Browsing by Author "Bliss, Heather"

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    Formalizing point-of-view: the role of sentience in Blackfoot's direct/inverse system
    (2005) Bliss, Heather; Ritter, D. Elizabeth
    Obviation and direct/inverse in the Algonquian languages are typically assumed to work together as a single concerted system, both marking the same type of discourse prominence. This thesis challenges this assumption through an investigation of the direct/inverse system of Blackfoot, a Plains Algonquian language spoken in Southern Alberta and Northwestern Montana. I argue that sentience, or real-world animacy, is the determinant factor in Blackfoot's direct/inverse, and that obviation is tangential to this system. The fundamental role of sentience in Blackfoot's direct/inverse is explored from both a syntactic and a pragmatic perspective. A syntactic treatment is proposed in which a feature [Sentient] is checked in a functional projection that determines direct and inverse marking. With respect to its pragmatic content, I argue that this functional projection is a Point-of-View Phrase, and that direct/inverse m Blackfoot grammaticalizes the pragmatic notion of point-of-view.
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    Resolving hierarchy conflict: local obviation in Blackfoot*
    (University of Calgary, 2005-05) Bliss, Heather; Jesney, Karen
    Algonquian languages, including Blackfoot, are renowned for their failure to directly follow the Universal Animacy Hierarchy, which privileges first person over second person. In at least certain aspects of the Blackfoot grammar, it is typically assumed that second person is privileged over first. Even more surprising is that this apparent [2>1] hierarchy is not the sole one operative within this language. Rather, elsewhere within the grammar, the Universal Animacy Hierarchy appears to be obeyed, with the first person being privileged over the second. In this paper we argue that this apparent hierarchy conflict in Blackfoot can be resolved by reconsidering the nature of person marking and the role of obviation in the verbal complex. Specifically, we propose extensions to Harley and Ritter’s (2002) morphosyntactic feature geometry to include obviation. This is represented within a Stage node which, along with Participant, is a dependent of Sentience. Further to this, we argue that Proximate and Obviative features are not limited to non-local referents as is typically assumed. Rather, local persons can also express obviation contrasts. We treat the Blackfoot person prefixes as exemplifying precisely such specification, in contrast with previous proposals which identify them as first and second persons. Recognizing these prefixes as participating in the obviation system provides insight into seemingly problematic phenomena within Blackfoot’s verbal morphology. Crucially, our account facilitates a resolution of the apparent hierarchy conflicts present in other analyses and reaffirms the centrality of the Universal Animacy Hierarchy in Blackfoot.
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    The semantics of the bare noun in Turkish*
    (University of Calgary, 2004-05) Bliss, Heather
    The goal of this paper is to investigate the semantic properties of the bare noun in Turkish. In this paper, the term bare noun refers to a noun phrase that consists only of a noun, without any modifying elements such as determiners, number marking, or case marking. The main argument of this thesis is that the bare noun is unique as compared to all other types of noun phrases in Turkish. As the following sections will illustrate, it is the only NP that is not specified for number, and it is the only NP that is obligatorily non-specific. I hypothesize that the fundamental difference between the bare noun and other NP types is that the maximal projection of the bare noun is a predicate, which is NP, whereas the maximal projection of other phrases is DP (Determiner Phrase).