Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, San Diego, 1982. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 262-269).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, San Diego, 1982. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 262-269).

This dissertation is the first grammatical sketch of the Nxa’amxcin (Moses- Columbian) language. Nxa’amxcin is an endangered member of the Southern Interior branch of the Salish language family, a linguistic group indigenous to the Pacific Northwest region of North America. Building on previous work by other Salish linguists, I address to varying degrees all three major aspects of the grammar (phonology, syntax and morphology) from a Lexeme-Morpheme Base Morphology approach to word formation (Beard 1995). A brief introduction to the phonology of Nxa’amxcin provides a look at the segment inventory, the status of schwa, various segmental processes, and syllable structure. An overview of the syntax focuses on aspects of the noun phrase—determiners, demonstratives, locative prepositions, genitive marking—and the major clause types—simple clauses, relative clauses and fronting. An extensive discussion of lexical operations (derivational morphology) addresses the categories of valence, voice, secondary aspect, control, category-changing operations, and operations marking locative, augmentative, diminutive and relational. An overview of inflectional operations (inflectional morphology) is presented starting with the marking of person, number and grammatical relation on the predicate. Viewpoint aspect, mood, temporal marking, negation, non-declarative operations—yes/no questions, imperative, prohibitive—and nominalization are also discussed. A description of the three different types of compounds found in Nxa’amxcin—two involving free stems and the third (known as lexical affixation) comprising a free stem and a bound stem—is provided along with the corresponding word structure rules responsible for these compounds. A number of arguments in support of a compounding analysis of bound stem constructions (lexical affixation), as opposed to a syntactic analysis, are presented. The set of classifiers that has developed from lexical affixation is also addressed. / Graduate

This thesis is a comparison of the glottalized resonants in Sancaean and St'at'imcets, two Salish languages. The Licensing by Cue hypothesis as proposed by Steriade (1997) accounts for the distribution of glottalized resonants based on their phonetic cues. The goal of this thesis is to apply the Licensing by Cue hypothesis to the glottalized resonants in Sancaean and St'at'imcets, and evaluate its success in accounting for these two languages. Sancaean is a North Straits, Coast Salish language which does not permit glottalized resonants word-initially. St'at'imcets is an Interior Salish language which allows glottalized resonants word-initially but only in a particular morphological context. Licensing by Cue suggests that glottalized resonants do not occur word initially because of a lack of a supportive context for cues. The distribution of resonants glottalized as a part of a morphological process, namely the actual in Sancaean and the inchoative in St'at'imcets, should also be governed by the same phonetic factors. This thesis first examines the glottal timing of glottalized resonants in both languages. Preliminary phonetic evidence is given for glottalized resonants in Sancaean, which confirm that glottalization is attracted to stress. In contrast, in St'at'imcets, it is perceived that glottalization is repulsed by stress. Modifications are proposed, which enable the hypothesis to account for the timing of glottal events. It is argued, however, that even after such modification, the Licensing by Cue hypothesis is not sufficient to account for the distribution of non-derived glottalized resonants. The same is shown to be true for derived glottalized resonants. The distribution of glottalized resonants is governed by the interaction of three levels of constraints: phonetic constraints, which determine glottal timing, and phonological and morphological constraints, which govern the distribution of glottalised resonants. Also briefly discussed in this thesis are issues related to the relationship between /ʡ/ and glottalized resonant, whether [cg] or [creak] should be used to characterise glottalised resonants, and the Proto-Salish morpheme for the imperfective. Based on the research presented in this thesis, it is concluded that Sancaean and St'at'imcets glottalised resonants do not show strong support for a hypothesis which argues for a strong phonetic presence in phonology. While a cue-based approach can account for the phonetic timing of glottal events for glottalized resonants, segment distribution is determined by phonological and morphological constraints.

