Verbal number and aspect in Sḵwx̱wú7mesh

This paper examines two productive patterns of reduplication in Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish; Salish), exploring the relation between aspect and verbal number. The paper proposes that the CVC reduplicant, which attaches to both nouns and verbs, is a plural marker; the observed aspectual meanings (e.g., habitual, unbounded iteration) are the salient readings associated with plural events. This paper further proposes that the CV reduplicant, which attaches to verbs only, is an aspectual marker; i.e., it marks the progressive and not a plurality of sub-events. This paper adopts Lasersohn’s (1995) account of pluractionality, but proposes that the distributivity requirement is not a necessary condition for plurality in Squamish.