article analyses the grammaticalization of the pre-verbal particle kom (from the English verb " to come ") in Nigerian Pidgin (NigP). Given that the construction kom + V has probably born out of a context of verb serialization, we will start with a definition of serial verb constructions (SVC) and also provide a panorama of the SVCs in NigP. Serial verb constructions have triggered many cases of grammaticalization in NigP. Later, we will discuss the concept of " grammaticalization " and apply it to the field of contact linguistics: in creoles one can often observe complex constructions that seem instances of grammaticalization but they do not really represent an internal development of the creole. Some grammaticalized items actually mirror diachronic development which took place in the substrate languages, the speakers' first languages. The analysis of pre-verbal kom in NigP will be proposed as an example of ordinary grammaticalization, a diachronic process of functionalization in fieri, triggered by similar structures in the substrates but finally language-internal.
Questo articolo sarà dedicato all'analisi di un caso di grammaticalizzazione in Nigerian Pidgin (NigP nel testo), quella di kom (dall'inglese " to come " : venire) usato come particella pre-verbale non lessicale. Siccome la costruzione kom + V è probabilmente nata come un caso di serializzazione verbale, si partirà da una definizione delle costruzioni a verbi seriali (SVC nel testo) e da una panoramica di questo tipo di strutture in NigP. Le costruzioni a verbi seriali hanno dato luogo a diversi fenomeni di grammaticalizzazione in NigP. Si procederà, dunque, con la discussione di quanto le teorie tradizionali della grammaticalizzazione possano prestarsi all'analisi delle lingue di contatto: nei creoli, infatti, si osservano spesso fenomeni di calco di strutture già grammaticalizzate presenti nelle prime lingue dei parlanti, le lingue di sostrato, così da escludere, in tali casi, processi di sviluppo interno ai creoli. L'analisi del kom pre-verbale in NigP, sarà portata come esempio putativo di grammaticalizzazione ordinaria, un processo di funzionalizzazione diacronico (in fieri) del tutto interno alla lingua. La particella pre-verbale kom in Nigerian Pidgin
Journal of Multilingual Theories and Practices, 2024
This article addresses key issues related to diverse cases of migration to complex multilingual e... more This article addresses key issues related to diverse cases of migration to complex multilingual environments within Europe. Data came from three case studies carried out within the scope of the MIME project: (ex-)Yugoslavian refugees to South Tyrol (Italy); Portuguese work migrants to Andorra; and international managers in Vasa (Finland). Data were elicited using qualitative methods (biographical narrative interviews and focus groups) and thematically analysed to identify emic causes of 'linguistic unease', the speakers' perception that their linguistic repertoire is inadequate for communicating with others and the consequent fear that their linguistic performance will be met with judgemental and negative attitudes. Our results show that in all situations, irrespective of the diverse conditions that exist prior to migration or in the destination country, the complex linguistic environment of the recipient society is puzzling for mobile people. In all cases, numerous migrants target the language that they perceive to be easier and most accessible to them, but this also exposes them to some level of linguistic unease. Crucially, migrants' learning choices rub salt in the wounds of old conflicts that have roots in the historical dynamics of multilingualism of the recipient societies. We argue that raising sociolinguistic awareness about this is crucial to mitigate unease and discrimination in the most vulnerable sections of the migrant population.
