SUBJECT AND TOPIC IN ST'ÁT'IMCETS (LILLOOET SALISH) by TAYLOR ROBERTS B.A., York University, 1992 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS in THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES (Department of Linguistics) We accept this thesis as conforming to the required standard .............................................................. .............................................................. .............................................................. .............................................................. THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA June 1994 © Taylor Roberts, 1994 Abstract The goal of this thesis is twofold: first, to describe some of the symmetric and asymmetric behaviours of transitive and intransitive subjects in St'át'imcets, a Northern Interior Salish language spoken in southwest mainland British Columbia; second, to consider how the Principles and Parameters framework (Chomsky 1981; 1982; 1986; 1992; etc.) can explain the asymmetries. Although many Salish languages are known to display ergativity in their third-person subject inflection, the extent to which these languages are syntactically ergative is not well documented—perhaps because their accusativity has been more salient. The question has not been investigated for St'át'imcets, and this thesis shows that there is at least one aspect of St'át'imcets syntax— relativization—that appears to be ergative. Evidence of ergativity in coreference across conjuncts in St'át'imcets is not as clear, though; rather, coreference is restricted by a rule of one-nominal interpretation (Gerdts 1988) and a constraint on parallelism of discourse functions (Matthewson 1993a), both of which are shown in this thesis to derive from more general constraints on discourse. Unifying the explanations for the various asymmetries is the idea—independently motivated and proposed to account for facts in other languages—that NPs that are topics are structurally higher than NPs that are focused. Salish languages are often presented as though they were radically different from other languages, but with respect to the complex and subtle data examined in this thesis, St'át'imcets resembles other known linguistic systems. Most of the data are from original fieldwork, and they will be useful in the kind of comparative Northern Interior Salish research begun by Davis et al. (1993), Gardiner et al. (1993), and Matthewson et al. (1993). Syntactic pivots have not been investigated in the other NIS languages, and so establishing the ways in which Nla'kapmxcín (Thompson) and Secwepemctsín (Shuswap) differ from St'át'imcets will ideally help to explain the nature of parametric variation in syntax. ii Table of Contents Abstract........................................................................................................................ ii Table of Contents......................................................................................................... iii Symbols and Abbreviations ......................................................................................... iv Acknowledgments........................................................................................................ v Chapter 1 Introduction................................................................................................ 1 1.1. Goals and outline of thesis...................................................................... 1 1.2. Grammatical relations and ergativity ..................................................... 3 1.3. Outline of St'át'imcets............................................................................. 5 1.3.1. Morphosyntax........................................................................... 5 1.3.2. Regional variation.................................................................... 12 1.4. Data and methodology............................................................................ 15 Chapter 2 Relativization ............................................................................................. 17 2.1. Introduction ............................................................................................ 17 2.2. Pronominal inflection of relative clauses ............................................... 21 2.2.1. Subject of transitive.................................................................. 21 2.2.2. Subject of intransitive............................................................... 23 2.2.3. Direct object............................................................................. 26 2.2.4. Possessor .................................................................................. 30 2.2.5. Object of comparison ............................................................... 33 2.3. Summary................................................................................................. 34 Chapter 3 Conjunction................................................................................................ 37 3.1. Introduction ............................................................................................ 37 3.2. Conjuncts with non-third-person............................................................ 38 3.3. Conjuncts with third-person subject and object ..................................... 41 3.3.1. Conjoined transitives................................................................ 41 3.3.1.1. Parallelism constraint on discourse functions .............. 41 3.3.1.2. Interaction with the one-nominal interpretation law .... 45 3.3.2. Intransitives .............................................................................. 50 3.3.2.1. Intransitive in first conjunct.......................................... 50 3.3.2.2. Intransitive in second conjunct..................................... 52 3.4. Summary................................................................................................. 54 Chapter 4 Structural Asymmetries.............................................................................. 56 4.1. Introduction ............................................................................................ 56 4.2. The one-nominal interpretation law as focus ......................................... 61 4.3. Parallelism .............................................................................................. 65 4.3.1. Transitives ................................................................................ 65 4.3.2. Intransitives .............................................................................. 82 4.4. Extraction in relative clauses.................................................................. 87 4.5. Summary................................................................................................. 101 Chapter 5 Conclusion.................................................................................................. 103 Appendix A: Morphology............................................................................................ 105 Appendix B: Key to Orthography................................................................................ 110 Appendix C: Consultants ............................................................................................. 111 Appendix D: Elicitation Sessions ................................................................................ 114 References.................................................................................................................... 116 iii Symbols and Abbreviations * ungrammatical ONO one-nominal interpretation law ? 1. marginally grammatical; (23, 94, 120) 2. grammaticality varies ooc out of control (x) x is optional part particle: 'well, but, so' (*x) ungrammatical if x is present pass passive *(x) ungrammatical if x is absent PC parallelism constraint on discourse {x/y} either x or y, but not both functions (87, 128) - morpheme boundary pl plural 1, 2, 3 first, second, third person poss possessive A subject of transitive pred predicate abs absolutive presupp presupposed knowledge acc accusative prog progressive adhort adhortative quot quotative anti antithesis RC relative clause appl applicative recip reciprocal comp complementizer red redirective conj 1. conjunction; S 1. subject of intransitive; 2. sentence 2. conjunctive inflection constituent cons consequential sg singular def definite su subject (indicative) deic deictic TO topical object marker (-tali) det determiner tr transitive emp emphatic pronoun emph emphasis erg ergative Consultants evid evidential AA Alice Adolph F Fountain dialect BF Beverley Frank foc focus DU Dorothy Ursaki (Nla'kapmxcín) fut remote future, possibility GN Gertrude Ned GF grammatical function LT Laura Thevarge hyp hypothetical RW Rose Whitley incip incipient ind indirective indic indicative interrog interrogative intr intransitive M Mount Currie dialect NIS Northern Interior Salish nom nominalizer now demarcation of time NP noun phrase O direct object obj object obl oblique oblig obligation, expectancy iv Acknowledgments The Lillooet Tribal Council gave permission to study St'át'imcets. Thanks are due to the following consultants for their help—and for enduring my ghastly pronunciations and sentences—while I tried to learn their language: Alice Adolph, Beverley Frank, Gertrude Ned, Laura Thevarge, and Rose Whitley. During the fieldwork, Bucky Ned of Ts'k'wáylacw (Pavilion) provided meals and a place to sleep, and he has been unbelievably kind and generous to the linguists who invade his home every two weeks.