Title

Invisible Inanimates and Problems for Polysynthesis in Kanien’kéha

About the speaker

Visiting speaker Jessica Coon of McGill University is the Canada Research Chair in Syntax and Indigenous Languages. For the Academy Award–nominated film Arrival, a sci-fi masterpiece widely regarded as the most popular portrait of a linguist since My Fair Lady, Dr. Coon served as a consultant tasked with ensuring verisimilitude in the script and the performance by lead actress Amy Adams. 

Dr. Coon’s research investigates the systems of case grammatical agreement in languages of the Mayan and Algonquian families in Mexico, Guatemala and Canada. Through original fieldwork, Coon documents and analyzes these understudied languages. 

Abstract

This talk examines puzzles in the realization and distribution of agreement markers or “pronominal prefixes” in Kanien’kéha (Northern Iroquoian), with an empirical focus on (1) an alignment split in the stative aspect and (2) restrictions on the distribution of animate arguments. In order to account for patterns, I propose—in line with recent work on Algonquian and Dene languages (Oxford 2019; Lochbihler et al. 2021)—that inanimate nominals in Kanien’kéha lack person, number, and gender (“phi”) features altogether. I show that this proposal, together with standard assumptions about argument structure and agreement, allows for an account of the complex agreement patterns. However, if correct, the absence of phi-features on inanimates also requires a rejection of Baker’s (1996) Polysynthesis Parameter, a macroparameter according to which all arguments in polysynthetic languages must be morphologically referenced on the verb. The conclusion will be that polysynthetic properties of Kanien’kéha do not require appeal to a macroparameter, but rather can be seen as the cumulative effect of smaller independently-motivated differences.

About the LinguisticsNOW colloquium series

UBC Linguistics and SFU Linguistics work in partnership to take turns hosting the joint colloquium series known as LinguisticsNOW. The series is aimed at showcasing exciting new research in linguistics while fostering collaboration between UBC and SFU. We cooperate to plan and organize this research talk each year during the Fall term, as well as a graduate studies research symposium known as LinguisticsNEW during each Spring term.