This paper examines the relationship between the ethnolinguistic vitality of the Arabic language ... more This paper examines the relationship between the ethnolinguistic vitality of the Arabic language and the linguistic landscape of dairy products in Israel, which we label the linguistic 'productscape' of milk products. The research stems from the following research questions: What is the social and political meaning of the printed language(s) on dairy products in Israel? How do they reflect the linguistic diversity of the country and how do they impact the visibility and, therefore, the vitality of Palestinian Arabic in Israel? Based on the analysis of ethnographic data of language on milk products and advertising campaigns from Tnuva, Tara and Yotvata, collected in Israel between 2015 and 2023, we argue that the realm of commercial products (and crucially of basic necessities, like milk products) has a prominent role in shaping the symbolic capital of languages within multilingual societies. Specifically, we highlight the responsibility of private dairy company managers, specifically in their choices of language on products packages and advertising campaigns, which contribute to the linguistic landscape, influence ethnolinguistic vitality, and ultimately play a role in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
World Englishes and Creole Languages Today, Vol. 1, 2022
Tone has been recognised as a prominent feature in many Atlantic creoles, likely inherited from t... more Tone has been recognised as a prominent feature in many Atlantic creoles, likely inherited from the Niger-Congo substrate languages (Rivera-Castillo and Faraclas 2006). However, the role of tone has been addressed differently in different creoles. For instance, Saramaccan tones have been traditionally studied since Voorhoeve (1961) and Rountree (1972). Instead, there has been some reluctance among researchers to address Naijá, the English-based pidgin/creole spoken in Nigeria, as a tonal language (Agheyisi 1971; Elubge and Omamor 1991; Faraclas 1985, 1996: 263). In this paper, I present experimental evidence concerning the prosodic realization of the item /de/ in the elicited production of three speakers of Naijá with different level of nativization of the language. In Naijá, /de/ is a complex item used as locative/existential verb, attributive copula and imperfective marker. Most of the speakers testify that pitch level is determinant to distinguish the existential/locative (EX.LOC) uses from the aspectual/non-finite (IPFV) uses. However, until now no experimental data has been elicited to test this hypothesis on Naijá prosody. This paper establishes that tonal specifications on the item /de/ are categorically produced by speakers of both native and non-native varieties of Naijá in response to written stimuli whose spelling is tonally underspecified (dey). The results also show multiple inconsistencies in reading decisions, both intra- and inter-speaker, before intransitive (intended) non-stative property verbs, and in the co-occurrence of two dey. This entails some consequences for Naijá spelling. The ongoing debate on the development of writing systems for creole languages has highlighted a gap between the orthographic systems devised by linguists and speakers’ practice (Deuber and Hinrichs 2007). Here, I argue that, although speakers use consistently unspecified dey in spontaneous productions, the written form of Naijá should indeed differentiate between the two tonal specifications, for example by using IPFV low-tone dè and EX.LOC high-tone (unmarked) de, in line with Faraclas (1996) and Ofulue (2010).
Papers of the Fifty-Second Algonquian Conference. Michigan State University Press. 161–184. ISBN: 9781611864465, 2022
In this paper I consider data from Algonquian languages and argue that the concept of morphologic... more In this paper I consider data from Algonquian languages and argue that the concept of morphological productivity is a key tool to better define Algonquian word formation properties and morphological typology. I take the perspective of usage-based and cognitively oriented models, and use the concept of schema or construction, as put forward in Relational Morphology (Jackendoff 2002; Jackendoff and Audring 2020), to distinguish between relational (non-productive schemas) and productive schemas. I focus on lexically heavy bound components in the Algonquian verb stem, and discuss the availability and productivity of incorporated nouns, medials, and concrete finals in Algonquian. The argument in this paper also depends on the claim of a structural distinction between primary and secondary finals.
Naijá (also known as Nigerian Pidgin) is an extended pidgin with millions of speakers in Nigeria,... more Naijá (also known as Nigerian Pidgin) is an extended pidgin with millions of speakers in Nigeria, and it is also a creole since some communities use it as a first language (Faraclas 2013; Mazzoli 2017). It is a common lingua franca in former English colonies in West Africa and has potential for transnational use. Notwithstanding its importance at multiple levels, Naijá is not mentioned in language-related policies in Nigeria, and its use in education is limited and stigmatized. This is due to aggressive ideologies that identify Naijá as an inferior language, especially with respect to English in Nigeria. In this paper, based on fieldwork data collected in southern Nigeria, I outline positive and negative ideologies related to Naijá, and argue that innovative ideologies have emerged among Naijá native speakers, which constitute a base for elaborating endoglossic policies and introducing Naijá into the classroom.
