LSA.227 | The Syntax of Algonquian Languages

Benjamin Bruening
MW 8:15-9:55

The Algonquian language family, spoken across a broad swath of North America, includes languages of the morphologically polysynthetic and syntactically nonconfigurational type. This course will examine various syntactic phenomena of the Algonquian family that bear on current syntactic theory and conceptions of the syntax-semantics and syntax-morphology interfaces. These phenomena include: successive-cyclic wh-agreement and wh-scope marking; the direct-inverse voice system and the notion of a "person hierarchy"; nonconfigurational properties; a blurring of the lines between "lexical" phenomena and syntactic phenomena (what is a "word"?); long-distance agreement ("raising to object"); the syntax of verbal words, including verbal reciprocals; verb-coded coordination; and strategies for quantification.

Prerequisite: A basic understanding of contemporary syntactic theory.