Univ., Diss.--Austin. / Literaturverz. S. 296 - 312.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2000. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 337-346). Available also in a digital version from Dissertation Abstracts.

Thèse--Lettres--Katholieke universiteit Brabant, 1991. / Bibliogr. p. 301-307.

Thesis (doctoral)--Katholieke Universiteit Brabant, 1991. / Includes bibliographical references (p. [301]-307).

This thesis presents and analyzes the tense system of South Baffin Inuktitut (SB), a Canadian variety of the Inuit language. It demonstrates that, although closely related dialects are argued to be tenseless (Shaer, 2003; Bittner, 2005), SB has a complex tense system where the present, past, and future are distinguished, and the future and past are divided into more fine-grained temporal domains. I demonstrate that SB has present tense, which is indicated by the absence of a tense marker. A sentence without an overt tense marker may describe a past eventuality if it contains a punctual event predicate; otherwise, it describes an eventuality that holds at the utterance time. I argue that all zero-marked sentences have present tense and any past interpretation is aspectual. I also investigate six different past markers and demonstrate that they all instantiate grammatical tense. The analysis shows that these markers can be semantically classified into two groups, depending in part on 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 eventuality falls within ‘today’). I label both the general tenses and the group which can block the general tenses as primary tense, whereas the other group which does not block more general tenses is labelled secondary tense. This distinction may have broad cross-linguistic applicability. I examine the distribution of four different future markers and argue that three of them indicate grammatical future tense. They are also grouped into two groups, in the same manner as the past tenses. Finally, I analyse the temporal interpretations of primary tenses in dependent clauses. I show that when tense is interpreted relative to the time of the superordinate eventuality, the domain of tense may not necessarily shift accordingly (e.g., the domain of hodiernal tense in a main clause is the day of utterance, and in an embedded clause the domain can still be the day of utterance). Embedded tenses with remoteness specifications have not been investigated before, and this thesis opens up a new area to our understanding of tenses in human language.

This thesis presents and analyzes the tense system of South Baffin Inuktitut (SB), a Canadian variety of the Inuit language. It demonstrates that, although closely related dialects are argued to be tenseless (Shaer, 2003; Bittner, 2005), SB has a complex tense system where the present, past, and future are distinguished, and the future and past are divided into more fine-grained temporal domains. I demonstrate that SB has present tense, which is indicated by the absence of a tense marker. A sentence without an overt tense marker may describe a past eventuality if it contains a punctual event predicate; otherwise, it describes an eventuality that holds at the utterance time. I argue that all zero-marked sentences have present tense and any past interpretation is aspectual. I also investigate six different past markers and demonstrate that they all instantiate grammatical tense. The analysis shows that these markers can be semantically classified into two groups, depending in part on 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 eventuality falls within ‘today’). I label both the general tenses and the group which can block the general tenses as primary tense, whereas the other group which does not block more general tenses is labelled secondary tense. This distinction may have broad cross-linguistic applicability. I examine the distribution of four different future markers and argue that three of them indicate grammatical future tense. They are also grouped into two groups, in the same manner as the past tenses. Finally, I analyse the temporal interpretations of primary tenses in dependent clauses. I show that when tense is interpreted relative to the time of the superordinate eventuality, the domain of tense may not necessarily shift accordingly (e.g., the domain of hodiernal tense in a main clause is the day of utterance, and in an embedded clause the domain can still be the day of utterance). Embedded tenses with remoteness specifications have not been investigated before, and this thesis opens up a new area to our understanding of tenses in human language.

Thesis (doctoral)--Katholieke Universiteit Brabant, 1991. / Includes bibliographical references (p. [301]-307).

No description available.

No description available.

L'alignement morphosyntaxique des dialectes de la langue inuite est du type ergatif, et il est intéressant de noter qu'il existe un syncrétisme morphologique parfait entre les constructions génitives et ergatives lorsque l'objet de ces dernières est à la troisième personne (du singulier ou du pluriel). De plus, à l'exception des constructions passives, il y a dans la langue deux types de constructions syntaxiques qui expriment sémantiquement un agent et un patient : les constructions ergatives et les constructions antipassives. Récemment, plusieurs linguistes ont relevé une transition vers l'accusativité dans les dialectes inuktitut, où la construction antipassive est en train de devenir la construction transitive de base (Johns, 1999, 2001, 2006 et 2012; Spreng, 2005 et 2012; Allen, à paraître). L'étude de la transitivité dans les dialectes inuktitut est donc digne d'intérêt à plusieurs égards. La transitivité est une notion centrale en linguistique, mais sa manifestation dans les langues est loin d'être uniforme. L'étude des langues plus exotiques a justement aidé à en formuler une nouvelle définition typologique, qui traite les différentes constructions des langues selon un continuum de transitivité à partir de traits formels et sémantiques (Hopper & Thompson 1980; Tsunoda 1985; Kittila 2002; Naess 2007). Ce mémoire adoptera cette approche de la transitivité, et se penchera sur l'analyse de son expression en itivimiut, qui est un sous-dialecte inuktitut du Nunavik et sur lequel aucune étude récente n'a porté. L'analyse visera à rendre compte aussi bien des caractéristiques des constructions transitives en itivimiut d'un point de vue synchronique que des changements qui s'y sont produits récemment. ______________________________________________________________________________ MOTS-CLÉS DE L’AUTEUR : itivimiut, inuktitut, alignement morphosyntaxique, transitivité, langues eskimo-aléoutes.