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Evidence for three distinct nominal classes in Plains Cree

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Abstract

I argue for three basic classes of nominals, based on the (non)-relation they encode; (i) alienable nouns, which have no inherent relation, but gain an underspecified ‘R’ relation when possessed (Higginbotham, Linguistic Inquiry, 14, 305–420, 1983); (ii) relational nouns, which have an inherent relation, defined as an ‘R’ relation restricted by the lexical meaning of the head noun (Barker, Possessive descriptions. CSLI: California, USA, 1995; Burton, Six issues to consider when choosing a husband. Doctoral Dissertation, Rutgers, New Brunswick, New Jersey, 1995); and (iii) inalienable nouns, which also have an inherent relation, defined as a material part-whole relation (Link, Algebraic semantics for linguistics and philosophy. CSLI: California, USA, 1998). I then consider evidence from the Algonquian language Plains Cree, which overtly distinguishes all three subclasses of nominals.

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Correspondence to Jeff Mühlbauer.

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Many thanks to Wally Awsis, Oladiipo Ajiboye, Solveiga Armoskaite, Beatrice Bullshields, Melinda Bullshields, Strang Burton, Toni Cardinal, Clare Cook, Rita Daniels, Henry Davis, Rose-Marie Déchaine, Joseph Deschamps, Roy Louis, Lisa Matthewson, Tom McCallum, Hotze Rullmann, Josephine Small,Dorothy Thunder, Martina Wiltschko, H.C. Wolfart and an anonymous reviewer for their insights and guidance. Thanks also to audiences at ACAL, the Algonquian Conference, theCLA, WSCLA, and UBC. This work has been supported by the Phillips Fund, the Jacobs Fund, The University of British Columbia Graduate Fellowship, and SSHRC grant #492-17-0016 (A.-M. DiSciullo P.I., R.-M. Déchaine C.I.). While not all ideas are my own, all mistakes definitely are.

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Mühlbauer, J. Evidence for three distinct nominal classes in Plains Cree. Nat Lang Semantics 15, 167–186 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11050-007-9016-9

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