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  • Copulas are not just inflection:Evidence from Tłįchǫ Yatiì1
  • Nicholas Welch

1. Introduction

In Tłįchǫ Yatiì (Dene/Athapaskan; aka Dogrib), patterns of copula use appear to undermine Moro’s (1997:248–261) claim that copulas’ only function is to provide a site for the morphological realization of inflection. The aim of this note is to show that copulas in this language are obligatory with all nominal predicates, but occur with adjectival predicates only when either the subject has Φ-features requiring agreement or a marked tense/ aspect/mode (TAM) interpretation is intended. This asymmetry suggests that their obligatory occurrence with all nominal predicates must be motivated by other factors.

Moro’s contention that copulas are only markers of inflection is a very old claim, going back to Aristotle (Moro 1997: 249). Though the view that copulas are enablers of predication continues to be supported by many syntacticians today (e.g., among others, Bowers 1993, den Dikken 2006, Baker and Vinokurova 2012), Moro’s book demonstrates that there is strong evidence for his claim in the Indo-European languages. The existence of languages like Mandarin, in which verbs do not show inflection, but copulas are required with nominal predicates (Zhan and Sun 2013: 762), suggests that this view may not be universally correct, but rather, the content of copulas may be parametrized. The present note shows that there exists at least one language where both views of copulas are supported, but by different lexical categories. This result implies that parametrization of the role of copulas must apply to individual non-verbal categories.

2. Sources of Data

Most of the data given here were collected using standard contextual elicitation techniques (Matthewson 2004) between 2007 and 2014 from one male and three female [End Page 98] fluent speakers of Tłįchǫ Yatiì, ranging from 50 to 70 years old. Additional data in (1) are drawn from published sources.

3. Background

Tłįchǫ Yatiì is a Dene language spoken by approximately 2 000 people in the region between Great Slave and Great Bear Lakes, Northwest Territories. Like all Dene languages, it has a rich inflectional system. Verbs agree with both subject and object for person and number, and show inflection for aspect and mode: 2,3

  1. (1). Verb inflection in Tłįchǫ Yatiì

    1. a. Seghanįwa

      se-     gha-  nį-          wa

      1sg.obj  to    ipfv.2sg.sub give.plural.objects\ipfv

      ‘Give them to me.’                                                       (Ackroyd 1982: 62)

    2. b. Yatı yeghàįɂǫ.

      yatı    ye-   ghà-  į-      ɂǫ

      word   4.obj  to    pfv.3.sub  give.chunky.object\pfv

      ‘She gave him a word/warning.’    (Tłįchǫ Community Services Agency 2007)

    3. c. ghàts’ıı?à

      ghà-  ts’ıı-       ɂà

      to   opt.1pl.sub  give.chunky.object\opt

      ‘let us give (someone)’         (Tłįchǫ Community Services Agency 2007)

In Tłįchǫ Yatiì, copulas, or forms derived from them, occur in at least three contexts: the classic copular clause, where a nominal predicate is connected to its subject by a copula, adjectival predicates, where copulas are inserted to realize inflectional morphology, and tense/aspect/mode (TAM) marking, which may also be realized on an inserted copula.

4. Copular clauses

The first of the contexts in which copulas appear in this language is the copular clause, where two NPs are followed by a copular form, as in (2).4 Copulas are obligatory in such clauses: (2b) and (2d), which lack copulas, are ungrammatical. [End Page 99]

  1. (2). Copular clauses

    1. a. Eyı tįch’ aàdìi agįįt’e.

      eyı  tįch’ aàdìi    a-gįį-t’e

      dem  animal    caribou  thm-ipfv.3pl.sub-Cop1\ipfv

      ‘Those animals are caribou.’                                          (MLBW 2012)

    2. b. *Eyı tįch’ aàdìi

      eyı   tįch’ aàdìi   

      dem  animal    caribou

      (Intended: ‘Those animals are caribou.’)                        (MLBW 2012)

    3. c. (Goxį) ts’įįlį.

      goxį    ts’įį-lį

      1pl   hunter      ipfv.1pl.sub-Cop2\ipfv

      ‘We are hunters.’                                                             (LD 2011)

    4. d. *Goxį .

      goxį  

      1pl   hunter

      (Intended: ‘We are hunters.’)                                             (LD 2011)

On the surface, these copular clauses appear to have little to distinguish them from those in Indo-European languages. As in the latter, copulas in Tłįchǫ Yatiì bear agreement...

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