In this paper, we illustrate the different Michif constructions that permit word-internal mixing ... more In this paper, we illustrate the different Michif constructions that permit word-internal mixing in the verbal domain, and which morphological slots in the Michif verb template allow insertion of non-Algonquian material (mainly French). We assess whether stem internal mixing has added in any way to the non-lexical Michif verb morphology, and whether the stem-internal mixing attested in Michif differs in some way from similar phenomena in other mixed languages or comparable borrowing situations. The data come from the Michif dictionary by Laverdure and Allard (1983) and, when the source is not specified, from Mazzoli’s fieldwork corpus (collected in collaboration especially with Verna DeMontigny)
In Perez, Danae M. and Eeva Sippola (eds), Postcolonial varieties in the Americas. Berlin/Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
This is a preprint for:
Mazzoli, Maria (accepted), Secondary derivation in the Michif verb: Beyon... more This is a preprint for: Mazzoli, Maria (accepted), Secondary derivation in the Michif verb: Beyond the traditional Algonquian template. In Perez, Danae M. and Eeva Sippola (eds), Postcolonial varieties in the Americas. Berlin/Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Derivation in Algonquian linguistic literature is an ambiguous term that indicating processes related to word formation (Goddard 1990). In Plains Cree, as in the other Algonquian languages, scholars use the terms primary and secondary derivation to describe stem formation, and in a way that does not highlight the substantial difference of the processes involved and do not create a distinction between FINAL morphemes (involved in primary derivation) and derivatives of the stem (involved in secondary derivation) (Wolfart 1973, Pentland 1999, Rhodes 2016, Tollan & Oxford 2018). In this paper, I focus on the difference between primary and secondary derivation in Michif (Bakker 1997, Mazzoli 2019), recognizing that: (1) so-called primary derivation is affixation of categorizing items (FINALS) to lexical roots (INITIALS), it is mostly unavailable to speakers as a conscious process, and non-productive, while (2) so-called secondary derivation is canonical derivation of affixes deriving autonomous stems (Spencer 2015), it is available to speakers and productive. Therefore, I propose for Michif a verb template independent to the ones created for Plains Cree, since it is based on Michif occurrences only. I also provide the complete list of 20 secondary derivatives in Michif, their semantic functions and their linguistic behaviour, based on the analysis of the text of La pchit Sandrieuz (Fleury & Bakker 2004) included with glosses as an Appendix.
In Perez, Danae M. and Eeva Sippola (eds), Postcolonial varieties in the Americas. Berlin/Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
"La Pchit Sandrieuz aañ Michif" is a Michif story first published by Norman Fleury and Peter Bakk... more "La Pchit Sandrieuz aañ Michif" is a Michif story first published by Norman Fleury and Peter Bakker in 2004. Currently, it is the only available source providing the audio recording, its transcription and English translation for a Michif text. Here, I provide the linguistic analysis of the text of the story that served as a basis for my study of derivation in Michif as discussed in the main paper. In the text, the first line is the original transcription (Fleury & Bakker 2004) and the second line is my transcription following the spelling conventions developed in Rosen & Souter (2009, 2015). The third line contains the glosses and the fourth line is the original English translation. List of abbreviations is provided in the paper in footnote number 4.
This text is an Appendix to:
Mazzoli, Maria (accepted), Secondary derivation in Michif: Beyond the traditional Algonquian template. In Perez, Danae M. and Eeva Sippola (eds), Postcolonial varieties in the Americas. Berlin/Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
This is a pre-print version including non published pictures of the published paper "Michif loss ... more This is a pre-print version including non published pictures of the published paper "Michif loss and resistance in four Metis communities (Kahkiyaaw mashchineenaan, “All of us are disappearing as in a plague”).
Glossed and translated Michif excerpt in section 3.4.
