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Person complementarity and (pseudo) Person Case Constraint effects: Evidence from Inuktitut

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 September 2019

Richard Compton
Richard Compton*
Affiliation:
Université du Québec à Montréal
*
compton.richard@uqam.ca
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Abstract

This paper examines the nature of person complementarity in Eastern Canadian Inuktitut (Eskimo-Aleut), arguing that despite its apparent patterning as a Person Case Constraint (PCC) effect, it is not due to the presence of a defective intervener blocking person agreement with a lower argument, as is often the case in other languages. Instead, the observed effect is caused by a defective or missing person probe on C that cannot value local person features on absolutive arguments. Given the use of the PCC as a diagnostic for differentiating clitics and agreement, this result has implications for the proper identification of φ-marking in Inuktitut.

Résumé

Cet article examine la nature de la complémentarité de personne en inuktitut de l'est du Canada, en faisant valoir que, malgré l'apparente configuration d'un effet de la contrainte personne-cas (PCC), ceci n'est pas dû à la présence d'un intervenant défectueux qui bloquerait l'accord pour la personne avec un argument inférieur, comme il arrive souvent dans d'autres langues. L'effet observé est plutôt causé par une sonde de personne défectueuse ou manquante sur C qui ne peut pas évaluer les traits de personne locale sur les arguments absolutifs. Étant donné l'usage de la PCC comme outil diagnostique pour différencier les clitiques de l'accord, ce résultat a des conséquences pour l'identification correcte des marqueurs-φ en inuktitut.

Keywords

person complementarityperson case constraintPCCφ-featurescliticsagreementcomplémentarité de personnecontrainte personne-casPCCtraits-φclitiquesaccord
Type
Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Linguistics/Revue canadienne de linguistique , Volume 64 , Issue 4 , December 2019 , pp. 592 - 616
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Linguistic Association/Association canadienne de linguistique 2019 

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Footnotes

Thank you to Raigelee Alorut and the late Saila Michael for sharing their language with me, as well as an anonymous speaker. This paper has benefited from questions, comments, and suggestions from three anonymous reviewers, from the guest editors of this volume, and from audiences at MoMOT 2 at UQAM and the Manitoba Person Workshop at the University of Winnipeg. This research was supported by the Fonds de recherche du Québec – Société et culture (FRQSC), grant number 2017-NP-196992.

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