Overview

The Aaniiih (Gros Ventre) Language is a tribally centered reference grammar of Aaniiih. A member of the Algonquian language family, Aaniiih is most closely related to the Arapaho language. Previously spoken in areas of central and southern Alberta and Saskatchewan and northern Montana, the language is now spoken on the Fort Belknap Reservation in north central Montana. Andrew Cowell and Terry Brockie worked with tribal members to retranscribe historical and archival documentation of the language in order to revitalize it. This grammar provides a comprehensive description of the language throughout all its stages, focusing on the phonology and morphology of new word formation; on levels of politeness in the language and strategies for indirectness; and on salient cultural topics such as place-names, personal names, prayer, and traditional narrative, as well as greetings, departures, and a rich variety of exclamations and interjections. The grammar describes both classical (pre-reservation) and modern Aaniiih, allowing contemporary revivers of the language to fully understand both and to choose which to focus on for teaching and learning. The Aaniiih (Gros Ventre) Language is an essential guide to assisting with the Gros Ventre nation’s efforts to teach and revitalize its language in the twenty-first century.  

Full Product Details

Author:   Andrew Cowell
Publisher:   University of Nebraska Press
Imprint:   University of Nebraska Press
ISBN:  

9781496238528

ISBN 10:   1496238524
Pages:   628
Publication Date:   01 October 2024
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Manufactured on demand  
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Table of Contents

