Northwest passage: Northern Athabaskan copulas and auxiliaries

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dc.contributor.authorWelch, Nicholas
dc.contributor.supervisorSaxon, Leslie
dc.date.accessioned2008-08-11T16:11:30Z
dc.date.available2008-08-11T16:11:30Z
dc.date.copyright2008en_US
dc.date.issued2008-08-11T16:11:30Z
dc.degree.departmentDept. of Linguisticsen_US
dc.degree.levelMaster of Arts M.A.en_US
dc.description.abstractIn the Northern Athabaskan languages Tlicho Yatiì, Dene and Dene Dzage, copulas and auxiliary verbs are based on reflexes of two Proto-Athabaskan roots, *-LII and *-T’E’. I propose that in the first two languages, copulas with nominal complements show distributional differences that derive from a stage-/individual-level predicate distinction, and that historically, this distinction in the proto-language motivated the development of auxiliaries marking tense/aspect/mode distinctions solely from the copulas based on *-LII. Further, I propose that subsequent to this development, the original stage-/individual-level predicate distinction between the copulas disappeared in Dene Dzage, leaving the TAM markers as evidence of its historical existence. I provide support for these contentions with data from fieldwork in Tlicho Yatiì and from textual sources in all three languages, grounding the work in current theories of syntax and of temporal grammar.en_US
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/1828/1056
dc.languageEnglisheng
dc.language.isoenen_US
dc.rightsAvailable to the World Wide Weben_US
dc.subjectAthabaskanen_US
dc.subjectDeneen_US
dc.subjectCopulasen_US
dc.subjectAuxiliariesen_US
dc.subjectSyntaxen_US
dc.subjectSemanticsen_US
dc.subjectHistorical linguisticsen_US
dc.subjectPredicatesen_US
dc.subjectTenseen_US
dc.subjectAspecten_US
dc.subjectIndividual-levelen_US
dc.subjectStage-levelen_US
dc.subjectTlicho Yatiien_US
dc.subjectDene Dzageen_US
dc.subjectDogriben_US
dc.subjectSlaveen_US
dc.subjectKaskaen_US
dc.subject.lcshUVic Subject Index::Humanities and Social Sciences::Language::Linguisticsen_US
dc.titleNorthwest passage: Northern Athabaskan copulas and auxiliariesen_US
dc.typeThesisen_US

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