AC57 Schedule – Sunday, October 19

Event Time: 9:30 a.m.–9:55 a.m.

Event Time: 10:00 a.m.–10:30 a.m.

Presenters:

• Ryan E. Henke is an assistant professor in Language Sciences at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. His research centers on the vitality of the Indigenous languages of North America, where he primarily works at the intersection of first language acquisition, language documentation and description, and language revitalization. Much of his recent research focuses on the usage of Northern East Cree morphosyntactic patterns in child-directed speech and how children learn such patterns.
• Julie Brittain is an Honorary Research Professor (retired) in the Department of Linguistics at Memorial University of Newfoundland. She has been director of the Chisasibi Child Language Acquisition Study (CCLAS) since 2004, continuing to research and publish in the area of first language acquisition of morphology/syntax of Northern East Cree. More generally, her area of specialization is the grammatical systems of Cree-Innu-Naskapi and ways in which linguistic research can support language vitality

Abstract:

This presentation shares observations on the usage of Initial Change (IC) in Northern East Cree child-directed speech (CDS). Recent studies (Brittain & Rose, 2021; Oney, 2021) have called for research on how children learn IC, which affects the first vowel/syllable of the verb complex and may present challenges for language learning due to its complex alternations. Given a dearth of available description for IC in NE Cree adult-level speech, we focus on CDS to gain a better understanding of the patterns presented to children in their language-learning journey.

The present study analyzes video recordings from the Chisasibi Child Language Acquisition Study (Brittain et al., 2007), which represent naturalistic interactions between one adult and one child from age 3;08 (three years, eight months) to 5;11. So far, we have analyzed four recordings (around 2.5 hours), which involve 155 verbs tokens using IC, and we have focused on factors such as attested sound changes and conditioning factors.

Existing linguistic description (Brittain & Rose, 2021; Collette, 2014; Junker et al., 2013) delineates approximately 10 sound changes involved with IC. In the CDS analyzed so far, five changes are not attested, and one change occurs most frequently: 95/155 verb tokens (61 percent) employ the IC pattern i>aa, as in (1–4). Much of this pattern’s prevalence can be explained by the frequency of lexemes beginning with /i/, which encode meanings such as ‘to do’, ‘to appear a certain way’, and ‘to be named something’.

In terms of conditioning factors, available sources are clear that wh-questions require IC (1). This is the most frequent conditioning factor present in the data (118/155 tokens, 76 percent). On the other hand, the literature does not go into much detail about other clausal conditions that involve IC. Our analysis shows a variety of possible conditions, including: constructions using a particle akuutaah ‘Okay; it’s fine; right there’ (2); complement clauses (3); and fronted emphatic demonstratives, which may be creating focus constructions (4).

(1) Taan aashinihkaataach an? 

taan ishinihkaataa-ch an 

wh be.namedII-0SGCJ that 

‘What is that called?’

(2) Aakutaah aashinihkaataach.

aakutaah ishinihkaataa-ch

OK be.namedII-0SGCJ

‘That’s how they call it.’

(3) Chichischaayimaau aa aasinihkaasut?

chi-chischaayim-aa-u aa isinihkaasu-t

2-knowTA-3.OBJ-nonSAP Q be.namedAI-3SGCJ

‘Do you know what it is called?’

(4) Maautaah waash aasinihkaasuyin [name] nimaa?

maau-taah waash isinihkaasu-yin [name] nimaa

this-LOC EMPH be.namedAI-2SGCJ name NEG

‘You are called like this, [name], eh?’

We look forward to sharing these in-progress results and receiving feedback from scholars interested in IC. Findings will offer implications for language science and for Cree communities, particularly those seeking more information on child language development as well as ways to inform planning, training, curricula, and assessment in language revitalization programs serving children and their families.

References

Brittain, J., Dyck, C., Rose, Y., & MacKenzie, M. (2007). The Chisasibi Child Language Acquisition Study (CCLAS): A progress report. In H. C. Wolfart (Ed.), Papers of the 38th Algonquian Conference (pp. 1–17). University of Manitoba.

Brittain, J., & Rose, Y. (2021). The development of preverbs in Northern East Cree: A longitudinal case study. First Language, 41, 376–405.

Collette, V. (2014). Description de la morphologie grammaticale du cri de l’Est (dialecte du Nord, Whapmagoostui) [PhD dissertation]. Université Laval.

Junker, M.-O., Salt, L., & Visitor, F. (2013). The Interactive East Cree Reference Grammar. The Interactive East Cree Reference Grammar. https://www.eastcree.org/cree/en/grammar/

Oney, B. (2021). Patterns of Cree preverb usage in early child language: A longitudinal case study [MA thesis]. Memorial University of Newfoundland.

Event Time: 10:30 a.m.–11:00 a.m.

Presenters:

• Chance Lockwood is a graduate student in linguistics at the University of Montana and plans to complete his master's degree in the spring of 2026. In prior years he has worked as an undergraduate research assistant for Professor Miyashita conducting research in Blackfoot prosody and currently works at the graduate level, researching the intonation of Blackfoot yes/no questions. His current research interests are North American Indigenous languages, language revitalization/documentation, phonetics/phonology, and prosody.
• Mizuki Miyashita

Event Time: 11:00 a.m.–11:30 a.m.