List of Abbreviations and Symbols Used in This Grammar List of Tables Acknowledgements Chapter One: Introduction 1.1 Situating the Aaniiih Language in Time and Space 1.2 The Aaniiih-Arapaho Languages 1.3 Classical and Twentieth-Century Aaniiih 1.4 Contemporary Aaniiih and Revitalization 1.5 Summary: What is a Revitalization Grammar? Chapter Two: The Way Aaniiih Works 2.1 Agglutination (prefixes and suffixes) and Polysynthesis (multi-concept words) 2.2 Animacy of Nouns: NI vs NA 2.3. Different Verbs (Verb Stem Types) in Relation to the NI/NA Distinction 2.4 Different Verb “Orders” for Different Types of Information 2.5 Word Order and Other Means of Information Focusing 2.6 Person Hierarchy: Who’s Most Important? 2.7 Male and Female Speech Chapter Three: Phonology: The Sound System 3. 1 Phonemic Inventory and Features             3.1.1 Consonants             3.1.2 Vowels (Including Vowel Length, Vowel Harmony, Vowel Tone)             3.1.2.1 Vowel Length             3.1.2.2 Vowel Harmony             3.1.2.3 Vowel Tone             3.1.3 Phonotactics (Allowable Sound Combinations)             3.1.4 The Issue of Final /-n/ and /-w/. 3.2 Combining Morphemes (Meaning Units)             3.2.1 Underlying Stems             3.2.2 Glide Vowel             3.2.2.1 /V + V/ Sequences             3.2.3 Consonant Mutation             3.2.4 Vowel Quality Changes             3.2.5 Timing of Application of Vowel Harmony             3.2.6 Summary of Sound Changes Occurring Due to Morpheme Combinations 3.3 Stress, Syllable Structure, and Effects of Stress on Vowels             3.3.1 Syllable Structure             3.3.2 Stress             3.3.2.1 Lexical Stress on Stems             3.3.2.2 Grammatical Stress             3.3.3 Stress and Vowel Devoicing; Loss of Final -Vh/Ɂ             3.3.4 Stress and Vowel Quality             3.3.4.1 Stress and Vowel Quality (Long Vowels)             3.3.4.2 Stress and Phoneme Sequence /CyV/             3.3.4.3 Summary of Stress and Vowel Quality Changes             3.3.5 Stress and Vowel Syncope             3.3.6 More on Derivation, Inflection and Grammatical Stress             3.3.7 Deletion of Final Stress             3.3.8 Spreading of Stress and Syllable Merger             3.3.9 Prosodic Stress Beyond the Stem 3.4 Summary Chapter Four: Noun Inflection and Derivation 4.1 Noun Classes: Animate and Inanimate 4.2 Noun Inflection             4.2.1 Plural             4.2.2 Noun Stress             4.2.3 Obviative             4.2.4 Locative             4.2.5 Possession 4.3 Verbal Nouns 4.4 Noun Derivation             4.4.1 Diminutives             4.4.2 ‘Young of…’ Suffix             4.4.3 Vocatives             4.4.4 Deverbal Forms             4.4.5 Compounding and Noun Stem Formation             4.4.5.1 Compounding             4.4.5.2 Noun Stem Derivation (Creation) 4.5 Pronouns             4.5.1 Personal Pronouns             4.5.2 Indefinite Pronouns             4.5.3 Pseudo-verbal and other “Presentational” Forms             4.5.4 Interrogative Pronouns             4.5.5 Possessive Pronouns  4.6 Noun Phrases             4.6.1 Prenouns vs. Full Verbal Modifiers             4.6.2 Proclitics Occurring with Nouns             4.6.3 Adjectival and Number Verbs             4.6.4 Determiners             4.6.4.1 Definiteness and Identifiability             4.6.4.2 Emphatic Determiners             4.6.5 Noun Phrase Syntax Chapter Five: Verbal Inflection 5.1 Proximate and Obviative System 5.2 Affirmative Order Verb Inflections             5.2.1 II Verb Inflections, Affirmative             5.2.2 AI Verb Inflections, Affirmative             5.2.3 TI Verb Inflections, Affirmative             5.2.4 TA Verbs Inflections, Affirmative             5.2.4.1 Direction-of-action Theme Markers             5.2.4.2 Person Hierarchy                         5.2.4.3 TA Inflections 5.3 Non-Affirmative Order Verb Inflections             5.3.1 II Verb Inflections, Non-Affirmative             5.3.2 AI Verb Inflections, Non-Affirmative             5.3.3 TI Verb Inflections, Non-Affirmative             5.3.4 TA Verb Inflections, Non-Affirmative             5.3.5 Non-Affirmative Order Particles, Prefixes and Proclitics 5.4 Imperative Order Verb Inflections             5.4.1 Direct Imperative, AI             5.4.2 Direct Imperative, TI             5.4.3 Direct Imperative, TA             5.4.4 Indirect Imperative             5.4.5 Delayed/Future Imperative             5.4.6 Suggestive/Potential Imperative             5.4.7 Lexical Imperatives             5.4.8 Affirmative Order Imperative Forms 5.5 Conjunct Order Verb Inflections              5.5.1 Simple Conjunct Mode             5.5.2 Iterative Mode             5.5.2.1 ‘Whenever…’             5.5.2.2 Dubitative             5.5.2.3 ‘Whatever, However…’             5.5.2.4 ‘On…’ ‘In…’ ‘At…’             5.5.3 Subjunctive Mode             5.5.3.1 ‘When…’             5.5.3.2 ‘If…’ 5.5.3.3 Hypothetical and Contrary-to-fact 5.5.3.4 Contrary-to-expectations 5.5.3.5 Epistemic marking 5.5.3.6 ‘Until…’  5.5.4 Dependent Participle 5.6 ‘To be…’ in Aaniiih             5.6.1 Predicate Nominals             5.6.2 Predicate Adjectives             5.6.3 Predicate Locative             5.6.4 Predicate Possessives             5.6.5 ‘To be’ Infinitives Chapter Six: Verb Derivation 6.1 Primary Verb Derivation: Verb Finals             6.1.1 II and AI Primary Abstract Derivational Finals             6.1.2 TI and TA Primary Abstract Derivational Finals             6.1.3 Concrete Finals                         6.1.3.1 Dependent Concrete Finals                         6.1.3.2 Concrete Finals Derived from Independent Verb Stems             6.1.4 Verb Medials and Noun Incorporation             6.1.5 Medials as Verbal Classifiers             6.1.6 Open-Set Noun Incorporation 6.1.6.1 ‘Have a....’ 6.1.6.2 ‘Be a... ’ 6.1.6.3 ‘Become a... ’ 6.1.6.4 ‘Have as a relation.... ’ 6.1.6.5 ‘Create or procure a...., ’ ‘Do work on or fix a.... ’ 6.2 Secondary Derivation             6.2.1 Valence Reducing             6.2.2 Valence Increasing             6.2.3 Valence Increasing, Two Arguments ⟶ Three Arguments             6.2.4 Stem Class Shifting             6.2.5 Multiple Derivational Suffixes 6.3 Examples of New Verb Formation Chapter Seven: Verbal Prefixes and Initials 7.1 Epistemic Prefixes Regarding Certainty of Information, and Evidentiality 7.2 Prefixes Indicating Relative Temporal Relationships 7.3 Prefixes Indicating Aspect and/or Temporal