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Will Oxford, A Grammatical Study of Innu-Aimun Particles. Algonquian and Iroquoian Linguistics, Memoir 20. 2008. 301 pages. ISBN 978-0-921 064-20-6. $40.
Algonquian languages, like a great many Native languages of the Americas, possess a complex system of nominal as well as verbal inflection, which have attracted a great deal of scholarly attention. This has unfortunately meant that scholars too often neglect certain other linguistic features of these languages, including those uninflected elements which are neither nominal nor verbal in nature and which are referred to by the catch-all term "particle." Will Oxford aims to correct this relative neglect in the instance of a particular language, Innu-Aimun. While this label refers to what most linguists think of as two separate (albeit closely related) languages, lnnu (also known as Montagnais) and Naskapi, the author's focus is on a single variety of the former language spoken in the community of Sheshatshiu in Labrador. Indeed, Sheshatshiu being a recently settled community whose speakers originally spoke three distinct dialects (Uashau, Mashkuanu and Mushuaunnu) which, despite contact, remain distinct from one another, it is noticeable that the author's fieldwork data stems chiefly from female Uashau speakers, as he himself recognizes (16). After the introduction (1-18), we are given a chapter on the classification of Innu-Aimun particles (19-39), followed by one on pronouns and demonstratives (41 -61 ), then on clefting words (i.e. words which serve to emphasize another: in English, comparing / gave Mary something versus / gave something to Mary, the preposition "to" could be described as a clefting word, emphasizing the indirect object "Mary")...