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Copulas are not just inflection: Evidence from Tłı̨chǫ Yatıì1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 March 2016

Nicholas Welch
Nicholas Welch*
Affiliation:
University of Toronto
*
nicholas.welch@utoronto.ca
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Type
Squib/Notule
Information
Canadian Journal of Linguistics/Revue canadienne de linguistique , Volume 61 , Issue 1 , March 2016 , pp. 98 - 106
Copyright
© Canadian Linguistic Association/Association canadienne de linguistique 2016 

1. Introduction

In Tłı̨chǫ Yatıì (Dene/Athapaskan; aka Dogrib), patterns of copula use appear to undermine Moro's (Reference Moro1997: 248–261) claim that copulas’ only function is to provide a site for the morphological realization of inflection. The aim of this note is to show that copulas in this language are obligatory with all nominal predicates, but occur with adjectival predicates only when either the subject has Φ-features requiring agreement or a marked tense/aspect/mode (TAM) interpretation is intended. This asymmetry suggests that their obligatory occurrence with all nominal predicates must be motivated by other factors.

Moro's contention that copulas are only markers of inflection is a very old claim, going back to Aristotle (Moro Reference Moro1997: 249). Though the view that copulas are enablers of predication continues to be supported by many syntacticians today (e.g., among others, Bowers Reference Bowers1993, den Dikken Reference den Dikken2006, Baker and Vinokurova Reference Baker and Vinokurova2012), Moro's book demonstrates that there is strong evidence for his claim in the Indo-European languages. The existence of languages like Mandarin, in which verbs do not show inflection, but copulas are required with nominal predicates (Zhan and Sun Reference Zhan and Sun2013: 762), suggests that this view may not be universally correct, but rather, the content of copulas may be parametrized. The present note shows that there exists at least one language where both views of copulas are supported, but by different lexical categories. This result implies that parametrization of the role of copulas must apply to individual non-verbal categories.

2. Sources of data

Most of the data given here were collected using standard contextual elicitation techniques (Matthewson Reference Matthewson2004) between 2007 and 2014 from one male and three female fluent speakers of Tłı̨chǫ Yatıì, ranging from 50 to 70 years old. Additional data in (1) are drawn from published sources.

3. Background

Tłı̨chǫ Yatıì is a Dene language spoken by approximately 2 000 people in the region between Great Slave and Great Bear Lakes, Northwest Territories. Like all Dene languages, it has a rich inflectional system. Verbs agree with both subject and object for person and number, and show inflection for aspect and mode:Footnote 2, Footnote 3

  1. (1) Verb inflection in Tłı̨chǫ Yatıì

    1. a. Seghanı̨wa

      se- gha- nı̨- wa

      1sg.obj to ipfv.2sg.sub give.plural.objects\ipfv

      ‘Give them to me.’  (Ackroyd Reference Ackroyd1982: 62)

    2. b. Yatı yeghàı̨ɂǫ.

      yatı ye- ghà- ı̨- ɂǫ

      word 4.obj to pfv.3.sub give.chunky.object\pfv

      ‘She gave him a word/warning.’ (Tłı̨chǫ Community Services Agency 2007)

    3. c. ghàts’ııɂà

      ghà- ts’ıı- ɂà

      to opt.1pl.sub give.chunky.object\opt

      ‘let us give (someone)’ (Tłı̨chǫ Community Services Agency 2007)

In Tłı̨chǫ Yatıì, copulas, or forms derived from them, occur in at least three contexts: the classic copular clause, where a nominal predicate is connected to its subject by a copula, adjectival predicates, where copulas are inserted to realize inflectional morphology, and tense/aspect/mode (TAM) marking, which may also be realized on an inserted copula.

4. Copular clauses

The first of the contexts in which copulas appear in this language is the copular clause, where two NPs are followed by a copular form, as in (2).Footnote 4 Copulas are obligatory in such clauses: (2b) and (2d), which lack copulas, are ungrammatical.

