Cover not available

Article published In: Historiographia Linguistica
Vol. 14:1/2 (1987) ► pp.179–217

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload PDF
authorization required

Leonard Bloomfield’s descriptive and comparative studies of Algonquian

 | Smithsonian Institution
Published online: 1 January 1987
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/hl.14.1-2.17god
Summary
Bloomfield’s Algonquian studies comprise a large body of descriptive and comparative work on Fox, Cree, Menominee, and Ojibwa. The materials he used were derived from his own fieldwork, for the most part, and especially in the case of Fox from the published work of others. His major achievement was to bring explicitness and orderliness to the description of Algonquian inflectional and derivational morphology. An examination of the development of his solution to certain phonological problems in Menominee and of his practices in editing his Menominee texts shows his struggle to reconcile the conflicting goals, formulated in his general statements (in his 1933 Language and elsewhere), of describing a language by determining the norm of the speech community and documenting a language in exhaustive objective detail. In his diachronic studies Bloomfield reconstructed the phonology of Proto-Algonquian and worked out the historical phonology of the languages he was concerned with; his work on morphology was largely confined to the comparison and reconstruction of directly corresponding features. A normative approach to variation is evident in these diachronic studies as well.
Résumé
Les études algonquiennes de Bloomfield comprennent un grand nombre de travaux descriptifs et comparatifs sur le renard, le cri, le menomini et l’ojibwa. Il basa son travail sur des matériaux recueillis en grande partie sur place, et aussi, surtout quand il s’agissait du renard, sur des ouvrages publiés par d’autres. De toutes ses contributions, la plus importante fut celle d’avoir mis de l’ordre et de la netteté dans la description de la morphologie flexionnelle et dérivationnelle des langues algonquiennes. L’auteur examine de près le développement de la solution bloomfieldienne de certains problèmes phonologiques du menomini et de la pratique de Bloomfield en éditant ses textes menomini. Bloomfield dut lutter pour concilier deux buts opposés, qui furent formulés dans ses déclarations de principes (dans son livre Language [1933] et ailleurs): celui de décrire une langue en déterminant la norme de la communauté linguistique, et celui de documenter la langue d’une façon détaillée et exhaustive. Dans ses études diachroniques, Bloomfield reconstruisit la structure phonologique du proto-algonquien et établit la phonologie historique des langues dont il s’occupait. En étudiant la morphologie, il se limita en général à la comparaison et à la reconstruction de traits qui se correspondaient directement. Dans ses études diachroniques aussi, on aperçoit un approche normatif de la variation.
References (69)
References
Baraga, Frederic. 1880. A Dictionary of the Otchipwe Language, Explained in English. 2nd edn., part 21. Montreal: Beauchemin & Valois.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bloch, Bernard. 1948. “A Set of Postulates for Phonemic Analysis”. Lg. 241.3–46.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bloomfield, Leonard. 1919–1932. [Letters to Truman Michelson.] Michelson Papers, 4365-a, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. [1920–1940.] [Notes on the Menominee Language.] Manuscripts in National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1922. Review of The Owl Sacred Pack of the Fox Indians , by Truman Michelson. American Journal of Philology 431.276–81. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1924. “The Menomini Language”. International Congress of Americanists Proceedings 211, vol. 21.336–343.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1925. “On the Sound-System of Central Algonquian”. Lg. 11.130–156.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1925–1927. “Notes on the Fox Language”. IJAL 31.219–232, 41.181–219.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1926. “A Set of Postulates for the Science of Language”. Lg. 21.153–64.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1927a. “Literate and Illiterate Speech”. American Speech 21.432–39. [Cited from Hockett 1970:147–156.] Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1927b. “The Word-Stems of Central Algonquian”. Festschrift Meinhof, 393–402. Hamburg: L. Friedrichsen.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1928a. “The Plains Cree Language”. International Congress of Americanists Proceedings 221, vol. 21.427–31.