Thirty-three years ago Crawford (1985) described Michif use in four Metis communities in Canada and the USA, and singled out Michif as a stable language, common to several communities in the North American prairies. This paper focuses on four Metis communities as of 2017, and describes pattern of Michif loss and strategies of resistances within those. First, I describe the different varieties of Michif and locate some communities within central Canada and the USA where Michif is still spoken. Then, I focus of the communities of the Turtle Mountain Reservation (USA), Boggy Creek and San Clara (Manitoba), Muskowekwan First Nation (Saskatchewan) and Brandon (southern Manitoba).
Kataluna Esperantisto. Llengua internacional i drets lingüístics, 2017
In this paper I present a case study on language learning trajectories and language ideologies of... more In this paper I present a case study on language learning trajectories and language ideologies of Portuguese migrants residing in Andorra. The case study was conceived as parte of the MIME project, which focuses on ways to ease the trade-off between mobility and social inclusion in different immigration settings in Europe. This paper is based on a collection of 19 interviews, video-recorded as linguistic biographies, during two stays in Andorra. The paper examines how the Portuguese consultants see the languages of their environment (Catalan, Spanish and French and Portuguese). The paper further addresses the interaction between Spanish and Catalan in the Andorran territory, as embodied in the Portuguese community who mainly targeted Spanish especially in the 1980s. Then, I present the possible attitudes and the language behaviour of families with Andorran-born children, noting that shift to Spanish and/or Catalan is often occurring in the second generation. Finally, I discuss the issues of language awareness and evaluation of the learning needs for the people in mobility, given that the languages involved are close enough for limited mutual comprehension.
In this paper, I outline the challenges and opportunities of doing collaborative research on Mich... more In this paper, I outline the challenges and opportunities of doing collaborative research on Michif, the Cree-French mixed language of the Metis. Michif is critically endangered and pockets of speakers are far apart in small communities within the Metis homeland. In this paper, I present the Michif languages and the Metis people, providing up-to-date assessment of the vitality of the mixed variety of Michif, with detailed information on the numbers of speakers and their location. Also, I provide an account of the activities, past or present, to better describe and revitalize Michif, highlighting community members’ own role in this work. The revitalization efforts have produced some young adult second language speakers, especially in the context of the Mentor-Apprentice programs run for several years by Rita Flamand and Grace (Ledoux) Zoldy in Camperville. My research project aims to continue this collaborative work by running similar programs in Brandon (southern Manitoba). My research project involves a combination of theoretical, descriptive, and revitalization efforts. I will address issues related to the methodology of data collection when working with a polysynthetic, oral, under-described, and severely endangered language. In fact, part of my work will concentrate on the development of an adequate methodology of elicitation aimed at assessing morphological knowledge and representation in older, multilingual speakers who have never written in their language.
Language & Communication. Special Issue: Language Ideologies in Music: Emergent Socialities in the Age of Transnationalism. Eeva Sippola, Britta Schneider & Carsten Levisen (eds) , 2017
Ajégúnlè is a suburb in southern mainland Lagos, near the international harbor of Àpápá. In Ajégú... more Ajégúnlè is a suburb in southern mainland Lagos, near the international harbor of Àpápá. In Ajégúnlè, the PMAN (Performing Musicians Employers’ Association of Nigeria) meetings are reunions of the young Reggae artists of the area and are held in Nigerian Pidgin. I recorded and analyzed around eight hours of speech produced during the meetings and interviewed 17 PMAN members. In this paper I deal with language shift occurring among the young PMAN members who are abandoning the heritage African languages of their parents and concurrently show ideological investment in the Nigerian Pidgin language. I also claim that solid sociolinguistic evidence of the emergence of a creole variety of Nigerian Pidgin exists in this area. The emerging identity of this community of practice is shaped through the discourse patterns elaborated in their regular meetings, where clearly Nigerian Pidgin serves as the main symbol of community membership and engagement. In fact, the expansion of the language is consciously conceived by some leading members of the PMAN collective as a means of elaborating a positive Ajégúnlè history and identity, with the concurrent aims of rooting this identity within the Yorùbá territory and waving ties to the global market of black and diasporic music.