  1. (2) Copular clauses

    1. a. Eyı tı̨ch'aàdı̀ı ekwǫ̀ agı̨ı̨t'e.

      eyı tı̨ch'aàdı̀ı ekwǫ̀ a-gı̨ı̨-t'e

      dem animal caribou thm-ipfv.3pl.sub-Cop1\ipfv

      ‘Those animals are caribou.’ (MLBW 2012)

    2. b. *Eyı tı̨ch'aàdı̀ı ekwǫ̀.

      eyı tı̨ch'aàdı̀ı ekwǫ̀

      dem animal caribou

      (Intended: ‘Those animals are caribou.’) (MLBW 2012)

    3. c. (Goxı̨) nàzèe-dǫǫ̀ ts’ı̨ı̨lı̨.

      goxı̨ nàzèe-dǫǫ̀ ts’ı̨ı̨-lı̨

      1pl hunter ipfv.1pl.sub-Cop2\ipfv

      ‘We are hunters.’  (LD 2011)

    4. d. *Goxı̨ nàzèe-dǫǫ̀.

      goxı̨ nàzèe-dǫǫ̀

      1pl hunter

      (Intended: ‘We are hunters.’) (LD 2011)

On the surface, these copular clauses appear to have little to distinguish them from those in Indo-European languages. As in the latter, copulas in Tłı̨chǫ Yatıì bear agreement and TAM inflection, while the nouns that are being predicated in these clauses do not. It would be tempting to conclude that copulas’ only role in these sentences is to host inflection. Nevertheless, comparing Tłı̨chǫ Yatıì copular clauses to adjectival predication reveals asymmetries that point to a different role for copulas.

5. Adjectival predicates and agreement

The second context in which copulas appear is adjectival predicates, where Copula 1 must appear when adjectives (a class of inflectionless verb-like predicates)Footnote 5 are predicated of animate subjects (3). Adjectives predicated of inanimate subjects must appear without a copula (4):

  1. (3) Adjectival predicates of animate subjects

    1. a. Madlę̀ edı elı̨.

      Madlę̀ edı Ø-lı̨

      Madeleine hot ipfv.3.sub-Cop2\ipfv

      ‘Madeleine is feverish.’ (MLBW 2009)

    2. b. *Madlę̀ edı

      Madlę̀ edı

      Madeleine hot

      (Intended: ‘Madeleine is feverish.’) (MLBW 2009)

    3. c. Tłı̨ hazǫǫ̀ eya gı̨ı̨lı̨.

      tłı̨ hazǫǫ̀ eya gı̨ı̨-lı̨

      dog all sick ıpfv.3pl.sub-Cop2\ıpfv

      ‘All the dogs are sick.’ (MLBW 2012)

    4. d. *Tłı̨ hazǫǫ̀ eya.

      tłı̨ hazǫǫ̀ eya

      dog all sick

      (Intended: ‘All the dogs are sick.’) (MLBW 2012)

  2. (4) Adjectival predicates of inanimate subjects

    1. a. *Dıı dzęę̀ edı elı̨.

      dıı dzęę̀ edı Ø-lı̨

      today hot ipfv.3.sub-Cop2\ipfv

      (Intended: ‘Today is hot.’) (MLBW 2012)

    2. b. Dıı dzęę̀ edı.

      dıı dzęę̀ edı

      today hot

      ‘Today is hot.’ (MS 2007)

    3. c. *Selakw'ǫǫ̀ hazǫǫ̀ eya gı̨ı̨lı̨.

      se-lakw'ǫǫ̀ hazǫǫ̀ eya gı̨ı̨-lı̨

      1sg-finger all sickıpfv.3pl.sub-Cop1\ıpfv

      (Intended: ‘All my fingers are sore.’) (MLBW 2009)

    4. d. Selakw'ǫǫ̀ hazǫǫ̀ eya.

      se-lakw'ǫǫ̀ hazǫǫ̀ eya

      1sg-fınger all sick

      ‘All my fingers are sore.’ (MLBW 2009)

As I argue elsewhere (Welch Reference Welch2016), adjectival predicates are a context where Moro's (Reference Moro1997) claim about copulas appears to be true of Tłı̨chǫ Yatıì. Copulas are inserted in order to realize morphology agreeing with features (Person and Number) on animate nouns. Inanimate nouns in this language lack Φ-features and do not trigger such agreement.

