NOMINALIZATION AND PREDICATION IN U̠ T-MA'IN by REBECCA DOW SMITH PATERSON A DISSERTATION Presented to the Department of Linguistics and the Graduate School of the University of Oregon in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy September 2019 DISSERTATION APPROVAL PAGE Student: Rebecca Dow Smith Paterson Title: Nominalization and Predication in U̠t-Ma'in This dissertation has been accepted and approved in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Doctor of Philosophy degree in the Department of Linguistics by: Doris L. Payne Chairperson Spike Gildea Core Member Don Daniels Core Member Senyo Ofori-Parku Institutional Representative and Janet Woodruff-Borden Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School Original approval signatures are on file with the University of Oregon Graduate School. Degree awarded September 2019 ii © 2019 Rebecca Dow Smith Paterson This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs (United States) License. iii DISSERTATION ABSTRACT Rebecca Dow Smith Paterson Doctor of Philosophy Department of Linguistics September 2019 Title: Nominalization and Predication in U̠t-Ma'in U̠t-Ma'in is a Kainji, East Benue-Congo language, spoken in northwestern Nigeria (ISO 639-3 code [gel]). This study contributes to our understanding of Benue-Congo languages by offering the first indepth look at nominalization phenomena in any Kainji language. Kainji is an undesrdescribed 50+ language subgroup of Benue-Congo; current descriptions are limited to articles and dissertations on a few languages, unpublished wordlists, and unpublished grammar sketches. This study looks at the morphosyntax of predication in U̠t-Ma'in, especially the extensive use of nominalization and NP agreement phenomena within a wide range of predicative functions. Five of fourteen noun class prefixes are involved in nominalization of the verb; a nominalized verb, along with a goal complement or an object, can be incorporated into the nominalized phrase in the same way that a noun modifier is marked within a NP. These nominalized verb phrases are extensively used in auxiliary constructions that cover a diverse range of tense, aspect, and mode designations; the syntactic transitivity of the clause determines the morphosyntax used. Intransitive auxiliary constructions use the full range of nominalizing noun class marking; in contrast, transitive auxiliary constructions show a shift in their use of the noun class agreement morphology iv required. The progressive auxiliary construction specifically has shown the most adjustment in the system. The U̠t-Ma'in associative morpheme is in widespread use across different syntactic constructions. The associative can create a modifying phrase from a descriptive noun with a wide range of semantic relationship between the two nouns. The associative also serves as the relative pronoun introducing a descriptive relative clause. The associative can mark a goal or an object that is contained within the nominalized verb phrase. When a nominalized verb phrase is the complement to an auxiliary construction, the associative marks only the object complement of the verb. Finally, the associative marks the nominative form of nouns in certain morphosyntactic environments; this results in a so-called marked-nominative word form and clause alignment pattern. These diverse uses of the associative and the accompanying agreement marking are pervasive in U̠t-Ma'in and are a major focus of this study. v CURRICULUM VITAE NAME OF AUTHOR: Rebecca Dow Smith Paterson GRADUATE AND UNDERGRADUATE SCHOOLS ATTENDED: University of Oregon, Eugene University of North Dakota, Grand Forks Cairn University, Langhorne, Pennsylvania DEGREES AWARDED: Doctor of Philosophy, Linguistics, 2019, University of Oregon Master of Arts, Linguistics, 2007, University of North Dakota Bachelor of Science, 2001, Cairn University AREAS OF SPECIAL INTEREST: Language description and documentation Morphosyntax Diachronic syntax Discourse grammar African languages PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE: Instructor, University of Oregon, 2013-2015, 2017-2018 American English Institute Instructor, University of Oregon, Winter 2013 Department of Linguistics vi Teaching Assistant, University of Oregon, Fall 2012, 2016, 2019 Department of Linguistics and American English Institute Instructor, University of North Dakota Summer Institute of Linguistics, Summers 2009-2010 Visiting Instructor, Payap University, Chiang Mai, Thailand, Fall 2007 Teaching Assistant, University of North Dakota Summer Institute of Linguistics, Summers 2005, 2008, 2013 GRANTS, AWARDS, AND HONORS: Graduate Teaching Fellowship, Department of Linguistics and American English Institute, University of Oregon, 2012-2019 Fellowship in the Collection of Oral Literature and Traditional Ecological