Affix order as the reflection of the historical sequence of grammaticization
Comparative evidence within the Iroquoian family largely bears out our expectation that the synchronic order of morphemes in a language tends to reflect their historical order of grammaticalization. The family consists of two main branches, Southern Iroquoian, represented uniquely by modern Cherokee (spoken in North Carolina and Oklahoma), and Northern Iroquoian, which underwent successive splits over the course of its history. The first group to split off from the Northern Iroquoian branch became the Tuscarora, who lived until the early 18th century in North Carolina when they migrated to western New York and then into southern Ontario. The next group to separate became the Huron, encountered in the early 17th century in Ontario. Warfare at mid-century forced some of the Huron to move to Quebec and others to join with neighbors, ultimately migrating west toward Detroit and south into Oklahoma, where they became known as the Wyandot. The remainder of the Northern Iroquoians, the Iroquois proper, occupied present New York State, with the Seneca and Cayuga in the west, the Onondaga in the center, and the Oneida and Mohawk in the east. A simplified schema of this series of splits can be seen in Figure 1. Other groups are known to have been Iroquoian as well, including the Nottoway (close relatives of the Tuscarora), the Susquehannock (Iroquois proper), and the Petun, Erie, Neutral, and Wenro, living between the Huron and the Seneca. All of these groups are now gone, and documentation of their languages is sparse.
Figure 1. The Iroquoian Language Family
A consideration of internal relationships within the family is important for establishing the relative chronology of development of the morphology. If a structure is found in Cherokee and at least one of the Northern Iroquoian languages, we can attribute it to the common parent, Proto-Iroquoian. If it is found in Tuscarora and any of the the other Northern languages, we can reconstruct it for Proto-Northern-Iroquoian. The verbal morphologies of the modern Iroquoian languages show great similarity. All share the basic morpho logical structure schematized in Figure 2, repeated here.
Examples of the inner morphology shared by all languages in the family can be seen in the verbs in (1). All contain a pronominal prefix, reflexive prefix, incorporated noun root, verb root, and aspect suffix. The Tuscarora material comes primarily from speaker Elton Greene, of Tuscarora, New York. The Mohawk material is from speakers at Kahnawà:ke, Kanehsatà:ke, and Ahkwe sáhsne Quebec, with special help from Kaia’titáhkhe’ Jacobs of Kahnawà:ke and Kanerahtenhá: wi Nicholas of Kanehsatà: ke.
(1)
For the most part, the prepronominal prefixes, derivational suffixes, and aspectual suffixes are also cognate across the family. The situation is different at the periphery of words, however. Each branch shows outer affixes, in word initial and word-final position, not shared by the other branch. Cherokee contains an initial conditional prefix that does not appear in the morphology of the Northern languages. The Northern languages contain an initial contrastive prefix that has no counterpart in the morphology of Cherokee. The Lake languages contain a coincident prefix that appears neither in Tuscarora nor Cherokee. In word-final position, following the aspectual suffixes, Cherokee shows a set of modal suffixes lacking counterparts in the Northern languages. The Northern languages contain word-final past tense suffixes without counterparts in Chero kee. The comparative evidence thus confirms the fact that the inner morphology is old, dating back to Proto-Iroquoian, while some outer affixes appear to be recent additions. The synchronic order of affixes does then reflect the historical sequence in which the grammatical categories they represent evolved. Certain factors may intervene to alter this order, however.
