LINGUIST List 22.2813
Fri Jul 08 2011
Diss: Syntax: Hayashi': 'The Structure of Multiple Tenses in Inuktitut'
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1. Midori Hayashi ,
The Structure of Multiple Tenses in Inuktitut
Message 1: The Structure of Multiple Tenses in Inuktitut
Date: 08-Jul-2011
From: Midori Hayashi <midori.hayashigmail.com>
Subject: The Structure of Multiple Tenses in Inuktitut
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Institution: University of Toronto
Program: Department of Linguistics
Dissertation Status: Completed
Degree Date: 2011
Author: Midori Hayashi
Dissertation Title: The Structure of Multiple Tenses in Inuktitut
Dissertation URL: http://semanticsarchive.net/Archive/GE1YzI1Y/
Linguistic Field(s):
Syntax
Subject Language(s): Inuktitut, Eastern Canadian (ike)
Language Family(ies): Inuit
Dissertation Director:
Alana Johns
Dissertation Abstract:
This thesis presents and analyzes the tense system of South BaffinInuktitut (SB), a Canadian variety of the Inuit language. It demonstratesthat although closely related dialects have been argued to be tenseless(Shaer, 2003; Bittner, 2005), SB has a complex tense system where thepresent, past, and future are distinguished, and the past and future aredivided into more fine-grained temporal domains.
I demonstrate that SB has present tense, which is indicated by the absenceof a tense marker. A sentence without an overt tense marker may describe apast eventuality if it contains a punctual event predicate; otherwise, itdescribes an eventuality that holds at the utterance time. I argue that allzero-marked sentences have present tense and any past interpretation isaspectual. I also investigate six different past markers and demonstratethat they all instantiate grammatical tense. The analysis shows that thesemarkers can be semantically classified into two groups, depending in parton 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 eventualityfalls within 'today'). I label both the general tenses and the group whichcan block the general tenses as primary tense, whereas the other groupwhich does not block more general tenses is labelled secondary tense. Thisdistinction may have broad cross-linguistic applicability. I examine thedistribution of four different future markers and argue that three of themindicate grammatical future tense. They are also grouped into two groups,in the same manner as the past tenses. Finally, I analyze the temporalinterpretations of primary tenses in dependent clauses. I show that whentense is interpreted relative to the time of the superordinate eventuality,the domain of tense may not necessarily shift accordingly (e.g., the domainof hodiernal tense in a main clause is the day of utterance, and in anembedded clause the domain can still be the day of utterance). Embeddedtenses with remoteness specifications have not been investigated before,and this thesis opens up a new area to our understanding of tenses in humanlanguage.
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