Mi’gmaq Research Updates

So far Mike has been working on how to represent the syntactic structure of Mi’gmaq, in particular, what arguments can be made for hierarchical structure by using diagnostics like scope, indefinites, weak cross-over, binding, ellipsis, etc… (See glossary of linguistics terms in side bar for definitions)

Yuliya has been working on obviation in Mi’gmaq (wikipedia definition of obviation here). There is an asymmetry in the way obviation is marked with respect to gender (animate/inanimate) and number. She is looking into whether there is in fact obviation in Mi’gmaq. Here is a paper from U of T that claims there is no obviation http://individual.utoronto.ca/nattaya/Nattaya_GP1.pdf. She is currently trying to find evidence for or against this in Mi’gmaq.

Gretchen is continuing her work on preverbs in Mi’gmaq. She has also been working on indefinite pronouns which she is presenting at the TOM 5 Semantics workshop.

I am working on cleaning up my section of negation that I did last semester for our field methods class.