Haitian Creole: Structure, Variation, Status, Origin by Albert Valdman (review)

Abstract

It was mentioned at the beginning of this review that Cook’s work is preceded by that of Brittain (1997, 1999, 2001) on the independent-conjunct contrast in Western Naskapi, another member of the Cree-Innu-Naskapi language continuum. It is surprising, then, that Cook’s book makes no mention of Brittain’s work. Although Plains Cree and Western Naskapi are undoubtedly different, they display many commonalities in both the form and distribution of the independent and conjunct inflections. Furthermore, despite the difference in focus–the main contributions of Brittain’s work involve morphosyntax, while the main contributions of Cook’s work involve semantics–the proposals of the two authors seem fundamentally compatible, as they both attribute the independent-conjunct contrast to a difference at the CP level of the clause. I suggest, then, that the work of the two authors is complementary; Brittain and Cook examine different facets of the same issue and their work could well be read together. This omission does not, however, detract from the overall value of Cook’s work. The book makes a substantial and highly original contribution to a notoriously difficult problem in Algonquian linguistics, and in the process of doing so, it also provides an extensive and insightful description of various aspects of Cree syntax and semantics that have rarely been observed, let alone explained in such a coherent way. The book is thus a valuable resource for those engaged in the translation or analysis of Cree texts. In addition to its masterful command of the data, the book is also a model of clarity in presentation, which makes it just as accessible to nonspecialists as it is stimulating and instructive to specialists. Beyond its relevance to audiences familiar with Cree and Algonquian languages, the book is also of interest to those who study the typology of clause types, the encoding of evidentiality, the nature of main-clause phenomena, and the syntactic and semantic parallels between clauses and nominals.