Maliseet VP-ellipsis and the syntax of polysynthesis
Norvin Richards
April 2008 

I argue that Maliseet, an endangered Algonquian language spoken in New Brunswick and Maine, has a process of VP-ellipsis (and, for some speakers, a separate process of VP-pronominalization). The result is of interest, since Maliseet is polysynthetic, and hence of a type which has sometimes been argued to lack VPs entirely, or to have VPs which contain none of the arguments of the clause. We will see that in fact Maliseet VPs are entirely ordinary, containing the direct object (though not the subject), certain adverbs, and the stem of the verb. VP-ellipsis and VP-pronominalization impose requirements on the complex agreement system of the language, which in turn illuminate more general syntactic conditions on these processes.

Format:	[ pdf ]
Reference:	lingbuzz/000643 (please use that when you cite this article, unless you want to cite the full url: http://ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/000643)
Published in:	a version of this paper will appear in the Proceedings of NELS 38
keywords:	polysynthesis, algonquian, vp-ellipsis, vp-pronominalization, null complement anaphora, maliseet, passamaquoddy, configurationality, agreement, syntax
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