Routledge Library Editions: Linguistics

This book explores several topics in Cree morphology, syntax and discourse structure. Cree, an Algonquian language, is non-configurational: the grammatical relations of subject and object are not expressed by word order or other constituent structure relations, as they are in a configurational language like English. Instead, subjects and objects are expressed by means of the inflection on the verb. Cree is typical of non-configurational languages in allowing a great deal of word order variation. This study examines in detail aspects of the Plains Cree dialect, giving a valuable insight into the structure of this endangered language.