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The Structure of Multiple Tenses in Inuktitut

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The Structure of Multiple Tenses in Inuktitut The Structure of Multiple Tenses in Inuktitut by Midori Hayashi A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of doctor of philosophy Department of Linguistics University of Toronto © Copyright by Midori Hayashi 2011 Library and Archives Bibliothèque et Canada Archives Canada Published Heritage Direction du Branch Patrimoine de l'édition 395 Wellington Street 395, rue Wellington Ottawa ON K1A 0N4 Ottawa ON K1A 0N4 Canada Canada Your file Votre référence ISBN: 978-0-494-77704-6 Our file Notre référence ISBN: 978-0-494-77704-6 NOTICE: AVIS: The author has granted a non- L'auteur a accordé une licence non exclusive exclusive license allowing Library and permettant à la Bibliothèque et Archives Archives Canada to reproduce, Canada de reproduire, publier, archiver, publish, archive, preserve, conserve, sauvegarder, conserver, transmettre au public communicate to the public by par télécommunication ou par l'Internet, prêter, telecommunication or on the Internet, distribuer et vendre des thèses partout dans le loan, distrbute and sell theses monde, à des fins commerciales ou autres, sur worldwide, for commercial or non- support microforme, papier, électronique et/ou commercial purposes, in microform, autres formats. paper, electronic and/or any other formats. The author retains copyright L'auteur conserve la propriété du droit d'auteur ownership and moral rights in this et des droits moraux qui protege cette thèse. Ni thesis. Neither the thesis nor la thèse ni des extraits substantiels de celle-ci substantial extracts from it may be ne doivent être imprimés ou autrement printed or otherwise reproduced reproduits sans son autorisation. without the author's permission. In compliance with the Canadian Conformément à la loi canadienne sur la Privacy Act some supporting forms protection de la vie privée, quelques may have been removed from this formulaires secondaires ont été enlevés de thesis. cette thèse. While these forms may be included Bien que ces formulaires aient inclus dans in the document page count, their la pagination, il n'y aura aucun contenu removal does not represent any loss manquant. of content from the thesis. The Structure of Multiple Tenses in Inuktitut Midori Hayashi Doctor of Philosophy Department of Linguistics University of Toronto 2011 Abstract This thesis presents and analyzes the tense system of South Baffin Inuktitut (SB), a Canadian variety of the Inuit language. It demonstrates that, although closely related dialects are argued to be tenseless (Shaer, 2003; Bittner, 2005), SB has a complex tense system where the present, past, and future are distinguished, and the future and past are divided into more fine-grained temporal domains. I demonstrate that SB has present tense, which is indicated by the absence of a tense marker. A sentence without an overt tense marker may describe a past eventuality if it contains a punctual event predicate; otherwise, it describes an eventuality that holds at the utterance time. I argue that all zero-marked sentences have present tense and any past interpretation is aspectual. I also investigate six different past markers and demonstrate that they all instantiate grammatical tense. The analysis shows that these markers can be semantically classified into two groups, depending in part on whether or not they block more general tenses (e.g., -qqau, the ‘today’ past blocks the use of the general past -lauq when the time of eventuality falls within ‘today’). I label both the general tenses and the group which can block the general tenses as primary tense, whereas the other group which does not block more general tenses is labelled secondary tense. This distinction may have broad cross-linguistic applicability. I examine the distribution of four different future markers and argue that three of them indicate grammatical future tense. They are also grouped into two groups, in the same manner as the past tenses. Finally, I analyse the temporal interpretations of primary tenses in dependent clauses. I show that when tense is interpreted relative to the time of the superordinate eventuality, the domain of tense may not necessarily shift accordingly (e.g., the domain of hodiernal tense in a main clause is the day of utterance, and in an embedded clause the domain can still be the day of utterance). Embedded tenses with remoteness specifications have not been investigated before, and this thesis opens up a new area to our understanding of tenses in human language. ii Acknowledgements My deepest appreciation goes to Saila Michael, a speaker of South Baffin, without whom this thesis could not have been written. She was very patient, kind and always willing to share her knowledge with me. Nakurmit! My thanks also go to Annie Anautalik, Naulaq LeDrew, Raigelee Alorut, and Sandra Uvilluk, who kindly provided me with data as well. Any errors are my own. I am deeply grateful to my thesis supervisor, Alana Johns, who helped me at every stage of writing this thesis. Not only did she provide me with many intuitive suggestions, but she also gave constant emotional support. Whenever I felt discouraged during the process of writing this thesis, she would always tell me how valuable my work was and why she believed I could finish it. I also appreciated her sense of humour. She often made me laugh with her jokes! I am also thankful for her flexibility in allowing me to work on my thesis away from Canada so that I could raise my family. She always made time for me by arranging meetings with her on Skype. Without such understanding and support from her, it would have been extremely difficult for me to complete this thesis. I feel so lucky to have had such a wonderful thesis supervisor. I would like to express my gratitude to Elizabeth Cowper. Discussions with her, and her comments on all drafts of this thesis, were always very insightful. My sincere thanks go to Diane Massam, who joined my committee at the final stage of my thesis writing process. She was always very warm and encouraging, and I am truly grateful to her for joining my committee. I also thank Michela Ippolito, who helped me at earlier stages of my thesis. Her inputs on the semantic aspects of this thesis were very valuable. I am grateful to Lisa Matthewson, who was my external committee member. Her meticulous comments and editing notes were extremely helpful, and I learned a great deal from every single comment. I also greatly appreciate the feedback offered by Christina Cuervo, who was also on my committee. She shared lots of knowledge and insights on my analysis using Spanish data, which is a language I am not very familiar with. Discussions with her at the defence were very intellectually stimulating. Keren Rice was not on my committee, but her warm encouragement and smiles always made me feel happy. The department has great staff – Mary Hsu and Bill Forrest. Both of them happened iii to see me right before the defence and both gave me warm words of encouragement. They may not know how much that meant to me, especially at that moment! Special thanks go to my friends, who made my student life memorable. I am thankful to Bettina Spreng for her constant encouragement and interest in my work. We went to conferences together and I have such wonderful memories walking around Europe with her. Eugenia Suh and I often studied until late at night. We often ate together, in and out of the department. It was comforting and so much fun. Jee-Youn Shin is such a lovable person. It was great being able to share our feelings and thoughts while we were together in the program. Kevin Heffernan and his wife, Yumiko, always made me feel at home whenever I visited them. I truly enjoyed our “game nights”! Manami Hirayama is so sincere and considerate of others. She would occasionally send me flowers to encourage me to finish my thesis. It meant a lot to me. Marina Sherkina-Lieber, who became a mother before I did, gave me a lot of advice and encouragement on juggling being a PhD student and a mother at the same time. Thank you all for being such good friends to me! Finally, I can’t thank my family enough for their patience, love and support. I am indebted to my parents for their understanding and for providing me with not only financial support, but also constant emotional support. My husband, David, helped in numerous ways to allow me to work full-time on this thesis. He is also a great linguist, and discussions with him were immensely helpful. My son, Tetsuhiro, also supported me greatly by willingly attending a daycare full-time so that I could work on my thesis and by giving me smiles even when I was discouraged. My research was supported by an Ontario Graduate Scholarship (OGS), a Northern Scientific Training Program (NSTP) grant for my field research in Nunavut and also by a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) grant awarded to Professor Alana Johns. iv Table of Contents Abstract ........................................................................................................................................... ii Acknowledgements........................................................................................................................ iii Table of Contents............................................................................................................................ v List of Tables ................................................................................................................................. ix List of Figures ................................................................................................................................
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