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Remarks on Proto-Salish Subject Inflection
Academic Work
This paper re-examines the morphosyntactic status and distribution of Proto-Salish subject pronominal markers. As such, it is meant as a contribution to the tradition of work embodied by Hoard (1971), Newman (1979, 1980), and Kroeber (1991). The principle claims to be defended here are the following:
In section 2, I turn to the distribution of the Proto-Salish subject pronominal series, and show that once we adopt the two-subject hypothesis for transitive clauses, the apparently skewed system of Proto-Salish subject inflection can be shown to be quite symmetrical, with intransitive subjects consistently represented by subject clitics and transitive subjects by a combination of impersonal subject clitics and subject suffixes.
- Proto-Salish had three clitic and one suffixal subject pronominal series, with the latter strictly confined to transitive sentences. This situation closely approximates that of the contemporary Northern Interior language Thompson.
- In the Proto-Salish system, subject suffixes consistently co-occurred with an impersonal third person clitic taken from one of the three subject clitic series. Thus, transitive clauses invariably contained two inflectionally encoded subject positions. This pattern can be still observed to varying degrees in all Northern Interior and most Central Salish languages.
In section 2, I turn to the distribution of the Proto-Salish subject pronominal series, and show that once we adopt the two-subject hypothesis for transitive clauses, the apparently skewed system of Proto-Salish subject inflection can be shown to be quite symmetrical, with intransitive subjects consistently represented by subject clitics and transitive subjects by a combination of impersonal subject clitics and subject suffixes.
AW.00102
1998
Language and Linguistics
UBC Working Papers in Linguistics Press
International Conference on Salish Languages, 33, 91-107
International Conference on Salish Languages, 33, 91-107
Proto-Salish, Salishan languages, Central Salish, Northern Interior, subject inflection
Working Papers
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