Quantification in Gitksan

Bicevskis, Katie; Davis, Henry; Matthewson, Lisa

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-44330-0_6

Cited by 5 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 12 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Dependent marking is induced by a set of pre-predicative elements, including some aspectual operators, clausal coordinators, and negation; main clauses with no introductory element are also sometimes dependent. The two clause types are characterized by different patterns of pronominal inflection; see Rigsby (1986); Bicevskis, Davis & Matthewson (2017); Davis (2018) for summary and discussion.…”

Section: Gitksanmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Constituent focus in Gitksan is marked by A′-movement to sentence-initial position. Focused DPs, PPs and CPs can all undergo focus-fronting (Davis & Brown 2011;Bicevskis, Davis & Matthewson 2017). The fronting triggers morphological reflexes which also surface with other A′-dependencies, including relativization, wh-question formation, and cleft-formation.…”

Section: Focus In Gitksanmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Verum focus is verum, not focus: Cross-linguistic evidence

Gutzmann

Hartmann

Matthewson

2020

Glossa: A Journal of General Linguistics

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The accent pattern known as verum focus is commonly understood as an ordinary alternative focus on the truth of a proposition. This standard view, which we call the focus accent thesis (Fat), can be contrasted with the lexical operator thesis (Lot), according to which the accent pattern that looks like focus in languages like German or English is actually not an instance of focus marking, but realizes a lexical verum predicate, whose function is to relate the current proposition to a question under discussion. Although it is hard to distinguish between the Fat and the Lot on the basis of German or English, a broader cross-linguistic perspective seems to favor the Lot. Drawing from fieldwork on Tsimshianic (Gitksan) and Chadic (Bura, South Marghi), we first show that in none of these languages is verum realized in the same way that ordinary alternative focus is marked. This sheds initial doubt on the unity of verum and focus. Secondly, the Fat predicts that a language cannot have co-occuring verum and focus, if it does not allow multiple foci, and that a language should allow them to co-occur if it allows for multiple foci. Again, while it is hard to find counterexamples in German or English, some of the data from our cross-linguistic investigation favor the Lot.

show abstract

Section: Gitksanmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Focus In Gitksanmentioning

confidence: 99%

Verum focus is verum, not focus: Cross-linguistic evidence

Gutzmann

Hartmann

Matthewson

2020

Glossa: A Journal of General Linguistics

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…One reason I have adopted a lexical operator analysis of verum, rather than a focus-based one, is that in Gitksan (unlike in English or German), there is no similarity between how verum is marked and how focus is marked. Constituent focus is marked by A’-movement to sentence-initial position (Davis and Brown 2011, Bicevskis et al 2017), and predicate focus is either not marked at all, or optionally marked with the exhaustive focus element k 'am (Martin 2019). It therefore seems simpler to take the facts at face value: there is a preverbal element which appears only in verum contexts, and which has detectable discourse effects.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Verum in Gitksan

Matthewson

2021

Can. J. Linguist.

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This article provides an analysis of verum marking in the Tsimshianic language Gitksan. Original fieldwork data are provided to show that Gitksan verum is very similar in its distribution and discourse effects to English verum, but displays two interesting differences. First, Gitksan verum is not marked by focal stress, but by a dedicated particle (k'ap). Second, Gitksan verum does not require givenness of the core propositional material. I argue that when applied to a proposition p, k'ap is (a) disallowed discourse-initially or in answer to a wh-question; (b) felicitous when responding to a prior assertion or implication of ¬p; and (c) felicitous in other contexts only if there is prior controversy in the discourse about the truth of p. I show that the semantic contribution of the Gitksan verum particle can be captured by a discourse management analysis: verum(p) is licensed only when the speaker believes that some interlocutor is committed to ¬p.

show abstract

On Barwise and Cooper’s “Generalized Quantifiers and Natural Language”

Keenan

2022

Studies in Linguistics and Philosophy

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Quantification in Gitksan

Cited by 5 publications

References 12 publications

Verum focus is verum, not focus: Cross-linguistic evidence

Verum focus is verum, not focus: Cross-linguistic evidence

Verum in Gitksan

On Barwise and Cooper’s “Generalized Quantifiers and Natural Language”

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About