This paper examines the rate of use and omission of the Italian verb essere 'to be' in its copula... more This paper examines the rate of use and omission of the Italian verb essere 'to be' in its copular functions in the speech of eight Italian L2 speakers from Ukraine and Moldova. They are female migrant workers, Russian L1 speakers, employed as caregivers by Italian families and long-term residents in Italy. They have no formal instruction in Italian L2, and they have diverse levels of integration into Italian society. We performed a multivariate analysis with Goldvarb X on a corpus of 45.000 words of transcribed speech, collected through non-structured interviews conducted in Italian. In this paper we demonstrate that although all the speakers show great variation in their language performance, they share the same Italian L2 linguistic system. They share the same linguistic conditioning since variation within the examined categories conforms to the same direction of effect. Also, based on the overall and relative rates of copula use in their individual speech, we are able to group the participants into two sets of " less proficient " and " more proficient " speakers. Finally, we observe that among the social factors examined, the level of integration into Italian society plays the most significant role in predicting the speakers' variable performance.
In this paper I will demonstrate how a series of micro changes are related within the synchronic ... more In this paper I will demonstrate how a series of micro changes are related within the synchronic gradience of the item take in Western metropolitan varieties of Nigerian Pidgin (NigP). I will show that take functions as a main verb, as an instrumental serial verb and as an incipient modal verb. While the presence of serial verb constructions (SVCs) can be attributed to a calque from the Kwa/Benue-Congo substrates, I will make an argument for an internal and gradual path of grammaticalisation from serial to modal take, due to the re-bracketing of the collocation take+V2 as a non-serial VP. I will support my claims with an analysis of take’s occurrences in a corpus of NigP collected in Lagos in 2007.
[sic. also known as: DE, tone and property items in Nigerian Pidgin]
In this paper I will descri... more [sic. also known as: DE, tone and property items in Nigerian Pidgin]
In this paper I will describe the domain of attributive (copular) sentences in Nigerian Pidgin (NigP). Attributive clauses are sentences where a certain property is associated with a subject. In most Indo-European languages these types of sentences need copulas as predicate markers since property items do not normally behave predicatively and are syntactically coded as “adjectives”. However, this is not the case for all the world’s languages. In NigP we find attributive clauses where the property item behaves verbally, as the head of the predicate slot,, yet we also find attributive copular clauses where the copula 'de' is followed by the same property item. In NigP the verb de is a locative and existential predicate also performing the role of attributive copula as in example 2. The verb 'de' is distinguished from the imperfective marker 'dè' by means of tone: locative/existential verbs 'dé' are spelled with a high tone and all imperfective markers 'dè' are spelled with a relatively lower pitch tone. The variation in the attributive domain questions the syntactic nature of the elements expressing the property. Elements such as 'cheap', 'happy', 'sick' or 'good' can be alternatively used in NigP as verbs or adjectives and this is why I adopted here the more neutral term of “property items”. The central aim of this work is deal with the distribution of the attributive copula 'de' in NigP, to describe the conditions for its insertion in attributive contexts and the semantics/syntactic changes its insertion entails.
In this paper I make some remarks on the distribution of 'na' (focus introducer and copula) in Si... more In this paper I make some remarks on the distribution of 'na' (focus introducer and copula) in Sierra Leonean Krio and Nigerian Pidgin. I also present some comparative historical data and provide a tentative argument on how 'na' has entered into Nigerian Pidgin.
