Article ID | Journal | Published Year | Pages | File Type |
---|---|---|---|---|
10461124 | Lingua | 2010 | 26 Pages |
Abstract
This paper argues that wordhood in the polysynthetic Inuit language is predictable from syntactic structure and that words correspond to the domains of CP and DP. This entails that Inuit's morphological component need not be any more complex than that of more isolating languages and that individual morphemes are not idiosyncratically specified as affixes. As evidence for our approach, we contrast a variety of free and bound elements, showing that in every case, subparts of words are smaller than CP/DP and full words correspond to CP/DP. We also discuss “stem” ellipsis, which we argue is further evidence that the elements which are usually bound in Inuit are not genuinely affixes.
Related Topics
Social Sciences and Humanities
Arts and Humanities
Language and Linguistics
Authors
Richard Compton, Christine Pittman,