JournalLing Undergraduate Linguistics Journal

Deconstructing Kanien’kéha Kinship Terms

Pauline Jacob — 2025-04-11

In Kanien’kéha and other Northern Iroquoian languages, kinship terms are structured in a way that may appear unintuitive to second language learners from English or French backgrounds. Unlike English or French, which typically use a possessive pronoun followed by a familial noun (e.g. my father), a kinship term in Kanien’keha roughly includes a transitive pronominal prefix, a kinship stem, and a diminutive suffix (Koenig and Michelson 2010). This morphological structure comprises elements of both nouns and verbs, resulting in a word form that does not neatly fit into either category. In short, this paper, I go over the unique properties of Kanien’kéha verbs, nouns, and kinship terms, offering a basic framework for understanding how these terms can be categorized within the language's lexical system. To assist second language learners, I propose the Seven Families Kinship Terms Game, a pedagogical tool I designed to help L2 learners implement the morphological properties discussed, especially the use of pronominal prefixes. The game is made up of 42 printable cards, the script and instructions for which are included in section 5.

The Rise of International English

Jackson Corfield — 2025-04-11

In this paper, I shall discuss the effect of globalization on the English language, and the effect that the English language has had on the modern globalized world. First, I will compare the future of English to the fate of Latin, which led to the formation of the Romance languages. I will compare the spread of English in the modern world to the spread of Latin in Ancient Rome and argue that English will not split into separate languages as Latin did but instead will converge into a new standard of international English influence by speakers from both inside and outside of what is traditionally considered to be the Anglosphere. I will then explore the effect of the spread of English on communities that adopt it as a second language and argue against the subtractive approach to second language learning by which English continues to supplant thousands of minority languages. Instead, I will argue in favour of an additive language learning approach that teaches people to speak English without sacrificing local languages in the process. I will discuss the social, educational, and economic benefits that the adoption of English has on the individual, and the cultural and linguistic sacrifices that English brings to minority linguistic communities.

Antipassive Morpheme -si in Inuktitut

Esmé Courie — 2025-04-11

This paper is an exploration of the antipassive in Inuktitut, a language spoken by the indigenous population of the eastern Canadian arctic including Northern Quebec/Nunavik, Nunatsiavut/Northern Labrador, and Nunavut. Data are from existing Inuktitut dictionaries and prior papers on the antipassive. First, I will provide an overview of Inuktitut and its usual alignment pattern. Then, I will introduce the antipassive. Next, I will outline the number of puzzles regarding the antipassive and Inuktitut. I will address some potential answers to these puzzles and a few problems with those answers. Afterwards, I will describe the antipassive in Inuktitut in more depth, as well as the overall linguistic understanding of the antipassive. This will allow me to arrive at the focus of this paper and clarify some definitions before moving forward. This paper will explore the interpretations of the Inuktitut antipassive by both Spreng (2006) and Compton (2017). I will then explore these arguments amongst other interpretations and discussions of the antipassive and split ergativity. Lastly, I will discuss my findings, outstanding questions and future research that could be done.

Word Meaning, Perceptual Roots

Mai-Thi Ho — 2025-04-11

What do common nouns like “cow” denote – a particular cow or a universal quality of cow-ness? This paper delves into the intricate theories of two ancient Indian philosophical schools - Nyaya and Mimamsa - by utilizing a conceptual metaphor approach. Inspired by Lakoff and Núñez's work, we bridge the gap between modern readers and ancient philosophers through the mapping of sensory experiences to abstract concepts. Through perceptual grounding, we explore the integration of Universal and Particular notions and the wholeness contributed by different schools of thought. Finally, this method sheds light on the potential of cognitive semantics.