Knowledge, Documenting Oral Literature of the U̠t-Ma'in Language, Firebird Foundation for Anthropological Research, 2016 Research grant, Her voice: Documenting the language of women speakers of the U̠t-Ma'in language (Nigeria), Center for the Study of Women in Society, University of Oregon, 2016 Travel grant, Department of Linguistics, University of Oregon, for presenting at the 4th International Conference on Language Documentation & Conservation, University of Hawai’i, 2015 Jacqueline Schachter Outstanding Conference Presentation Award, Department of Linguistics, University of Oregon, 2014 Travel grant, American English Institute, University of Oregon, for presenting at the 45th Annual Conference on African Linguistics, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas, 2014 vii Travel grant, Department of Linguistics, University of Oregon, for presenting at the 46th Annual Meeting of the Societas Linguistica Europaea, Split University, Croatia, 2013 MA Scholarship, Department of Linguistics, University of North Dakota, 2007 General Scholarship, Department of Linguistics, University of North Dakota, 2001-2005 PUBLICATIONS: Paterson, Rebecca. To appear, November 2019. On the development of two progressive constructions in U̱t-Ma'in. Folia Linguistica Historica 40(2). Berlin: De Gruyter. Paterson, Rebecca. 2015. Narrative uses of the U̱t-Ma'in (Kainji) Bare Verb form. In Doris L. Payne and Shahar Shirtz (eds.), Beyond aspect: the expression of discourse functions in African languages (Typological Studies in Language 109), 219–248. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Paterson, Rebecca. 2012. Semantics of U̠t-Ma'in noun classes. In Roger Blench and Stuart McGill (eds.). Advances in minority language research in Nigeria, volume 1, 226-258. Köln: Rüdiger Köppe. viii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS With sincere appreciation, I thank the many U̠t-Ma'in speakers who taught me so much more than their language, especially Sunday John and his family, Ibrahim Tume Ushe, Ibrahim Yohanna, and Daniel Yohanna. U̠m no̠ng u̠t-vam sok!̠ Many others contributed to my knowledge and my well-being while in their community, and although I do not here name them all I am grateful for the warm welcome I have received over the years. I would also like to thank other local contacts for their care of me and my family while in the language area, specifically Mande Hakumi, Luka Kwako, and Samuel Danture language and his family. I thank David and Carleen Heath who introduced me to the area and the beautiful complexities of the U̠t-Ma'in language, and who made their home available for field site visits. I wish to thank my advisor Professor Doris L Payne for her constant encouragement, for believing in me, challenging my thinking, helping hone my ideas, refining my writing, and caring for my well-being and my family. I thank my committee members, Spike Gildea, Don Daniels, and Senyo Ofori-Parku for their helpful insight throughout the research leading to this work and for detailed attention to the final draft. I would like to thank SIL International, specifically SIL Nigeria for supporting this research. Funding in part of the fieldwork for this study was provided by the Center for the Study of Women in Society at the University of Oregon (2016) and the Firebird Foundation for Anthropological Research (2016). Many friends and family near and far have been a part of this journey. To you I am grateful: to Sara Pacchiarotti for reading countless early drafts of everything, constant encouragement, sustaining prayers, and enduring friendship; to Shahar Shirtz for ix considering me a colleague when I only felt completely out of my depth from the very start of my doctoral studies; to Marie-Caroline Pons, Manuel Otero, Richard Griscom, Zoe Tribur, Allison Taylor-Adams, Amos Teo, and Matt Stave for the pep talks, critical insight on analysis, inspirational quotes, coffee runs, and friendship; to Mokaya Bosire for encouragement and insight on the value of sharing about U̠t-Ma'in and the potential impact this new knowledge could have more broadly in Niger-Congo studies; to Coleen Starwalt for mentorship and guidance; to Stuart McGill and Roger Blench for championing research on Kainji languages; to Katy Barnwell for first introducing me to Nigeria; to Diana Weber for first mentioning to me the idea of doctoral studies; to Eugene friends and friends far away. My life is not complete without the love of my family: to my parents, thank you for your constant love and support. And finally, my most heart-felt thanks to my husband, Hugh Paterson and my daughter Katja. My loves, thank you. x To my dear cousin and brother Charles Andrew Morris who with grace and patience, daily fights the good fight and ALS, whose endurance through trials is testimony to a life well-lived