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What to do to ‘do-to . . .’: Notes on an Object Marker in Nuu-chah-nulth

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 June 2016

Florence Woo
Florence Woo*
Affiliation:
University of California, Santa Cruz
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Abstract

The syntactic behaviour of the object marker ?uukwił in Nuu-chah-nulth is documented based on fieldwork data that illustrate patterns not previously discussed in the literature. A Minimalist-type analysis is presented, in which ?uukwił is a light verb of the category v and is generated in the complement position of the main verb. This captures certain traits of ?uukwił that have hitherto not been unified under a single analysis: its morphological and syntactic autonomy, its semantic dependence on another predicate for argument structure, its link to discourse saliency, and its use as an auxiliary item in A′-raising constructions.

Résumé

Résumé

Le comportement syntaxique du marqueur d’objet ?uukwił en nuu-chah-nulth est ici documenté sur la base de données de terrain illustrant des propriétés qui n’ont pas été traités antérieurement dans la littérature. Une analyse de type minimaliste est présentée, dans laquelle ?uukwił est un verbe léger de catégorie v généré dans la position de complément du verbe principal. Ceci rends compte de certains traits de ?uukwił qui demeurent sans analyse unifiée, soit : son autonomie morphologique et syntaxique, sa dépendance sémantique à autre prédicat pour sa structure d’argument, son rapport à la mise-en-relief discursive et son emploi comme auxiliaire dans les constructions impliquant le déplacement A′.

Type
Part III: Morpho-Syntactic and Syntactic Properties
Information
Canadian Journal of Linguistics/Revue canadienne de linguistique , Volume 52 , Issue 1-2: Southern Wakashan Languages , July 2007 , pp. 131 - 166
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Linguistic Association 2007

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