Focus, obviation, and word order in East Cree

Junker, Marie-Odile

doi:10.1016/s0024-3841(03)00027-5

Cited by 20 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 14 publications

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“…Interestingly, as discussed in Oxford 2019b: 985–986, the unmarked order in these cases turns out to differ between direct clauses (3. px

\to

3. obv ) and inverse clauses (3. obv

\to

3. px ). In East Cree, for example (Junker 2004: 349–350), the unmarked order is VOS in direct clauses and VSO in inverse clauses, while in Passamaquoddy (Bruening 2005: 13) and Mi'kmaq (Hamilton 2015b: 119), the unmarked order is SVO in direct clauses and OVS in inverse clauses. In both cases, the third‐person inverse switches the unmarked order of the agent (“S”) and patient (“O”), exactly as expected if the third‐person inverse is a voice construction that reverses the syntactic positions of the two arguments (Oxford 2019b: 986).…”

Section: Inverse Syntax In Algonquianmentioning

confidence: 99%

A tale of two inverses

Oxford

2023

Syntax

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The functional‐typological literature distinguishes two kinds of inverse constructions: inverse voice, in which the patient becomes the subject, and inverse alignment, in which the patient is agreed with like a canonical subject. In this literature, Algonquian languages are held to be the prototypical example of a system in which the two kinds of inverses coexist: the inverse is a “deep” voice construction in clauses with two third‐person arguments and a “shallow” alignment pattern in clauses in which a third person acts on a speech‐act participant. This article argues that that conclusion is correct and attempts to reconcile it with formal models of voice and agreement. It is proposed that despite their distinct syntactic underpinnings, both inverse constructions result in a derivation in which Voice lacks phi features and Infl indexes only the patient. This shared outcome explains why the inverse appears to be a unified phenomenon from a morphological perspective even though its syntactic correlates differ in third‐person and speech‐act‐participant contexts.

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“…Interestingly, as discussed in Oxford 2019b: 985–986, the unmarked order in these cases turns out to differ between direct clauses (3. px

\to

3. obv ) and inverse clauses (3. obv

\to

Section: Inverse Syntax In Algonquianmentioning

confidence: 99%

A tale of two inverses

Oxford

2023

Syntax

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“…The MPS involves inflecting a common noun as possessee. NEC has polysynthetic morphology, where verbs carry the majority of the grammatical load, and an entire utterance can consist of just one inflected verb (Junker, 2004). Although they undergo more limited inflection than verbs, nouns inflect via affixation for a variety of categories.…”

Section: Possession In Nec: Two Grammatical Strategiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The development of possession in the L1 acquisition of Northern East Cree

Henke

2019

J. Child Lang.

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This study presents the first investigation of the development of possessive constructions in Northern East Cree, a polysynthetic language indigenous to Canada. It examines transcripts from naturalistic recording sessions involving one adult and one child, from age 2;01.12 to 3;08.24. Findings reveal that, despite the frequency of possessive inflection in child-directed speech, the child overwhelmingly produces a possessive construction that circumvents this morphology. This construction, named here the equational possessive strategy (EPS), is largely undescribed in existing literature but is the primary mechanism for the child to express possession. These findings have potential implications for the cross-linguistic acquisition of possessive morphology and the connections between child-directed speech and child language production.

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“…Although there is considerable variation across Algonquian, in all the languages, proximate nominal expressions are thought to be more discourse-salient than obviative ones in some sense (e. g., the proximate nominal expression is the perspective-holder and/or discourse topic, cf. Dahlstrom, 1991;Genee, 2009;Goddard, 1984, Goddard, 1990Junker, 2004;Mühlbauer, 2008;Russell, 1991Russell, , 1996.…”

Section: (4)mentioning

confidence: 99%