This thesis is a comparison of the glottalized resonants in Sancaean and St'at'imcets, two Salish languages. The Licensing by Cue hypothesis as proposed by Steriade (1997) accounts for the distribution of glottalized resonants based on their phonetic cues. The goal of this thesis is to apply the Licensing by Cue hypothesis to the glottalized resonants in Sancaean and St'at'imcets, and evaluate its success in accounting for these two languages. Sancaean is a North Straits, Coast Salish language which does not permit glottalized resonants word-initially. St'at'imcets is an Interior Salish language which allows glottalized resonants word-initially but only in a particular morphological context. Licensing by Cue suggests that glottalized resonants do not occur word initially because of a lack of a supportive context for cues. The distribution of resonants glottalized as a part of a morphological process, namely the actual in Sancaean and the inchoative in St'at'imcets, should also be governed by the same phonetic factors. This thesis first examines the glottal timing of glottalized resonants in both languages. Preliminary phonetic evidence is given for glottalized resonants in Sancaean, which confirm that glottalization is attracted to stress. In contrast, in St'at'imcets, it is perceived that glottalization is repulsed by stress. Modifications are proposed, which enable the hypothesis to account for the timing of glottal events. It is argued, however, that even after such modification, the Licensing by Cue hypothesis is not sufficient to account for the distribution of non-derived glottalized resonants. The same is shown to be true for derived glottalized resonants. The distribution of glottalized resonants is governed by the interaction of three levels of constraints: phonetic constraints, which determine glottal timing, and phonological and morphological constraints, which govern the distribution of glottalised resonants. Also briefly discussed in this thesis are issues related to the relationship between /ʡ/ and glottalized resonant, whether [cg] or [creak] should be used to characterise glottalised resonants, and the Proto-Salish morpheme for the imperfective. Based on the research presented in this thesis, it is concluded that Sancaean and St'at'imcets glottalised resonants do not show strong support for a hypothesis which argues for a strong phonetic presence in phonology. While a cue-based approach can account for the phonetic timing of glottal events for glottalized resonants, segment distribution is determined by phonological and morphological constraints. / Arts, Faculty of / Linguistics, Department of / Graduate

In this thesis I discuss the semantic basis of the morphological form of predicates in N+e?képmx, a Northern Interior Salish language. Intransitive and transitive use of roots in Nle7képmx is morphologically marked; intransitives use a set of primary affixes and transitives use a set of transitivizers. I document the behavior of these morpho syntactic affixes with a subset of the predicates of Me?képmx to determine what is optional, what is obligatory and what is blocked. I link this to an analysis of argument structure of predicates and subsequently create a classification of predicate types. I present an overview of the intransitive and transitive morphology of Meképmx in Chapter One. In Chapter Two I discuss current literature regarding the syntactic and semantic diagnostics of unaccusative and unergative verbs. I create a semantic classification of the set of roots, and discuss the behavior of roots with morpho-syntactic affixes to determine the diagnostic potential of the affixes. In Chapter Three I discuss the potential of an intransitive-transitive classification of roots. The data show that there is an unergative and unaccusative distinction in the language, specific aspectual morpho-syntactic diagnostics distinguish unaccusatives and causative and desiderative distinguish unergatives. The traditional analyses of Salish languages as having a majority of unaccusative roots and no underlying transitives is confirmed.

In this thesis I discuss the semantic basis of the morphological form of predicates in N+e?képmx, a Northern Interior Salish language. Intransitive and transitive use of roots in Nle7képmx is morphologically marked; intransitives use a set of primary affixes and transitives use a set of transitivizers. I document the behavior of these morpho syntactic affixes with a subset of the predicates of Me?képmx to determine what is optional, what is obligatory and what is blocked. I link this to an analysis of argument structure of predicates and subsequently create a classification of predicate types. I present an overview of the intransitive and transitive morphology of Meképmx in Chapter One. In Chapter Two I discuss current literature regarding the syntactic and semantic diagnostics of unaccusative and unergative verbs. I create a semantic classification of the set of roots, and discuss the behavior of roots with morpho-syntactic affixes to determine the diagnostic potential of the affixes. In Chapter Three I discuss the potential of an intransitive-transitive classification of roots. The data show that there is an unergative and unaccusative distinction in the language, specific aspectual morpho-syntactic diagnostics distinguish unaccusatives and causative and desiderative distinguish unergatives. The traditional analyses of Salish languages as having a majority of unaccusative roots and no underlying transitives is confirmed. / Arts, Faculty of / Linguistics, Department of / Graduate