Frequency 7.4 Auxiliary-type (Deontic Modal) Prefixes 7.5 Prefixes Serving as Quantifiers and Intensifiers 7.6 Prefix Detachment 7.7 Manner, Direction and Location Prefixes/Verb Initials 7.8 Deictic Directional Prefixes 7.9 Reduplication 7.10 Complex Verb Initials and Prefixes 7.11 Noun and Verb Compounds vs. Initials: Restrictions on TI and TA Stems Chapter Eight: Tense, Aspect and Modality 8.1 Affirmative Order Tense and Aspect             8.1.1 Initial Change 8.2 Non-Affirmative Order Tense and Aspect 8.3 Imperative Order Tense and Aspect 8.4 Conjunct Order Tense and Aspect 8.5 Sequential Action 8.6 Modality             8.6.1 Evidential Modality             8.6.2 Epistemic Modality             8.6.3 Deontic Modality                         8.6.3.1 Commitments, Purposive Statements                         8.6.3.2 Ability statements Chapter Nine: Deverbalization  Processes and Noun Formation 9.1 Agent Nominalizations 9.2 Deverbal Participles             9.2.1 AI Participles: Action and State Nominalizations             9.2.2 TI Participles: Instrument and Product Nominalizations             9.2.3 TA Participles: Action Nominalizations 9.3 Impersonal Verbs: Place and Time Nominalizations             9.3.1 Additional Place Nominalization Processes Chapter Ten: Main Clause Syntax 10.1 Pragmatic Focus and the Sentence-Initial Position             10.1.1 Non-Actors in the Marked Position             10.1.2 Summary of Main Clause Syntax 10.2 Smaller-scale Syntactic Order in Aaniiih 10.3 Discontinuous Constituency 10.4 Di-Transitive Verbs and Secondary Objects 10.5 Comparatives and Superlatives             10.5.1 Comparison of Equality             10.5.2 Comparison of Inequality             10.5.3 Comparison Questions             10.5.4 Superlatives Chapter Eleven: Subordinate and Complement Clauses 11.1 Relative Root Preverbs             11.1.1 Relative Roots as Initial Elements of Verbs Stems             11.1.2 Use of Relative Roots to Form ‘to be’ Expressions 11.2 More on Adverbial Clauses: “Prepositional” Phrases, Direction and Location 11.3 More on Complement Clauses: Complementizer             11.3.1 Complement Clauses: Translation of English ‘to…’ Infinitive Clauses 11.4 Pseudo-Cleft Expressions with Relative Roots 11.5 More on Relative Clauses             11.5.1 Relative Clauses and Adjectival Verbs             11.5.2 Relativization of Different Semantic Roles Chapter Twelve: Particles and Discourse 12.1 Simple Particles 12.2 Complex Particles             12.2.1 Locative Particles             12.2.2 Adverbial Particles                         12.2.2.1 Detached Forms                         12.2.2.2 Independent Forms                         12.2.2.3 Instrumental Adverbial Particle 12.2.2.4 Non-animate Causation and the Instrumental 12.2.2.5 Pseudo-Pronominal Preverbs 12.3 Exclamations             12.3.1 Admonitive Exclamations 12.4 Conversational Particles 12.5 Discourse-level Particles 12.6 The Grammar of Politeness             12.6.1 Questions             12.6.2 Commands             12.6.3 Requests and Recommendations             12.6.4 Statements             12.6.5 What Aaniiih Doesn’t Do Chapter Thirteen: Numbers, Times and Dates 13.1 Introduction: General Principles of Numbers in Aaniiih 13.2 Cardinal Numbers 13.3 Ordinal Numbers 13.4 Distributive and Collective Meanings 13.5 Types, Kinds 13.6 Money and Value Expressions; Weights, Lengths, Degrees, etc. 13.7 Time: Number of Days 13.8 Time: Specific Days, Months, Seasons 13.9 Time: Hours and Minutes 13.10 Time: Age 13.11 Time Duration (Lengths/Quantities of Time) Chapter Fourteen: Special Language Practices 14.1 Placenames 14.2 Personal Names 14.3 Traditional Narratives             14.3.1 Opening and Closing Formulas             14.3.2 Main Clauses and Narrative Past Tense             14.3.3 Sequential (‘and then…’ ‘and next…’) Clauses             14.3.4 Subordinate Clauses             14.3.5 Reported Speech in Narration             14.3.6 Large-scale Discourse Structure 14.4 Songs 14.5 Prayer 14.6 Announcing and Honor Calling 14.7 Animal and Bird Calls, Sounds and Speech 14.8 Baby Talk Chapter Fifteen: Modern/Twentieth-Century Aaniiih 15.1 Phonology 15.2 Nouns, Pronouns and Noun Phrases             15.2.1 Plurals             15.2.2 Locatives             15.2.3 Possession             15.2.4 Pronouns             15.2.5 Noun Phrases 15.3 Verbal Inflections             15.3.1 Affirmative Order 15.3.1.1 Details on TI (and AI.T) Affirmative 15.3.1.2 Details on TA Affirmative 15.3.2 Non-Affirmative Order             15.3.2.1 Details on AI Non-Affirmative             15.3.2.2 Details on TI Non-Affirmative             15.3.2.3 Details on TA Non-Affirmative  15.3.3 Imperative Order  15.3.4 Conjunct Order             15.3.4.1 Simple Conjunct             15.3.4.2 Dependent Participle 15.3.4.3 Iterative and Subjunctive   15.3.5 The General Process of Shift from 1S to 1P Inflections 15.4 Tense, Aspect and Modality 15.4.1 Tense and Aspect 15.4.2 Modality 15.5 Twentieth-Century Aaniiih from a Broader Aaniiih-Arapaho Perspective 15.6 Twentieth-Century Aaniiih from a Contact Perspective 15.7 Twentieth-Century Aaniiih and Internal Language Change 15.8 Conclusion Chapter Sixteen: Contemporary Aaniiih and Revitalization 16.1 Phonology             16.1.1 Male and Female Consonants             16.1.2 The Role of Underlying Forms in Learning and Pedagogy             16.1.3 Orthography 16.2 Nouns, Pronouns and Noun Phrases             16.2.1 Noun Plurals             16.2.2 Possession             16.2.3 Noun Phrase 16.3 Verb Inflections             16.3.1 AI and TI Inflections             16.3.2 TA Inflections             16.3.3 Imperatives             16.3.4 Iterative and Subjunctive Inflections 16.3.5 Dependent Participles 16.4 Tense, Aspect and Modality 16.5 Other Components of the Grammar 16.6 Special Speech Forms 16.7 New Word Formation 16.8 Summary of Key Issues and Current Plans in Revitalization Aaniiih Chapter Seventeen: A Classical Aaniiih Text Appendices Appendix One: Aaniiih Historical Phonology, from PA to Aaniiih Appendix Two: From PA to Classical Aaniiih: Basic Inflections Appendix Three: Umfreville’s 1786 Documentation of Aaniiih Appendix Four: Prince Maximillian von Wied’s 1833-34 documentation of Aaniiih Appendix Five: Hayden’s 1855 Documentation of Aaniiih Appendix Six: Unexpected NA Nouns Appendix Seven: Revitalization Aaniiih Verb Paradigms Bibliography and Sources Index

