Introduction to Morphology / 2017 Linguistic Institute / Instructor: Andrea Sims

Analytic Exercise 4: Sahaptin Agreement Morphology

This exercise is designed to give you an opportunity to practice analyzing inflectional morphology in a(n inferential-)realizational framework.

Ethnologue classifies Sahaptin as a language family containing four languages (Tenino, Umatilla, Walla Walla, and Yakama). These are spoken in the NW United States (Oregon and Washington), but each has fewer than 25 native speakers, so the languages are moribund and nearly extinct. The grammar from which the following data were taken treats Sahaptin as a single language, and I follow it here.

Intransitive verbs

Intransitive verbs in Sahaptin agree with their subjects for person and number, and within 1st person plural, for clusivity (inclusive/exclusive).1 Sahaptin is a primarily ergative-absolutive system.2 Table 1 shows the present tense forms of the intransitive verb ŠALÁWI ‘be tired’, which agrees for person and number with an absolutive subject.

SG PL INCL šaláwišana 1 šaláwišaaš EXCL šaláwišanataš 2 šaláwišaam šaláwišapam 3 šaláwiša šaláwiša 3 Table 1: Intransitive Sahaptin verb ŠALÁWI ‘be tired’

Note on phonologically conditioned allomorphy: • =aš is a phonologically conditioned variant of =naš • =am is a phonologically conditioned variant of =nam • =taš is a phonologically conditioned variant of =nataš

For present purposes, we will ignore this alternation. Since it is completely regular, we will assume that it is the business of the phonology. We can thus extract the agreement markers in Table 2.

1 Clusivity indicates whether the addressee (the person being talked to) is included. In other words, languages with a distinction between ‘inclusive’ and ‘exclusive’ have different verbs and/or pronouns for ‘we = me + you (+ maybe some third person)’ (=inclusive), and ‘we = me + some third person, but not you’ (=exclusive). Many languages encode clusivity in verbs and pronouns. 2 This means that the (only) argument of an intransitive verb and the patient of a transitive verb normally receive absolutive case, and the agent of a transitive verb receives ergative case. (This contrasts with a nominative-accusative system, in which the (only) argument of an intransitive verb and agent of a transitive verb receive nominative case, and the patient of a transitive verb receives accusative case.) However, like many ergative-absolutive systems, subparts of Sahaptin case system have the nominative-accusative pattern. This is the sense in which it is a ‘split’ ergative-absolutive system. 3 Forms are given in orthography: ‘š’ = [ʃ], and ‘a’ = [ɑ]. The acute accent (e.g., ‘á') indicates placement of word stress. Stress is usually lexical, but as the data in Table 3 show, some prefixes always 'attract' word stress. 1

SG PL INCL =na 1 =naš EXCL =nataš 2 =nam =pam 3 Table 2: Subject agreement marking on Sahaptin intransitive verbs (absolutive subjects)

Note: The form ‘=’ indicates that the exponent is a clitic, rather than an affix.4 The form -ta- (underlined in the tables) can be assumed to be an infix that inserts itself into prior to the last consonant of the stem, into the middle of a single exponent. Thus, =naš# + -ta- à =nataš.

Transitive verbs

Transitive verbs agree with both (ergative) subjects and (absolutive) objects for person and number. See (1) – (2). Pronouns sometimes appear in the syntax, but as shown in these examples, verbal agreement is sometimes the only overt marker of pronominal arguments.

(1) i-q̓ ínu-šana=aš yáka-nɨm 3SG.SBJ-see-ASP=1SG.OBJ bear-ERG ‘The bear saw me.’5

(2) q̓ ínu-šana=maš see-asp=1SG.SBJ/2SG.OBJ ‘I saw you.’

The full set of subject/object agreement markers is given in Table 3. The ellipses (‘…’) are placeholders for the stem.

SUBJ AGR 1SG 2SG 3SG 1PL 2PL 3PL TOPIC NON-TOPIC INCL EXCL TOPIC NON-TOPIC OBJ AGR 1SG pá-…=nam i-…=naš =pam pa-…=naš 2SG =maš i-…=nam =mataš pa-…=nam TOPIC pá- patá- 3SG á-…=naš á-…=nam á-…=na á-…=nataš á-…=pam NON-TOPIC i- pa- INCL =nam i-…=na =pam pa-…=na 1PL EXCL =nam i-…-nataš =pam pa-…=nataš 2PL =maš i-…=pam =mataš pa-…=pam 3PL á-…=naš á-…=nam i- á-…=na á-…=nataš á-…=pam pa- Table 3: Subject and object agreement marking on Sahaptin transitive verbs

4 This means that it is not as tightly bound to the stem as affixes are. Like affixes, clitics must attach to another unit (called the ‘host’) and cannot stand by themselves as separate (morphophonological) words. However, unlike affixes, clitics do not always attach to the same kinds of hosts. In English, possessive ‘s is a clitic, and has this property: [The woman]’s hat vs. [The woman who is from Lexington]’s hat (it is still the woman’s hat, not Lexington’s…), vs. [The woman standing over there]’s hat. Notice that ‘s attaches to different kinds of words – the generalization is that it attaches to whatever word is last in the noun phrase containing the possessor (woman). If it were an affix, it would always have to attach to woman (*The woman’s standing over there hat). 5 ASP = aspect. You can ignore aspect marking in this assignment. 2

Instructions

1. Develop an analysis of the intransitive markers (Table 2) using the tools of realizational morphology that we have developed in class – i.e., realizational rules and Elsewhere rule ordering (a.k.a. Paninian ordering, a.k.a. Subset Principle ordering).

A complete analysis will specify what the relevant content licensing cells (= morphosyntactic values to be realized) are, and what the realizational rules are. Realizational rules will have the form:

{morphosyntactic values} à /morphophonological form/

Pay attention to how rules interact, which is to say, where one rule is 'pre-empted' by a more specific rule. Check to make sure that any rule interactions predict the right results.

Two notes: 1. While we haven't yet talked about clitics, you can treat the clitics as if they are suffixes. This has no negative consequences for the analysis. 2. Ignore the infix -ta-. This requires a little extra theoretical 'machinery' that we have not covered in class. But you should be able to make an analysis of all of the other intransitive forms.

2. Transitive verb morphology is more challenging. If you solved question 1 quickly and have more time to work on this assignment, look now at the transitive clitics. Modify your answer to question 1 as needed to accommodate the transitive data. (Optional.)

To understand what is happening in the transitive forms, you will need to consider the distribution of the prefixes, in addition to the distribution of the clitics (which we are treating as suffixes here). The prefixes are important for understanding how the clitics work. However, your analysis only needs to cover the clitics. There is no need to make a formal analysis of the prefixes. (This is interesting, but beyond the scope of this assignment.)

HINT: You can assume a general principle of the language whereby subject agreement marking takes precedence over object agreement marking. This can resolve conflicts that are not fully resolved by Elsewhere/Paninian/Subset Principle ordering.

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