This article analyses the grammaticalization of the pre-verbal particle kom (from the English ver... more This article analyses the grammaticalization of the pre-verbal particle kom (from the English verb " to come ") in Nigerian Pidgin (NigP). Given that the construction kom + V has probably born out of a context of verb serialization, we will start with a definition of serial verb constructions (SVC) and also provide a panorama of the SVCs in NigP. Serial verb constructions have triggered many cases of grammaticalization in NigP. Later, we will discuss the concept of " grammaticalization " and apply it to the field of contact linguistics: in creoles one can often observe complex constructions that seem instances of grammaticalization but they do not really represent an internal development of the creole. Some grammaticalized items actually mirror diachronic development which took place in the substrate languages, the speakers' first languages. The analysis of pre-verbal kom in NigP will be proposed as an example of ordinary grammaticalization, a diachronic process of functionalization in fieri, triggered by similar structures in the substrates but finally language-internal.
Questo articolo sarà dedicato all'analisi di un caso di grammaticalizzazione in Nigerian Pidgin (NigP nel testo), quella di kom (dall'inglese " to come " : venire) usato come particella pre-verbale non lessicale. Siccome la costruzione kom + V è probabilmente nata come un caso di serializzazione verbale, si partirà da una definizione delle costruzioni a verbi seriali (SVC nel testo) e da una panoramica di questo tipo di strutture in NigP. Le costruzioni a verbi seriali hanno dato luogo a diversi fenomeni di grammaticalizzazione in NigP. Si procederà, dunque, con la discussione di quanto le teorie tradizionali della grammaticalizzazione possano prestarsi all'analisi delle lingue di contatto: nei creoli, infatti, si osservano spesso fenomeni di calco di strutture già grammaticalizzate presenti nelle prime lingue dei parlanti, le lingue di sostrato, così da escludere, in tali casi, processi di sviluppo interno ai creoli. L'analisi del kom pre-verbale in NigP, sarà portata come esempio putativo di grammaticalizzazione ordinaria, un processo di funzionalizzazione diacronico (in fieri) del tutto interno alla lingua. La particella pre-verbale kom in Nigerian Pidgin
A presenttion given on April 13, 2017 at the Research colloquium of the Institute for the Humanit... more A presenttion given on April 13, 2017 at the Research colloquium of the Institute for the Humanities, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg. A brief presentation on how I will conduct my field research on Michif and the main challenges I will confront.
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Mazzoli, Maria (accepted), Secondary derivation in the Michif verb: Beyond the traditional Algonquian template. In Perez, Danae M. and Eeva Sippola (eds), Postcolonial varieties in the Americas. Berlin/Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Derivation in Algonquian linguistic literature is an ambiguous term that indicating processes related to word formation (Goddard 1990). In Plains Cree, as in the other Algonquian languages, scholars use the terms primary and secondary derivation to describe stem formation, and in a way that does not highlight the substantial difference of the processes involved and do not create a distinction between FINAL morphemes (involved in primary derivation) and derivatives of the stem (involved in secondary derivation) (Wolfart 1973, Pentland 1999, Rhodes 2016, Tollan & Oxford 2018). In this paper, I focus on the difference between primary and secondary derivation in Michif (Bakker 1997, Mazzoli 2019), recognizing that: (1) so-called primary derivation is affixation of categorizing items (FINALS) to lexical roots (INITIALS), it is mostly unavailable to speakers as a conscious process, and non-productive, while (2) so-called secondary derivation is canonical derivation of affixes deriving autonomous stems (Spencer 2015), it is available to speakers and productive. Therefore, I propose for Michif a verb template independent to the ones created for Plains Cree, since it is based on Michif occurrences only. I also provide the complete list of 20 secondary derivatives in Michif, their semantic functions and their linguistic behaviour, based on the analysis of the text of La pchit Sandrieuz (Fleury & Bakker 2004) included with glosses as an Appendix.
This text is an Appendix to:
Mazzoli, Maria (accepted), Secondary derivation in Michif: Beyond the traditional Algonquian template. In Perez, Danae M. and Eeva Sippola (eds), Postcolonial varieties in the Americas. Berlin/Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Glossed and translated Michif excerpt in section 3.4.