6. Tense/Aspect/Mode (TAM) inflection

It is not only the need to realize Φ-features that can motivate the appearance of copulas with adjectival predicates, however. Copulas also appear if there is a need to show TAM inflectional features. Adjectives, unlike verbs, are not inflected for TAM features in this language, and if an explicitly non-present, non-imperfective or non-indicative reading of an adjectival predicate is desired, a copular form is inserted:Footnote 6

  1. (5) Copulas as TAM realization

    1. a. Dzęę̀ edı.

      dzęę̀ edı

      day hot

      ‘The day is/was hot.’ (MLBW 2012)

    2. b. Dzęę̀ edı ı̨lè.

      dzęę̀ edı ı̨-lè

      day hot pfv.3.sub-Cop1\pfv

      ‘The day was hot.’ (MLBW 2012)

    3. c. Dzęę̀ edı welı̀.

      dzęę̀ edı we-lı̀

      day hot opt.3.sub-Cop1\opt

      ‘The day might be hot.’ (MLBW 2012)

Thus, copulas appear with adjectival predicates in two distinct contexts, in each of which the copula appears to be inserted solely to host inflectional features, whether agreement, as argued in section 5, or temporal/modal, as here.Footnote 7

7. Discussion

The critical contrast is between the patterns of copula distribution with nominal and adjectival predicates. As (4) and (5) demonstrate, bare adjectives may be predicates of inanimate arguments. As predicates of animate arguments (3), however, they require a copula in order to agree. This is not the case with nominal predicates, which are ungrammatical in the absence of a copula, whether or not the subject is inanimate (2). Further examples demonstrating this fact appear in (6). Either copula may introduce the predicate noun nàzèe-dǫǫ̀ ‘hunter’ (6a,b). Copula 2 may introduce the predicate ts’ı ‘spruce’ (6c).Footnote 8 Neither of these predicates may appear without a copula (6d,e).

  1. (6) Nominal predicates and obligatory copulas.

    1. a. Mıshè eyıts'ǫ Sızè nàzèe-dǫǫ̀ gı̨ı̨lı̨̨.

      Mıshè eyıts'ǫ Sızè nàzèe-dǫǫ̀ gı̨ı̨-lı̨

      Michel and Joseph hunter ipfv.3pl.sub-Cop2\ipfv

      ‘Michel and Joseph are hunters.’  (AW 2012)

    2. b. Mıshè eyıts'ǫ Sızè nàzèe-dǫǫ̀ agı̨ı̨t'e.

      Mıshè eyıts'ǫ Sızè nàzèe-dǫǫ̀ a-gı̨ı̨-t'e

      Michel and Joseph hunter thm-ipfv.3pl.sub-Cop1\ipfv

      ‘Michel and Joseph are hunters.’  (AW 2012)

    3. c. Dıı detsı̨ ts’ı hǫt'e.

      dıı detsı̨ ts’ı ha-ı̨-t'e

      dem tree spruce thm-ipfv.3.sub-Cop1\ipfv

      ‘This tree is a spruce.’ (AW 2012)

    4. d. *Mıshè eyıts'ǫ Sızè nàzèe-dǫǫ̀.

