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Title: M-merger and copy spell-out in Inuktitut noun incorporation
A long-standing issue in the analysis of noun incorporation (NI) concerns whether the noun-verb complex is derived by syntactic movement of the object or postsyntactic merger of the verb and an in situ object. The same question pervades the literature on word formation and affixation more generally. This paper investigates these questions from the point of view of Inuktitut, an Inuit language of Northern Canada, and argues that both NI and polysynthetic word formation in Inuit are postsyntactic phenomena, derived by successive m-merger between adjacent elements along the clausal spine. I argue that incorporated nominals in Inuktitut are syntactically active, in that they remain accessible for case, agreement, and even phrasal movement operations, despite being overtly realized within the verb complex. These patterns follow straightforwardly from interactions between postsyntactic m-merger and general conditions on copy spell-out. M-merger of a nominal copy in a movement chain prevents that copy from being deleted, in accordance to morphological well-formedness conditions on word formation.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
1728970
PAR ID:
10179273
Author(s) / Creator(s):
Date Published:
Journal Name:
Proceedings of the Forty-eighth Annual Meeting of the North East Linguistic Society
Volume:
3
Page Range / eLocation ID:
275-284
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
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