Reviews

“Andrew Cowell’s comprehensive grammar is an essential roadmap to Aaniiih. It dissects the complexities of the language and lays out discernible patterns in a simple and understandable way. In many ways the grammar acts like a Rosetta Stone, decoding a worldview that those who have gone on left embedded within the language. Terry Brockie and many of his contemporaries were among the last to recognize the need to dig in and spend time with the few remaining elders who spoke Aaniiih. Their work, coupled with that of Andrew Cowell, has created a solid foundation for these young folks to springboard from and make Aaniiih theirs.”—Randall Collin Werk Sr., Aaniiih Mountain District representative, Fort Belknap Indian Community Council “Invaluable both for the Aaniiih community seeking to revitalize the language and for Algonquianist linguists eager to understand the role of Aaniiih in comparative and historical linguistic work. This book is an inspiring example of a ‘revitalization grammar.’ Cowell’s volume demonstrates how much can be discovered in the corpus of earlier documentation and presents the material in such a way that current community members can make use of the detailed descriptions.”—Amy Dahlstrom, author of Plains Cree Morphosyntax

Author Information

Andrew Cowell is a professor of linguistics and director of the Center for Native American and Indigenous Studies at the University of Colorado. He is the author of Naming the World: Language and Power among the Northern Arapaho, coeditor of Aaniiih/Gros Ventre Stories, and coauthor of The Arapaho Language, among other books. Terry Brockie is a member of the Gros Ventre tribe and has served as teacher, school superintendent, and ceremonial leader. He is a coeditor of Aaniiih/Gros Ventre Stories.  

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