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1928b. Menomini Texts. American Ethnological Society Publications 121. New York.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1928c. “A Note on Sound-Change”. Lg. 41.99–100.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1930. Sacred Stories of the Sweet Grass Cree. National Museum of Canada Bulletin 601. Ottawa: F.A. Acland. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. [1931.] [Cree Texts, Series Two, Three, Four; Appendix.] Manuscript 497.3/B63c/Ala.1, American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1933. Language. New York: Holt.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1934. Plains Cree Texts. American Ethnological Society Publications 161. New York.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. [1937.] [Menominee Inflections.] Manuscript 497.3/B63c/Alb.1, American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1938a. [Letter to Morris Swadesh, June 6, 1938.] In Bloomfield 1920–1940.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1938b. [Letter to Morris Swadesh, June 9, 1938.] In Bloomfield 1920–1940.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. [1938–1946.] [Materials on Algonquian.] Manuscripts in National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1939. “Menomini Morphophonemics”. Études phonologiques dédiées à la mémoire de M. le prince N.S. Trubetzkoy, 105–115. Travaux du Cercle Linguistique de Prague 81. Prague.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1941. “Proto-Algonquian -i”t- ‘Fellow’”. Lg. 171.292–97.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1946. “Algonquian”. Linguistic Structures of Native America 85–129. Viking Fund Publications in Anthropology 61. New York.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1957. Eastern Ojibwa. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1962. The Menomini Language. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1972. “The Original Preface to Linguistic Structures of Native America”. IJAL 381.265–66.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1975. Menomini Lexicon, ed. by Charles F. Hockett. Milwaukee Public Museum Publications in Anthropology and History 31. Milwaukee.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1984a. Fox-English Lexicon. New Haven: Human Relations Area Files.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1984b. Cree-English Lexicon. 21 vols. New Haven: Human Relations Area Files.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Brown, Gillian, and George Yule. 1983. Discourse Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Chomsky, Noam. 1965. Aspects of the Theory of Syntax. Cambridge, Mass.: The M.I.T. Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cuoq, J. A. 1886. Lexique de la langue algonquine. Montreal: J. Chapleau & Fils.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gleason, H. A., Jr. 1961. An Introduction to Descriptive Linguistics. 2nd edn. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Goddard, Ives. 1973. “Philological Approaches to the Study of North American Indian Languages: Documents and Documentation”. Linguistics in North America, ed. by Thomas A. Sebeok, Part 11:727–45. Current Trends in Linguistics 101. The Hague: Mouton.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1979. “Comparative Algonquian”. The Languages of Native America: Historical and Comparative Assessment, ed. by Lyle Campbell and Marianne Mithun, 70–132. Austin: University of Texas Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1982. “The Historical Phonology of Munsee”. IJAL 481.16–48.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Goddard, Ives, Charles F. Hockett, and Karl V. Teeter. 1972. “Some Errata in Bloomfield’s Menomini”. IJAL 381.1–5.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Heath, Jeffrey. 1985. “Discourse in the Field: Clause Structure in Ngandi”. Grammar inside and outside the Clause, ed. by Johanna Nichols and Anthony C. Woodbury, 89–110. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hockett, Charles F. 1942. “A System of Descriptive Phonology”. Lg. 181.321.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
1948. “Implications of Bloomfield’s Algonquian Studies”. Lg. 241.117–131.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
1965. “Sound Change”. Lg. 411.185–204.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
1966. “What Algonquian Is Really Like”. IJAL 321.59–73.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
1970. A Leonard Bloomfield Anthology. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
1981. “The Phonological History of Menominee”. Anthropological Linguistics 23.2:51–87. Errata, 23.7:326.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