Teasing Apart Tone and Stress in Athabaskan

Raimundo Cox-Casals — 2025-04-11

This paper undertakes an exploration of the relationship between tone and stress, drawing from evidence gathered from three Athabaskan languages. Rather than viewing tone and stress as homologous systems, I challenge the notion that they represent different applications of a singular phonological phenomenon. Through analysis of three understudied languages—Witsuwit’en, Upper Tanana, and Navajo—I posit that the conventional tone continuum inadequately captures languages that incorporate elements from multiple points across the conventional spectrum. The study finds that tone and stress are often conflated because they are indicated with similar acoustic cues but are in fact distinct processes in the phonology. Phonetic evidence, phonological analysis, and diachronic observations are presented to analyze Witsuwit’en’s stress system, Upper Tanana’s tonal system, and the interaction between tone and stress in Navajo. My goal is to disentangle tone and stress as separate mechanisms within language, as they tend to be misanalyzed and conflated for having pitch in common as a phonetic correlate. Exposing their differences in isolation and interactions in co-occurrence will contribute to a deeper understanding of linguistic typologies and help to avoid overlooking diverging entities in linguistic analyses.

How Skookum is This?

Ashley Epp — 2025-04-11

This study examines linguistic variation and change in Vancouver English (VE), focusing on shifts in the currency and vitality of local terms, general vocabulary usage, and pronunciation patterns across different age and gender groups. Using data from the Survey of Vancouver English (SVEN) (1974-1984) and the Survey of Canadian English (SCE) (1972) for comparison, this research investigates whether local vocabulary–particularly words deriving from Chinook Jargon—has declined among younger speakers. Additionally, it analyzes general vocabulary preferences to assess whether VE has converged with Standard Canadian and American English. Results indicate a significant decline in local lexical items, with younger speakers showing minimal usage and knowledge of these terms. Words such as saltchuck and oolichan have largely disappeared from younger Vancouverites’ lexicons, while skookum has undergone a semantic shift from ‘strong’ to ‘cool’ or ‘great.’ Pronunciation changes, such as the shift in the local place name, Kitsilano, further support a trend toward linguistic standardization. Additionally, general vocabulary preferences reveal a continued movement away from traditional Canadianisms such as chesterfield and eavestroughs, toward more widespread North American terms. The findings suggest that VE is undergoing a shift towards a more standard, homogeneous form of speech, evidenced by the disappearance of distinct local terms and pronunciations.

Three-Step Parsing in Kanien’kéha

Max Blackburn — 2025-04-11

Morphological parsing is the task of transforming a surface linguistic form into its underlying morphological components. Parsing is an essential part of studying morphologically complex languages, where surface words can obscure the underlying linguistic structure. Many such languages are endangered and/or under-resourced, which restricts the usage of the more common data-driven methods in NLP that could automate this task. As a result, most parsing programs are implemented using symbolic finite-state machines. One of the most common architectures for finite-state models of morphology uses a two-step process, which first defines grammatical morpheme sequences, then applies a series of morphophonological rules to derive a surface form (Beemer et al., 2020; Koskenniemi, 1986). I propose a three-step architecture that divides morphophonological and phonological alternations. I claim that this addition constrains the power of the model in a way that mirrors predictions of theoretical linguistics on the structure of morphophonology. As a demonstration of these claims, I implement a three-step parser for verbs in Kanien’kéha, a morphologically complex and highly endangered language. I argue that the results demonstrate that this constrained architecture is still powerful enough to model the language and describe some theoretical findings of the structure of the language. I also further discuss the theoretical and practical questions raised by the choice of model architecture.

Influence Across Which Side of the Pond?

Natalia Feu — 2025-04-11

While Bermuda was established as, and still remains, a British-governed territory, it has had increasingly close contact with the United States due to historical, economic, and political connections between the two that have strengthened over the last century. Considering the shifting economic and social affiliations of Bermuda away from the UK and towards North America, the primary goal of this paper is to establish whether, and to what degree, General North American English has influenced modern Bermudian English, and whether this influence runs along ethnic lines. This study explores this question through a comparative analysis of Bermudian English’s vowel system against Pacific Northwest English, standing in as a representative of General North American English (GNAE), and discusses the status of ethnolinguistic variation within Bermudian English, including a demographic (Latinx speakers) not included in previous research. It analyzes the most salient phonological features of Bermudian English as well as its foreign (a) nativization pattern, a phenomenon with clearly demarcated national differences. This study finds that, at a structural level, the vowel system of Bermudian English still diverges significantly from GNAE, continuing to align itself closely with British English, while easily transferrable word class switches have penetrated this variety from American English. Additionally, while White Bermudians were generally less advanced than Black Bermudians on Bermudian English-associated features, the study finds greater intra-ethnic variation than reported in previous literature.

Land Acknowledgement