The goal of this thesis is to present an analysis of verbal plurality and adverbial quantification in Skwxwu7mesh (Squamish Salish). This thesis provides a detailed analysis of a phenomenon in Skwxwu7mesh that has never been explored: the effect of the auxiliary wa on predicates from various aspectual classes in both non-quantified and quantified sentences, wa has been described as a morpheme referring to a process that has duration either in the form of a single act or the regular performance of it (Kuipers 1967). Two central questions will be addressed in this thesis. Firstly, what is the function of the auxiliary wa in Skwxwu7mesh?. In other words, why is wa obligatorily present for certain interpretations of predicates and obligatorily absent for others; furthermore, what does wa do to a predicate to yield the various readings? Secondly, why is wa obligatory with adverbs of quantification? To answer these questions, this thesis proposes that wa is a pluractional marker that pluralizes the head of a predicate's event structure or the event type denoted by the predicate. Assuming Pustejovsky's (1991, 1995) event structure model representing the distinction between three primitive event types (states, processes, transitions), four aspectual classes are analyzed (activities , accomplishments , achievements and states) in both English and Skwxwu7mesh. This thesis argues that Skwxwu7mesh provides crucial evidence that all bare predicates (that is, predicates without wa) are telic, with the exception of individual-level predicates, wa causes a predicate to be atelic via pluralization; this atelicity is marked by continuous and/or habitual readings for the predicates of the various classes. As a consequence of these claims, this analysis suggests that activities and stage-level states are not primitives universally. This thesis argues that Kratzer's (1995) analysis of adverbs of quantification as unselective binders cannot account for Skwxwu7mesh; thus, adopting De Swart's (1993, 1995) event based approach to analyzing adverbial quantification, this thesis claims that Skwxwu7mesh provides crucial evidence that Q-adverbs quantify over events only. The evidence derives from the fact that the pluractional marker wa is obligatory with both stage-level stative predicates and individual-level predicates when they combine with a Q-adverb. The analysis presented in this thesis claims that wa is the source of the plurality of events over which a Q-adverb quantifies.

The goal of this thesis is to present an analysis of verbal plurality and adverbial quantification in Skwxwu7mesh (Squamish Salish). This thesis provides a detailed analysis of a phenomenon in Skwxwu7mesh that has never been explored: the effect of the auxiliary wa on predicates from various aspectual classes in both non-quantified and quantified sentences, wa has been described as a morpheme referring to a process that has duration either in the form of a single act or the regular performance of it (Kuipers 1967). Two central questions will be addressed in this thesis. Firstly, what is the function of the auxiliary wa in Skwxwu7mesh?. In other words, why is wa obligatorily present for certain interpretations of predicates and obligatorily absent for others; furthermore, what does wa do to a predicate to yield the various readings? Secondly, why is wa obligatory with adverbs of quantification? To answer these questions, this thesis proposes that wa is a pluractional marker that pluralizes the head of a predicate's event structure or the event type denoted by the predicate. Assuming Pustejovsky's (1991, 1995) event structure model representing the distinction between three primitive event types (states, processes, transitions), four aspectual classes are analyzed (activities , accomplishments , achievements and states) in both English and Skwxwu7mesh. This thesis argues that Skwxwu7mesh provides crucial evidence that all bare predicates (that is, predicates without wa) are telic, with the exception of individual-level predicates, wa causes a predicate to be atelic via pluralization; this atelicity is marked by continuous and/or habitual readings for the predicates of the various classes. As a consequence of these claims, this analysis suggests that activities and stage-level states are not primitives universally. This thesis argues that Kratzer's (1995) analysis of adverbs of quantification as unselective binders cannot account for Skwxwu7mesh; thus, adopting De Swart's (1993, 1995) event based approach to analyzing adverbial quantification, this thesis claims that Skwxwu7mesh provides crucial evidence that Q-adverbs quantify over events only. The evidence derives from the fact that the pluractional marker wa is obligatory with both stage-level stative predicates and individual-level predicates when they combine with a Q-adverb. The analysis presented in this thesis claims that wa is the source of the plurality of events over which a Q-adverb quantifies. / Arts, Faculty of / Linguistics, Department of / Graduate

The classification of predicates according to their aspectual properties has a long history, dating back to Aristotle. Perhaps the most influential classification can be attributed to Vendler (1967). The time schemata to distinguish his four classes relies on a combination of entailment patterns and behaviours of "verbs" in different structures. Since Vendler, many researchers have revisited this classification, differing on both the proposed number of classes as well as the ways in which they are derived. Although they use different diagnostics to motivate their systems, what these approaches seem to share in common is the claim that aspectual classes are universal. This thesis addresses this claim and proposes that based on data from Skwxwu7mesh (a.k.a. Squamish), the representations of predicates vary crosslinguistically. I argue for a classification based on the presence/absence of intrinsic initial and final points in predicate representations. Chapters Two and Three are concerned with final points and initial points, respectively. I present four diagnostics which I argue test for the presence of final points and two diagnostics that test for the presence of initial points. Based on the results of these tests, I propose a modification of Rothstein's (2004) predicate templates (that in turn are a modification of Dowty's 1979 templates) to account for the classification of Skwxwu7mesh predicate classes that emerges. Chapters Four and Five are concerned with perfectivity and imperfectivity, respectively. In these chapters, I motivate the claim that Skwxwu7mesh has both a progressive marker and an imperfective marker. I propose that adopting Dowty's (1979) analysis of the progressive and Kratzer's (1998) analysis of the imperfective, along with the predicate representations introduced in chapters two and three, can derive the readings of progressive and imperfective predicates in Skwxwu7mesh. Based on a small study involving 10 native speakers of English who are not linguists, in Chapter Six I briefly revisit English aspectual classes. Using the results of some of the diagnostics from chapters two and three, I show the contrast between English and Skwxwu7mesh predicate representations, highlighting the claim that aspectual classes do indeed vary cross-linguistically. / Arts, Faculty of / Linguistics, Department of / Graduate