Dr. Samuel Sam O.C. (February 19, 1925—December 18, 2007) was a traditionally trained orator of the Tsartlip Nation, located in the territory of WSÁNEĆ (Saanich), Vancouver Island. He spoke the two Central Coast Salish languages of SENĆOŦEN (dialect of Northern Straits, Coast Salish) and Hul’q’umi’num’ (dialect of Halkomelem, Coast Salish). In the summer of 2006, Dr. Sam and I began the work of documenting some of his knowledge of the mythology, history, and people that made up his community. This thesis presents two excerpts from these recordings. The first is a traditional WSÁNEĆ Flood Story in SENĆOŦEN that tells of the source of the name of the territory and its people. The second is an autobiographical tale told in Hul’q’umi’num’ that describes Dr. Sam’s life as a young man, working as a migrant farmer with his wife and children. While collaborating with Dr. Sam to translate and render his stories into text, it became clear that the loss of contextual information surrounding them would be a hindrance to their appreciation and even understanding. This thesis discusses the role of context as a background against which the texts can be viewed. This context includes information about Dr. Sam’s motivations for sharing his knowledge, historical information about him and his nation, description of the traditional role of oratory on the West Coast, and about the decisions made in the process of rendering the oral genre into text. Coast Salish oratory is a traditional medium for transmission of information, knowledge, and moral teaching. It is as well a beautiful and complex oral art form, rich with stylistic features. The constitutive device of the oratory appears to be that of parallelism, whereby couplet lines and themes are ordered into structures ranging from simple to complex. Dr. Sam’s oratory is rich with examples of many features and parallel structures which can be found in neighbouring Coast Salish texts. / Graduate

This dissertation has three main goals: 1. To provide an analysis of the syntax and semantics of Salish determiners and quantifiers. 2. To provide an account of differences in the determiner and quantification systems of Salish and English which reduces cross-linguistic variation to a minimum, in line with a restrictive theory of Universal Grammar. 3. To assess the theoretical consequences of the analysis of Salish, including implications for the range of possible cross-linguistic variation in determiner and quantification systems, and the nature of the relationship between syntactic structure and interpretation. I give evidence that one common method of expressing quantificational notions in English is absent in Salish. While English readily allows quantifiers to occupy the syntactic position of the determiner (as in every woman, most women), Salish languages do not allow such constructions (see also Jelinek 1995). I propose that Salish and English exemplify opposite settings of a Common Ground Parameter, which states that Salish determiners may not access the common ground of the discourse. This parameter accounts not only for the absence of quantificational determiners in Salish (since quantifiers presuppose existence, and therefore access the common ground), it also derives several other differences between Salish and English determiners, such as the absence of a definiteness distinction in Salish. I further demonstrate that Salish possesses a robust system of DP-internal quantification, and that quantificational DPs in Salish function as generalized quantifiers at logical form. This means that the strong hypothesis that languages do not differ with respect to the presence or absence of generalized quantifiers is upheld (cf. Barwise and Cooper 1981). Simple DPs in Salish, unlike in English, do not function as generalized quantifiers. This result follows from the Common Ground Parameter. I give further evidence from St'at'imcets (Lillooet Salish) on the strong/weak quantifier distinction; I argue that the interpretation of weak quantifiers is derivable directly from the overt syntactic position of the quantifier.

This dissertation has three main goals: 1. To provide an analysis of the syntax and semantics of Salish determiners and quantifiers. 2. To provide an account of differences in the determiner and quantification systems of Salish and English which reduces cross-linguistic variation to a minimum, in line with a restrictive theory of Universal Grammar. 3. To assess the theoretical consequences of the analysis of Salish, including implications for the range of possible cross-linguistic variation in determiner and quantification systems, and the nature of the relationship between syntactic structure and interpretation. I give evidence that one common method of expressing quantificational notions in English is absent in Salish. While English readily allows quantifiers to occupy the syntactic position of the determiner (as in every woman, most women), Salish languages do not allow such constructions (see also Jelinek 1995). I propose that Salish and English exemplify opposite settings of a Common Ground Parameter, which states that Salish determiners may not access the common ground of the discourse. This parameter accounts not only for the absence of quantificational determiners in Salish (since quantifiers presuppose existence, and therefore access the common ground), it also derives several other differences between Salish and English determiners, such as the absence of a definiteness distinction in Salish. I further demonstrate that Salish possesses a robust system of DP-internal quantification, and that quantificational DPs in Salish function as generalized quantifiers at logical form. This means that the strong hypothesis that languages do not differ with respect to the presence or absence of generalized quantifiers is upheld (cf. Barwise and Cooper 1981). Simple DPs in Salish, unlike in English, do not function as generalized quantifiers. This result follows from the Common Ground Parameter. I give further evidence from St'at'imcets (Lillooet Salish) on the strong/weak quantifier distinction; I argue that the interpretation of weak quantifiers is derivable directly from the overt syntactic position of the quantifier. / Arts, Faculty of / Linguistics, Department of / Graduate