      Mıshè eyıts'ǫ Sızè nàzèe-dǫǫ̀

      Michel and Joseph hunter

      (Intended: ‘Michel and Joseph are hunters.’) (AW 2012)

    5. e. *Dıı detsı̨ ts’ı.

      dıı detsı̨ ts’ı

      dem tree spruce

      (Intended: ‘This tree is a spruce.’) (AW 2012)

The facts are summarized in Table 1; a check mark (✓) indicates that a copula is required, and ✗ indicates that it is barred:

Table 1:

Distribution of copulas

These facts are explained if copulas are inserted to spell out either the predicative relation or inflectional features. Wilhelm (Reference Wilhelm2014) argues that in Denësųłıné (aka Chipewyan), a close relative of Tłı̨chǫ Yatıì, nouns are inherently argumental; if true, this means that additional structure, a Pred head in the tradition of Bowers (Reference Bowers1993), is required in order for them to be predicates.Footnote 9 I assume that this additional structure is a copula, spelling out Pred, taking a type <e> argument and returning a type <e,t> predicate.

I suggest that copulas, which, as seen in (2)–(6), bear the same inflections as other verbs, are inserted to spell out either Pred or Φ- or TAM-features.

Before copula insertion, then, nouns are purely argumental (<e>), adjectives are simple predicates (<e,t>), and verbs are more complex predicates (of various semantic types). Adjectives would require no further structure to realize a predicational relation with an inanimate subject (7a); however, an animate subject, bearing Φ-features, would result in a copula being inserted at Infl (7b), as would marked TAM features (7c).Footnote 10

  1. (7) Structures of adjectival predication

Nouns, being argumental, would always require a copula, whose insertion as Pred would incidentally also realize any agreement and TAM features (8a). Verbs, being both predicational and inflected, would require no copula insertion (8b).

  1. (8) Nominal and verbal predication

8. Conclusion

If the sole role of the copulas were to host agreement or other inflectional features, they would not be required with nominal predicates of inanimate subjects. This is apparent because copulas are not inserted with adjectival predicates except to host morphology: either agreement with the features of animate nominal subjects, or TAM categories, adjectives themselves lacking inflection entirely. I conclude that the role of copulas in nominal predicates in Tłı̨chǫ Yatıì is not simply to host inflection, but also to mark a predicational relation.

There are further implications to the claim that copulas may realize either predication or inflection within the same language. I have suggested that the type-shifting Pred head instantiated by copulas is required to form predicates from inherently non-predicational categories, which in Tłı̨chǫ Yatıı includes only nouns.Footnote 11 The same may be true of Mandarin, where many adjectives can be predicated directly (9a), while nouns always require a copula (9b, c).

  1. (9) Mandarin non-verbal predication

    1. a. 我姐姐很聪明。

      wǒ  jiějiě  hén cōngmíng

      1sg older.sister very intelligent

      ‘My older sister is very intelligent.’

    2. b. 我妹妹是警察。

      wǒ  jiějiě  shì  jǐngchá

      1sg older.sister cop police

      ‘My older sister is a police officer.’

    3. c. *我妹妹警察。

      wǒ jiějiě jǐngchá

      1sg older.sister police

      (Intended: ‘My older sister is a police officer.’) (H.Y. Liu, pc, 2014)

The appearance of copulas therefore appears to have at least two possible motivations: the overt realization of inflectional features, and the marking of predication. I have shown that Tłı̨chǫ Yatıì provides examples of both of these motivations within the same language. This finding suggests that the function of copulas may be more complex than has been supposed, and may vary from language to language, just as it apparently does between lexical categories within a single language.