1987. “Letters from Bloomfield to Michelson and Sapir”. Historio-graphia Linguistica, this issue. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jones, William. 1907. Fox Texts. American Ethnological Society Publications 11. Leiden.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1911. “Algonquian (Fox)”, ed. by Truman Michelson. Handbook of American Indian Languages, ed. by Franz Boas, Part 11:735–873. Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 401. Washington: Smithsonian Institution.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1917. Ojibwa Texts, ed. by Truman Michelson. Part 11: Nänabushu Tales. Publications of the American Ethnological Society 71, part 11. Leiden.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1919. Ojibwa Texts, ed. by Truman Michelson. Part 21: Miscellaneous Tales. Publications of the American Ethnological Society 71, part 21. New York.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Joos, Martin, ed. 1958. Readings in Linguistics. 2nd edn. New York: American Council of Learned Societies.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lacombe, Albert. 1874. Dictionnaire et grammaire de la langue des cris. Montreal: Beauchemin & Valois.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Michelson, Truman. 1921. The Owl Sacred Pack of the Fox Indians. Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 721. Washington: Smithsonian Institution.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jones, William. 1925. “Accompanying Papers”. Bureau of American Ethnology Annual Report 401:21–658. Washington: Smithsonian Institution.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. “Phonetic Shifts in Algonquian Languages”. IJAL 81.131–71.
Miner, Kenneth L. 1977. Review of Menomini Lexicon , by Leonard Bloomfield. IJAL 431.66–73.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rhodes, Richard A. 1976. “A Preliminary Report on the Dialects of Eastern Ojibwa-Odawa”. Papers of the Seventh Algonquian Conference 1975, ed. by William Cowan, 129–56. Ottawa: Carleton University.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
1985. Eastern Ojibwa-Chippewa-Ottawa Dictionary. Trends in Linguistics: Documentation 31. Berlin: Mouton. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rhodes, Richard A., and Evelyn M. Todd. 1981. “Subarctic Algonquian Languages”. Subarctic, ed. by June Helm, 52–66. Handbook of North American Indians 61. Washington: Smithsonian Institution.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sapir, Edward, and Morris Swadesh. 1939. Nootka Texts. Philadelphia: Linguistic Society of America.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Siebert, Frank T., Jr. 1980. “The Penobscot Dictionary Project: Preferences and Problems of Format, Presentation, and Entry”. Papers of the Eleventh Algonquian Conference, ed. by William Cowan, 113–27. Ottawa: Carleton University.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
1982. “Leonard Bloomfield’s Menominee Vowel Phonemes and Correspondences”. Algonquian and Iroquoian Linguistics 7:1.6–8.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Swadesh, Morris. 1937–1938. [Notes on the Menominee language.] Manuscripts 497.3/B63c/Alb.2 and 497.3/B63c/Alb.3, American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1938. [Letter to Leonard Bloomfield, May 22, 1938.] In Bloomfield 1920–1940.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Swadesh, Morris, and C. F. Voegelin. 1939. “A Problem in Phonological Alternation”, Lg. 151.1–10.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Teeter, Karl V. 1970a. Review of The Menomini Language , by Leonard Bloomfield. Lg. 461.525–33.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
1970b. Review of The Menomini Language , by Leonard Bloomfield. IJAL 361.235–39.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
1973. “Algonquian”. Linguistics in North America, ed. by Thomas A. Sebeok, part 21:1142–1163. Current Trends in Linguistics 101. The Hague: Mouton.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (3)

Cited by three other publications

Woodbury, Anthony C.
2019. He Suffocates Me: A Playful Dimension of Exact Transcription, and of Being an Iluraq. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 29:2 ► pp. 155 ff. DOI logo
Silverstein, Michael
2016. The “push” of Lautgesetze, the “pull” of enregisterment. In Sociolinguistics, ► pp. 37 ff. DOI logo
Chelliah, Shobhana L. & Willem J. de Reuse
2010. The History of Linguistic Fieldwork. In Handbook of Descriptive Linguistic Fieldwork, ► pp. 33 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 10 december 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue