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
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UBC/oai:circle.library.ubc.ca:2429/8115 |
| Date | 11 1900 |
| Creators | Bar-El, Leora Anne |
| Source Sets | University of British Columbia |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, Thesis/Dissertation |
| Format | 3920431 bytes, application/pdf |
| Rights | For non-commercial purposes only, such as research, private study and education. Additional conditions apply, see Terms of Use https://open.library.ubc.ca/terms_of_use. |
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