Thirty-three years ago Crawford (1985) described Michif use in four Metis communities in Canada and the USA, and singled out Michif as a stable language, common to several communities in the North American prairies. This paper focuses on four Metis communities as of 2017, and describes pattern of Michif loss and strategies of resistances within those. First, I describe the different varieties of Michif and locate some communities within central Canada and the USA where Michif is still spoken. Then, I focus of the communities of the Turtle Mountain Reservation (USA), Boggy Creek and San Clara (Manitoba), Muskowekwan First Nation (Saskatchewan) and Brandon (southern Manitoba).
In this paper I will describe the domain of attributive (copular) sentences in Nigerian Pidgin (NigP). Attributive clauses are sentences where a certain property is associated with a subject. In most Indo-European languages these types of sentences need copulas as predicate markers since property items do not normally behave predicatively and are syntactically coded as “adjectives”. However, this is not the case for all the world’s languages. In NigP we find attributive clauses where the property item behaves verbally, as the head of the predicate slot,, yet we also find attributive copular clauses where the copula 'de' is followed by the same property item. In NigP the verb de is a locative and existential predicate also performing the role of attributive copula as in example 2. The verb 'de' is distinguished from the imperfective marker 'dè' by means of tone: locative/existential verbs 'dé' are spelled with a high tone and all imperfective markers 'dè' are spelled with a relatively lower pitch tone. The variation in the attributive domain questions the syntactic nature of the elements expressing the property. Elements such as 'cheap', 'happy', 'sick' or 'good' can be alternatively used in NigP as verbs or adjectives and this is why I adopted here the more neutral term of “property items”. The central aim of this work is deal with the distribution of the attributive copula 'de' in NigP, to describe the conditions for its insertion in attributive contexts and the semantics/syntactic changes its insertion entails.
Questo articolo sarà dedicato all'analisi di un caso di grammaticalizzazione in Nigerian Pidgin (NigP nel testo), quella di kom (dall'inglese " to come " : venire) usato come particella pre-verbale non lessicale. Siccome la costruzione kom + V è probabilmente nata come un caso di serializzazione verbale, si partirà da una definizione delle costruzioni a verbi seriali (SVC nel testo) e da una panoramica di questo tipo di strutture in NigP. Le costruzioni a verbi seriali hanno dato luogo a diversi fenomeni di grammaticalizzazione in NigP. Si procederà, dunque, con la discussione di quanto le teorie tradizionali della grammaticalizzazione possano prestarsi all'analisi delle lingue di contatto: nei creoli, infatti, si osservano spesso fenomeni di calco di strutture già grammaticalizzate presenti nelle prime lingue dei parlanti, le lingue di sostrato, così da escludere, in tali casi, processi di sviluppo interno ai creoli. L'analisi del kom pre-verbale in NigP, sarà portata come esempio putativo di grammaticalizzazione ordinaria, un processo di funzionalizzazione diacronico (in fieri) del tutto interno alla lingua. La particella pre-verbale kom in Nigerian Pidgin
Mazzoli, Maria (accepted), Secondary derivation in the Michif verb: Beyond the traditional Algonquian template. In Perez, Danae M. and Eeva Sippola (eds), Postcolonial varieties in the Americas. Berlin/Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Derivation in Algonquian linguistic literature is an ambiguous term that indicating processes related to word formation (Goddard 1990). In Plains Cree, as in the other Algonquian languages, scholars use the terms primary and secondary derivation to describe stem formation, and in a way that does not highlight the substantial difference of the processes involved and do not create a distinction between FINAL morphemes (involved in primary derivation) and derivatives of the stem (involved in secondary derivation) (Wolfart 1973, Pentland 1999, Rhodes 2016, Tollan & Oxford 2018). In this paper, I focus on the difference between primary and secondary derivation in Michif (Bakker 1997, Mazzoli 2019), recognizing that: (1) so-called primary derivation is affixation of categorizing items (FINALS) to lexical roots (INITIALS), it is mostly unavailable to speakers as a conscious process, and non-productive, while (2) so-called secondary derivation is canonical derivation of affixes deriving autonomous stems (Spencer 2015), it is available to speakers and productive. Therefore, I propose for Michif a verb template independent to the ones created for Plains Cree, since it is based on Michif occurrences only. I also provide the complete list of 20 secondary derivatives in Michif, their semantic functions and their linguistic behaviour, based on the analysis of the text of La pchit Sandrieuz (Fleury & Bakker 2004) included with glosses as an Appendix.
