I investigate the interaction of Ā-movement, long-distance agreement (LDA), and clause type in Passamaquoddy (Eastern Algonquian) as a lens into the structure of the left periphery. I observe that we must distinguish three LDA patterns in the language: (i) LDA into complements of verbs like ’kocicihtun ‘know’ (“epistemic complements”), which is generally free (i.e. not A-local), but is restricted to the wh-DP under long-distance wh-movement; (ii) LDA into direct perception complements, which is always free, even when long-distance wh-moving a DP; and (iii) LDA into complements of verbs like ’pawatomon ‘want’ (“subordinative complements”, featuring verbs inflected in the subordinative verbal paradigm), which is always subject to A-locality, even when long-distance wh-moving a DP. I propose that these three patterns arise from independently-diagnosable differences in clause size: epistemic complements are full, phasal CPs, direct perception complements are reduced, nonphasal CPs, and subordinative complements are (nonphasal) bare TPs.

This article explores patterns of agreement and word order in the Central Algonquian language Border Lakes Ojibwe. This variety of Ojibwe shows alternations between VOS and VSO word orders and complex interactions between probes on Voice, Infl, and C. I show that the behaviour of lower probes feeds and bleeds the possible agreement and movement relations on each subsequent probe. These complex interactions culminate with the peripheral agreement marker on C, which shows a curious pattern that I dub reverse omnivority, where the probe agrees with lower ranked arguments over higher ranked arguments regardless of whether it is a logical subject or object. The core theoretical innovation is an extension of the syntactic operation agree to encode a relativized EPP, which captures variation and restrictions on movement and the possibility of movement and feature copying being independent. The account provides a strong case for Ojibwe as a configurational language, and is shown to capture variation in agreement and word order in various corners of Ojibwe and beyond.

Blackfoot verbs are marked with nominal agreement morphology in relative clauses, in place of verbal inflection. These relative clauses have previously been analyzed as nominalizations. The present study shows that a nominalization analysis makes incorrect predictions about the morphological composition of relative clauses, as well as the availability of non-agentive and possessive constructions, and adjectival modification. This study demonstrates that relative clauses can relativize subjects, direct objects, and indirect objects. Based on observations about obviation, recursion, long-distance extraction, inflection, and word order, I propose that relative clauses are participles: clausal entities with a nominal superstructure. This accounts for their mixed clausal and nominal properties, and provides an analysis of Blackfoot relative clauses similar to those proposed for related Algonquian languages.

This article discusses the morphological and syntactic structure of relative clauses in Ojibwe (Algonquian), in particular their status as wh-constructions. Relatives in this language are full clauses that bear special morphology, show evidence of A′-movement of a wh-operator, and consequently exhibit wh-agreement also found in interrogatives and certain types of focus constructions. Ojibwe shows the possibility of wh-agreement realized on T (in addition to C and v for other languages), as it appears on tense prefixes. We account for the realization of wh-agreement on T in Ojibwe via the mechanism of feature inheritance. We propose that while declarative matrix clauses are canonical in that C introduces φ-features in Ojibwe, the role of C in embedded or wh-contexts is to introduce δ-features (discourse features), such as [uwh], rather than φ-features. These δ-features can be introduced by C, but are transferred down to T where they spell out as wh-agreement.