Presenters:

• S. Chandler
• M. Miyashita

Abstract:

We would like to share our story of community-academic collaboration on the development of community archiving for the Aaniiih language (also known as Atsina, White Clay, and Gros Ventre). The last fluent first-language speaker of Aaniiih passed away in the early 2000s, but there are active revitalization efforts by second-language speakers. In this context, teachers and scholars must use existing documented materials and what they have learned already. Through meetings in the past seven years, we have built a community-academic relationship. In our presentation, we first outline the efforts to build and maintain the White Clay language immersion program and our community-academic collaboration, from inception to the present. Then, we describe our community archiving project, which started this summer, focusing on the initial stage: dictionary digitization and audio annotation. The Aaniiih dictionary, compiled by the late Allan Taylor, is an important resource, containing extensive examples. However, it is not useful for language teaching as is, and it must be digitized and made searchable. The challenges of digitization include scanning a thick book without destroying the binding, OCR problems, and editing strategies. There also are recordings made in the 1980s that contain pronunciation of the examples that appear in the dictionary. We are brainstorming the best way to connect these recordings with the digitized dictionary. Our current idea involves annotation tools such as Praat’s TextGrid files and ELAN. We believe annotated materials in archived recordings maximize accessibility for users.

Event Time: 11:40 a.m.–12:00 p.m.

Event Time: 10:00 a.m.–10:30 a.m.

Presenters:

• Hunter Thompson Lockwood is a linguist working under David Costa in the Language Research Office at the Myaamia Center. Since 2008, he has worked with and for Algonquian language communities on language documentation and revitalization. His research touches on a broad variety of topics in and adjacent to linguistics.
• Daniela Inclezan is an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Software Engineering at Miami University. Her research focuses on knowledge representation and logic programming, with an emphasis on interdisciplinary collaboration. Her work has applications in intelligent agents, natural language understanding, and socio-environmental challenges.

Event Time: 10:30 a.m.–11:00 a.m.

Presenters: 

• Jem Burch
• Leander He
• Corine Huang
• Katie Hur
• Kyra Kaya
• Alara O'Bryan
• Lejla Regan
• Nawal Naz Tareque
• Luke Weinbach
• Natalie Weber is Assistant Professor in the Department of Linguistics at Yale University. Their main interests lie in phonology and the interfaces between phonology and other components of grammar. Since 2011, their empirical focus has been Blackfoot, an Algonquian language spoken in Alberta and northern Montana. All other authors are research assistants in the Blackfoot Lab at Yale University, which began in 2020.

Abstract

Background Blackfoot Words is a lexical database of word tokens in Blackfoot from sources spanning the years 1743–2017 (Weber et al. 2023). The published version (v1.1; 2022-07-11) includes 4,553 inflected word tokens across 9 sources. In v1.2 (to be published before the 2025 Algonquian Conference) each word token will be fully analyzed into a hierarchy of stems and components, with each linked to a standardized lemma. 

Goal We report on an on-going project to convert the current mySQL database to the Cross-Linguistic Data Format (CLDF; Forkel et al. 2018). Some advantages:

1. CLDF is a flexible but standardized format which is used for many online linguistic databases, including the World Atlas of Linguistic Structures (WALS; Dryer & Haspelmath 2013). 
2. It comes with a user-friendly and customizable web application.

Blackfoot Words is a challenge for this framework, as most CLDF applications are databases of standardized types (e.g., a dictionary) and not tokens.

Topics We present a draft of the Blackfoot Words CLDF web application and demonstrate several use cases. First, clicking any standardized lemma displays a list of all words containing a token of that lemma. Second, users can display the internal structure of any word token, with pathways to view related words. On the academic side, this database could be used for projects on historical change in Blackfoot, on morphophonology, and on morphosyntax. On the community side, the database preserves an older stage of the language and could be used for language revitalization in the future.

References

Dryer, Matthew S. & Haspelmath, Martin (eds.) 2013. WALS Online (v2020.4) [Data set]. Zenodo. doi:10.5281/zenodo.13950591. (Available online at https://wals.info, Accessed on 2025-07-27.)

Forkel, Robert. et al. 2018. Cross-Linguistic Data Formats, advancing data sharing and reuse in comparative linguistics. Scientific Data 5, 180205 doi:10.1038/sdata.2018.205.

Weber, Natalie et al. 2023. Blackfoot Words: A lexical database of Blackfoot legacy sources. Language Resources and Evaluation 57: 1207–1262. doi:10.1007/s10579-022-09631-2.

Event Time: 11:00 a.m.–11:30 a.m.

Presenters:

• Katherine Schmirler
• Inge Genee
• Antti Arppe

Event Time: 10:00 a.m.–10:30 a.m.

Presenters:

• Robert Hamilton

Event Time: 10:30 a.m.–11:00 a.m.

Presenters:

• Maureen Matthew
• Carol Beaulieu

Event Time: 11:00 a.m.–11:30 a.m.

Presenters:

• Roland Bohr

Event Time: 10:00 a.m.–11:30 a.m.

Presenters:

• Patty Krawec