The question of what is meant by lexical categories is directly affected by the question of copular function. Baker (Reference Baker2003) considers that only verbs are an inherently predicational category; Vinokurova (Reference Vinokurova2005) claims that adjectives also are predicational. Since Chomsky's (Reference Chomsky, Jacobs and Rosenbaum1970) characterization of them as [+N, +V], adjectives have been recognized as an intermediate lexical category; it is also well known that in some languages they pattern more like verbs (as in the Tłı̨chǫ Yatıı and Mandarin examples we have seen here) and in others more like nouns (as is common in Indo-European languages).Footnote 12 In the typological literature on copulas, Pustet (Reference Pustet2003) observes that verbs, followed by adjectives and finally nouns, are the category most likely to be acceptable as bare predicates across languages. If adjectives are always of type <e,t>, we would expect that in all languages, copulas should only appear with adjectival predicates in order to realize inflectional categories, and hence, languages without inflection for TAM categories or agreement should universally allow adjectival predicates without copulas. Whether this is borne out by cross-linguistic facts must await further investigation.

Footnotes

1

I am very grateful to Marie-Louise Bouvier White, Lena Drygeese, Mary Siemens, and Archie Wedzin for sharing their language with me, and to Susana Béjar, Bronwyn Bjorkman, Arsalan Kahnemuyipour, Leslie Saxon, Andrea Wilhelm, and two anonymous reviewers for discussion, feedback and suggestions on the issues addressed in this paper. The research was supported by the University of Toronto and SSHRC postdoctoral grant #756-2014-0300.

2 Examples are glossed according to the Leipzig Glossing Rules (http://www.eva.mpg.de/lingua/resources/glossing-rules.php).  Examples from my fieldwork are credited by the consultants’ initials: AW = Archie Wedzin, LD = Lena Drygeese, MLBW = Marie-Louise Bouvier White, MS = Mary Siemens. Examples from Mandarin were provided by H.Y. Liu.

3 The following abbreviations appear in glosses: 1sg, 1pl = first-person singular, plural etc., cop = copula, dem = demonstrative, ipfv = imperfective, obj = object, opt = optative, pfv = perfective, sub = subject. Thematic affixes (thm-) are part of a verb's lexical entry but, like the particles of English phrasal verbs, are discontinuous with the stems of the verbs with which they appear.

4 Tłı̨chǫ Yatıì has two copulas, whose distribution very roughly corresponds to the distinction between individual-level (Copula 1) and stage-level (Copula 2) predicates (Carlson Reference Carlson1977, Kratzer Reference Kratzer, Carlson and Pelletier1995). I analysed this distributional distinction (Welch Reference Welch2012) as a difference in argument  structure. Only Copula 2 appears with adjectival predicates.

5 This definition of adjectives is drawn from Rice's (Reference Rice1989) grammar of Slave, a closely related language.

6 Įlè is a marker of anteriority; welì is a modal marker of potentiality/possibility. Both can also appear with verbal predicates. Further information on these particles appears in Welch (Reference Welch2015a, Reference Welch2015b).

7 This situation recalls that of such better documented languages as Russian, where overt copulas occur only in non-present tenses.

8 Both copulas are grammatical if the subject is animate; Copula 1 is infelicitous with an inanimate subject, as it results in a stage-level predicate reading where the tree is only temporarily a spruce, a phenomenon which is not germane to the current argument. Bare nominal predicates are always ungrammatical.

9 Wilhelm suggests that copulas in Dënesųłıné are semantic type-shifters that create predicates (type <e,t> from nouns, which she claims are argumental (type <e>) in this language. The facts herein suggest that her analysis also applies to Tłı̨chǫ Yatıì.

10 There is independent evidence in this language for heads that introduce additional argument structure (v or Voice), and for Asp and Mod heads separate from T; however, as these heads are not critical to the thesis of this note, I abstract away from them here.

11 In fact, adpositions (in general) appear to be inherently non-predicational as well in Tłı̨chǫ Yatıì and Dëne Sųłıné (Wilhelm Reference Wilhelm2014).

12 Within the Dene language family, Slave (Rice Reference Rice1989), Dënesųłıné (Josh Holden, pc, 2014) and Navajo (Young, Morgan and Midgette Reference Young, Morgan and Midgette1992) appear to pattern with Tłı̨chǫ Yatıì with respect to adjectival predication.

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Figure 0

Table 1: Distribution of copulas