Clause structure, agreement and case in Gitksan ...

• Main Author: Hunt, Katharine D.
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: University of British Columbia 2008
• Subjects: Tsimshian*
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.14288/1.0098804; https://doi.library.ubc.ca/10.14288/1.0098804

This dissertation proposes an analysis of certain aspects of the syntax and morphology of Gitksan, a Tsimshianic language of northwestern British Columbia. In particular, the goal of the dissertation is to show that, despite claims and surface appearances to the contrary, the structure of a Gitksan sentence conforms to the putatively universal constraints on sentence structure proposed in Government and Binding theory. In order to defend this claim, I show that other structures which have been proposed for the language are not well-motivated by data, and that the structure I propose is able to account for the complex case and agreement facts observed in declarative Gitksan sentences. The thesis is structured in the following way. Chapter 1 briefly sketches the theoretical framework I assume, while Chapter 2 consists of a short introduction to some salient aspects of Gitksan phonology, morphology and syntax. Chapter 3 contains a comprehensive discussion of typological and structural properties of Gitksan ...