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Time and evidence in the graded tense system of Mvskoke (Creek)

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Abstract

In recent years, much attention has been given to the puzzling relationship between tense and evidence type found in languages where a single morpheme appears to encode both reference to time and to the evidential source for the assertion. In natural language, tense has long been understood as serving to locate the time at which the proposition expressed by the sentence holds. The two main theories of evidentials both agree that these morphemes serve to identify the type of evidence the speaker has for their assertion. In languages with evidential-tense morphology, these two categories of meaning are intertwined in ways that are unexpected given our understanding of both phenomena. Specifically, these evidential-tense morphemes appear to encode reference to a time that is linked to the situation in which the speaker gains evidence for their assertion. Two competing approaches have emerged in the literature as to whether these evidential-tense morphemes make crucial reference to the time evidence was acquired (Lee 2013; Smirnova 2013) or to the time and place of the speaker with respect to the event (Faller 2004; Chung 2007). This paper examines the temporal and evidential properties of the Mvskoke (or Creek) graded past tense system and finds novel support for the view in which evidential-tenses encode Evidence Acquisition Time (EAT). Mvskoke is shown to have three evidential-tenses which form part of its graded tense system, comprising recent, middle, and distant past. The main proposal is a formalization of EAT as a moment of belief-state change, i.e., the moment the speaker comes to believe the proposition. It is shown that Mvskoke’s evidential-tenses are compatible with a range of evidence types, and this distribution is explained through interactions with viewpoint aspect.

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Data Availability

Data from 2019 are archived at the American Philosophical Society Library, Tense and Evidence in Maskoke (Creek). Additional data to be archived at the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History in 2022.

Materials Availability

An earlier version of the data and analysis in Sects. 3-4 were published in the proceedings of the 22nd Amsterdam Colloquium.

Code Availability

Not applicable.

Notes

  1. This number was estimated based on a survey of the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma in 2009 and an estimate by Judy Montiel, director of the Mvskoke Language Program for the Muscogee (Creek) Nation of Oklahoma. Some community members estimate the number is higher.

  2. See Haas (1940) and Martin (2011) for detailed morpho-phonological descriptions.

  3. The existential perfect takes on various forms depending on the phonological content of the stem. Although it usually involves infixed aspiration, between two consonants the infix is the diphthong /-ey/.

  4. The data in this paper come from the author’s fieldwork unless otherwise indicated. Abbreviations for the glosses I use are: acc accusative; ag agent; caus causative; comp complementizer; dat dative; dem demonstrative; dir directional; ds different subject; dur durative; gpl group plural; impf imperfective aspect or lengthening grade; ind indicative; inst instrumental; int intensifier or nasalizing grade; ip medio-passive/ spontaneous; loc locative; nom nominative; p1 Past 1 or recent past; p2 Past 2 or intermediate past; p3 Past 3 or distant past; p5 Past 5 or remote past; pass impersonal passive; pat patient; perf perfect aspect or aspirating grade; pfv perfective aspect or falling tone grade; pl plural; recip reciprocal; sg singular; ss same subject.

  5. This may be the result of language change. Loughridge and Hodge (1890) provide paradigms for all five past tenses in which they combine freely with all forms of aspectual ablaut. Haas (1940) also provides data showing that Pasts 2-4 can combine with the existential perfect aspect, or ‘aspirating grade’ in her terminology.

  6. The reader may wonder about the felicity of the tenses with evidence from inference. One of the puzzles for Pasts 1-3 being direct evidentials is that they are felicitous when the speaker has indirect evidence of the event in the form of results-based inference. This data is presented and discussed in Sect. 3.3. I do not present empirical data as to the felicity of the tenses in reasoning-based inference contexts. Reasoning-based inference contexts are extremely difficult to craft so that there is no secondary evidential source involved (see Silva and AnderBois 2016 for discussion). Attempts to do so in elicitation met with limited success. I do, however, predict that Pasts 1-3 should not be felicitous in reasoning-based inference contexts because the reasoning involved fails to justify a change in beliefs.

  7. At this time, I do not have a negative judgment for Past 5 in a direct witness Past 3 context.

  8. Thanks to Vincent Homer for suggesting this type of example.

  9. The phone call examples in (22) and (23) are patterned after similar examples in Hayashi (2011).

  10. A reviewer points out that this requirement may be too strong. It is possible to relativize the interval to a time following (and including) the Topic Time up to (and including) the Utterance Time. However, without a theory of belief revision it is unclear whether this step is necessary and what implications it would have.

  11. I do not encode the result state inference of perfective aspect or address the culmination implicature of imperfective aspect. Instead I refer the reader to Altshuler’s (2014) analysis of Russian partitive aspects which share these properties with Mvskoke’s aspectual operators.

  12. I thank Seth Cable for suggesting this approach to the competition between Pasts 1-3 and Past 5.

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Acknowledgements

An earlier abbreviated version of this paper was published as Johnson (2019). I owe a debt of gratitude to Jack B. Martin, Margaret Mauldin, Mary R. Haas and many others without whose work on the Muskogee language this paper would not be what it is. Mvto to Muskogee language speakers Linda Sulphur (Bear) Wood, Mary Ann Emarthla, Paul Fixico, Richard Harjo, Juanita Walker Harris, the late Inna Ann (Micco) Hickey, Rosemary McCombs Maxey, De Lois Roulston, and Lucy Tiger. Thank you for your patience and generosity. I am grateful to Seth Cable, Daniel Altshuler, Vincent Homer, John Kingston, Rajesh Bhatt, Peggy Speas, Ana Arregui, Amy Rose Deal, the UMass Amherst Semantics Workshop, audiences at the 22nd Amsterdam Colloquium, and two anonymous reviewers for invaluable comments and feedback. Thank you Colleen M. Fitzgerald, Jack B. Martin, and Jennifer Johnson for paving the way for my work with the Seminole and Muscogee (Creek) Nations. Any errors are entirely my own.

Funding

Fieldwork spanned several years and was funded by several agencies.

National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship (#1261005520) (2015-2017), UMass Amherst Graduate School Predissertation Grant (Spring 2018), American Philosophical Society Phillips Fund for Native American Research (May 2019), UMass Amherst Graduate School Fieldwork Grant (Spring 2020), and National Science Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grant (BCS 2024065) (Spring 2020)

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  1. Department of Linguistics, N408 Integrative Learning Center, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst, MA, USA

    Kimberly Johnson

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This work was supported by a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship (#1261005520) and Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grant (BCS 2024065), a UMass Amherst Graduate School Predissertation Grant (Spring 2018) and Dissertation Fieldwork Grant (Spring 2020), and the American Philosophical Society Phillips Fund for Native American Research (May 2019).

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Johnson, K. Time and evidence in the graded tense system of Mvskoke (Creek). Nat Lang Semantics 30, 155–183 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11050-022-09191-9

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