Browsing results for East Cree

(2003) East Cree – Ethnopsychology and personhood

Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on June 18, 2019.

Junker, Marie-Odile (2003). A Native American view of the “mind” as seen in the lexicon of cognition in East Cree. Cognitive Linguistics, 14(2-3), 167-194.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/cogl.2003.007

Abstract:

East Cree, an Algonquian language spoken in Northern Quebec, Canada, has a classifier eyi that indicates mental activity. This morpheme is found in a very large number of cognition words including all verbs for thinking, most for knowing, all for wanting, and several for feeling. A morphosyntactic analysis of over 500 words shows that metaphor plays a large role in Cree and that many common metaphors for thinking are found in the etymology of thinking words, as well as culture-specific ones. There are interesting correlations between thinking and feeling and between rational and supernatural processes. The data support the existence of semantic universals for mental predicates by providing evidence that East Cree has exponents for the semantic primes THINK, WANT, and KNOW. Interviews with elders confirm that the Cree ‘theory of mind’ has both universal and culture-specific aspects, like the ideas of wholeness, a connection with the greater ‘mind’ of creation (the Great Spirit), and respect for others, which is a central value of Cree culture.

Rating:


Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners

Tags: , ,

(2004) East Cree – NSM primes

Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.

Junker, Marie-Odile (2004). Les primitives sémantiques universelles en cri de l’Est [Universal semantic primes in East Cree]. In H.C. Wolfart (Ed.), Papers of the 35th Algonquian Conference (pp. 163-185). Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press. PDF (open access)

The aim of this paper is to assess the theory of semantic primitives in the light of East Cree data and to  illustrate the contribution this theory can make to the analysis and description of the language. East Cree is spoken in a region of Northern Quebec, by about 13,000 speakers. We first outline the theory and present the list of exponents of the primes in Cree. We then discuss the heuristic procedure used to identify the primes and provide illustration for the primes HAPPEN, BODY, WANT, THINK, KNOW, SOMEONE, SOMETHING, PART (OF), KIND (OF), and WHY. Finally, we demonstrate the usefulness of the Natural Semantic Metalanguage as a tool for linguistic descriptions, in particular in fieldwork with monolingual speakers.

 

(2006) East Cree – Emotions

Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on November 11, 2018.

Junker, Marie-Odile, & Blacksmith, Louise (2006). Are there emotional universals? Evidence from the Native American language East Cree. Culture & Psychology, 12(3), 275-303. DOI: 10.1177/1354067X06061590

In her study on emotions across languages and cultures, Wierzbicka proposed a set of eleven working hypotheses on emotional universals. We test each of these hypotheses against data newly collected from the Native American language East Cree. Eight of these eleven hypotheses are confirmed, thus giving support to their universality. We offer cross-cultural comparison of anger-like, fear-like and shame-like concepts, and discuss the Cree expression of good and bad feelings, cry and smile, and Cree emotive interjections. Our findings indicate that not all languages commonly use figurative bodily images (‘my heart sank’) or bodily sensations (‘when I heard this, my throat went dry’) to describe cognitively based feelings. The Cree data also cast some doubt on a straightforward universal syntax for combining the primes, as proposed in the current Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) framework. However, we conclude that, for researchers interested in avoiding ethnocentric bias, the NSM approach is on the right track as a tool for cross-cultural, cross-linguistic research on emotions.


Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

(2008) East Cree – NSM primes, NSM syntax

Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.

Junker, Marie-Odile (2008). Semantic primes and their grammar in a polysynthetic language: East Cree. In Cliff Goddard (Ed.), Cross-linguistic semantics (pp. 163-204). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI: 10.1075/slcs.102.11jun

Using data from the polysynthetic language East Cree, this study examines challenges to the Natural Semantic Metalanguage theory developed by Wierzbicka and her colleagues. An almost complete version of the Cree NSM is proposed. While most primes have exponents in Cree, the universality of the lexical
realisation of partonymy is called into question. Most combinatorial properties of the semantic metalanguage are attested in Cree, except for problems in the syntactic combinations of THINK and FEEL with SOMETHING, and with GOOD and BAD. Current ways of thinking about NSM clause structure need to be revised to accommodate the pronominal argument structure of such a language. The NSM approach also proves to be a good bottom-up technique for language description. More polysynthetic languages need to be studied using this framework.