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What to do to ‘do-to . . .’: Notes on an Object Marker in Nuu-chah-nulth

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 June 2016

Florence Woo*
Affiliation:
University of California, Santa Cruz

Abstract

The syntactic behaviour of the object marker ?uukw in Nuu-chah-nulth is documented based on fieldwork data that illustrate patterns not previously discussed in the literature. A Minimalist-type analysis is presented, in which ?uukw is a light verb of the category v and is generated in the complement position of the main verb. This captures certain traits of ?uukw that have hitherto not been unified under a single analysis: its morphological and syntactic autonomy, its semantic dependence on another predicate for argument structure, its link to discourse saliency, and its use as an auxiliary item in A′-raising constructions.

Résumé

Résumé

Le comportement syntaxique du marqueur d’objet ?uukw en nuu-chah-nulth est ici documenté sur la base de données de terrain illustrant des propriétés qui n’ont pas été traités antérieurement dans la littérature. Une analyse de type minimaliste est présentée, dans laquelle ?uukw est un verbe léger de catégorie v généré dans la position de complément du verbe principal. Ceci rends compte de certains traits de ?uukw qui demeurent sans analyse unifiée, soit : son autonomie morphologique et syntaxique, sa dépendance sémantique à autre prédicat pour sa structure d’argument, son rapport à la mise-en-relief discursive et son emploi comme auxiliaire dans les constructions impliquant le déplacement A′.

Type
Part III: Morpho-Syntactic and Syntactic Properties
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Linguistic Association 2007

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