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Syntax-Semantics Seminar: Iara Mantenuro & Brice Roberts, UCLA “Classifiers as nP heads in San Sebastián del Monte Mixtec”

May 25, 2018 @ 2:00 pm - 4:00 pm
Campbell Hall 2122,

Abstract:

In Mixtec, nominal classifiers can occur both in compound-like constructions and in nominal
constructions with adjectives.

(1) tí-ñòñò
CFR:3animal-honey ‘bee’

(2) ti-lo’ò
CFR:3sphere-small.SG ‘small one’

We claim that in both cases the classifier is the head of the noun phrase. However, while in
constructions with nominalized adjectives the classifier has referential properties (similar to
those of English one), in the compound the referential property is not available.
This paper offers a possible morphosyntactic account in the Distributed Morphology (DM)
framework for the different occurrences of classifiers in Mixtec. Adapting an analysis offered for
English compounds (Harley, 2009) we propose that in all instances of classifiers we are dealing
with heads of nominal nP projections, but that in compounds the non-head noun incorporates

Details

Date:
May 25, 2018
Time:
2:00 pm - 4:00 pm
Event Category:

Venue

Campbell Hall 2122