This text is an Appendix to:
Mazzoli, Maria (accepted), Secondary derivation in Michif: Beyond the traditional Algonquian template. In Perez, Danae M. and Eeva Sippola (eds), Postcolonial varieties in the Americas. Berlin/Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Glossed and translated Michif excerpt in section 3.4.
Thirty-three years ago Crawford (1985) described Michif use in four Metis communities in Canada and the USA, and singled out Michif as a stable language, common to several communities in the North American prairies. This paper focuses on four Metis communities as of 2017, and describes pattern of Michif loss and strategies of resistances within those. First, I describe the different varieties of Michif and locate some communities within central Canada and the USA where Michif is still spoken. Then, I focus of the communities of the Turtle Mountain Reservation (USA), Boggy Creek and San Clara (Manitoba), Muskowekwan First Nation (Saskatchewan) and Brandon (southern Manitoba).
In this paper I will describe the domain of attributive (copular) sentences in Nigerian Pidgin (NigP). Attributive clauses are sentences where a certain property is associated with a subject. In most Indo-European languages these types of sentences need copulas as predicate markers since property items do not normally behave predicatively and are syntactically coded as “adjectives”. However, this is not the case for all the world’s languages. In NigP we find attributive clauses where the property item behaves verbally, as the head of the predicate slot,, yet we also find attributive copular clauses where the copula 'de' is followed by the same property item. In NigP the verb de is a locative and existential predicate also performing the role of attributive copula as in example 2. The verb 'de' is distinguished from the imperfective marker 'dè' by means of tone: locative/existential verbs 'dé' are spelled with a high tone and all imperfective markers 'dè' are spelled with a relatively lower pitch tone. The variation in the attributive domain questions the syntactic nature of the elements expressing the property. Elements such as 'cheap', 'happy', 'sick' or 'good' can be alternatively used in NigP as verbs or adjectives and this is why I adopted here the more neutral term of “property items”. The central aim of this work is deal with the distribution of the attributive copula 'de' in NigP, to describe the conditions for its insertion in attributive contexts and the semantics/syntactic changes its insertion entails.
Questo articolo sarà dedicato all'analisi di un caso di grammaticalizzazione in Nigerian Pidgin (NigP nel testo), quella di kom (dall'inglese " to come " : venire) usato come particella pre-verbale non lessicale. Siccome la costruzione kom + V è probabilmente nata come un caso di serializzazione verbale, si partirà da una definizione delle costruzioni a verbi seriali (SVC nel testo) e da una panoramica di questo tipo di strutture in NigP. Le costruzioni a verbi seriali hanno dato luogo a diversi fenomeni di grammaticalizzazione in NigP. Si procederà, dunque, con la discussione di quanto le teorie tradizionali della grammaticalizzazione possano prestarsi all'analisi delle lingue di contatto: nei creoli, infatti, si osservano spesso fenomeni di calco di strutture già grammaticalizzate presenti nelle prime lingue dei parlanti, le lingue di sostrato, così da escludere, in tali casi, processi di sviluppo interno ai creoli. L'analisi del kom pre-verbale in NigP, sarà portata come esempio putativo di grammaticalizzazione ordinaria, un processo di funzionalizzazione diacronico (in fieri) del tutto interno alla lingua. La particella pre-verbale kom in Nigerian Pidgin