Dene (Athapaskan) languages typically have a small inventory of semantically light verbs. This ch... more Dene (Athapaskan) languages typically have a small inventory of semantically light verbs. This chapter demonstrates that their interpretations derive wholly from their syntactic context in predictable ways and proposes these verbs are spellouts of morphosyntactic structure with either semantically vacuous roots or none at all. They are shown to form a cline of structural complexity and it is suggested that some of the cross-linguistic semantic variability observed in light verbs may originate from this structural variation. Additionally, since these verbs serve as matrix verbs of full clauses, they cast doubt on claims that light verbs are syntactically dependent on main verbs. The extreme semantic impoverishment and configurational relatedness of these verbs suggests that they are a unified class. Two of them are commonly termed copulas; the data and analysis presented here, however, suggest that a principled distinction between copulas and light verbs may ultimately be illusory.
Canadian Journal of Linguistics/Revue canadienne de linguistique, 2021
A widely accepted assumption in both the syntactic and semantic literature is that copulas lack s... more A widely accepted assumption in both the syntactic and semantic literature is that copulas lack semantic content. A consequent question is how to explain the existence in certain languages of two copular verbs that give rise to different interpretations. Such is the case in numerous languages of the Dene family (formerly known as Athapaskan). We explain this situation with the hypothesis that the copulas realize an underlying three-copula system differing in argument structure. Differences between the interpretations of copular clauses in these languages originate in the compositional semantics of these structures, not in any lexical semantic differences.This hypothesis successfully predicts the distributional differences between the surface forms of the Dene copulas, such as their compatibility with adjuncts of time and intentionality, interactions with accusative case, and semantic lifetime effects.
Canadian Journal of Linguistics/Revue canadienne de linguistique, 2021
This squib presents evidence from the Algonquian and Dene language families to support a connecti... more This squib presents evidence from the Algonquian and Dene language families to support a connection between person and animacy. A range of morphosyntactic patterns in these languages, including pronoun inventories, agreement restrictions, and hierarchy effects, are argued to indicate that inanimate nominals lack formal person features. This proposal allows the morphosyntactic patterning of inanimates to fall out from grammatical principles that are independently required to account for person effects. We conclude that the often-assumed model in which third persons are "personless" must be revised to allow for languages in which only inanimate third persons lack formal person features. The squib is organized as follows. Section 1 provides background on person features and the notion of personlessness. Section 2 shows that various patterns in Algonquian and Dene morphosyntax follow from an analysis in which inanimate third persons are personless but animate third persons are specified for person. Section 3 considers whether the proposed person-animacy connection is conditioned by semantic animacy or grammatical animacy. *To Marie-Louise Bouvier White, Lena Drygeese, the late Archie Wedzin, and an anonymous consultant, masìcho for sharing your knowledge of the Tłıchǫ language. Special thanks and memory to Ojibwe language teachers Donald Keesig, Ella Waukey, and Berdina Johnston of Cape Croker. We thank the organizers and audience of "Gender, Class, and Determination: A Conference on the Nominal Spine", where we first presented this work, for excellent and stimulating feedback.
Diachronica. International Journal for Historical Linguistics, 2019
The languages of the Dene (aka Athapaskan) family in North America almost universally employ two ... more The languages of the Dene (aka Athapaskan) family in North America almost universally employ two copular verbs. In several languages of this family, copular forms are also employed as verbal auxiliaries: forms of one copula mark clausal focus while forms of the other mark TAM (tense/aspect/mode) categories. With reference to two Dene languages in particular, Tłı̨chǫ Yatıì and Tsúùt’ínà, I explain this difference by positing distinct grammaticalization paths and motivations for each copula: both focus and TAM markers originate in a uniclausal reanalysis of biclausal constructions, the former from constructions where the matrix clause asserts the truth of the embedded clause, and the latter from those where the matrix clause supplies extra TAM information to the embedded clause. Both grammaticalizations involve an upward reanalysis of copulas as functional heads.
The Canadian Journal of Linguistics / La revue canadienne de linguistique, 2016
In Tłıc̨hǫ Yatıì (Dene/Athapaskan; aka Dogrib), patterns of copula use appear to undermineMoro’s ... more In Tłıc̨hǫ Yatıì (Dene/Athapaskan; aka Dogrib), patterns of copula use appear to undermineMoro’s (1997: 248–261) claim that copulas’only function is to provide a site for the morphological realization of inflection. The aimof 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 1997: 249). Though the view that copulas are enablers of predication continues to be supported by many syntacticians today (e.g., among others, Bowers 1993, den Dikken 2006, Baker and Vinokurova 2012), 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 2013: 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.
International Journal of American Linguistics, 2015
In Tłı̨chǫ Yatıì (Dogrib), spoken in the Northwest Territories, Canada, the periphrastic particle... more In Tłı̨chǫ Yatıì (Dogrib), spoken in the Northwest Territories, Canada, the periphrastic particle ı̨lè, which has been considered a past marker, is optional in the clause. As in other Dene (Athapaskan) languages, viewpoint aspect is encoded morphologically on the verb. These two facts can give the impression that aspect is the only obligatory temporal category in this language and that other temporal distinctions are peripheral. I argue, on the contrary, that a future/non-future distinction is a necessary element of well-formed clauses, that Future, rather than Past/Non-Past Tense or Aspect, serves as an anchor in the sense of Enç (1987), and that anchoring does not necessarily correlate with the prominence of a temporal category in the sense of Bhat (1999). I adduce evidence in support of these proposals from the contrasting obligatoriness of past and future marking in predicates, as well as from word order facts.
International Journal of American Linguistics, 2015
Tłı̨chǫ Yatıì, a Dene language of the Northwest Territories, Canada, has a number of post-verbal ... more Tłı̨chǫ Yatıì, a Dene language of the Northwest Territories, Canada, has a number of post-verbal auxiliaries and particles indicating categories such as futurity, mode, negation, information structure, and evidentiality. The interaction of these elements reveals that they occur in a strict order, which in turn illuminates the structure of the clause in this language, with positions for future, mode, negation, and focus as functional categories at the right edge.
In Tłı̨chǫ Yatıì (Dene, aka Athapaskan), copulas appear obligatorily with adjectives predicated ... more In Tłı̨chǫ Yatıì (Dene, aka Athapaskan), copulas appear obligatorily with adjectives predicated of animate subjects, but are barred from appearing with adjectives predicated of inanimates. I propose that this asymmetry arises from a requirement to realize grammatical agreement for person, and that animate nouns alone bear a person feature. Unlike verbs, adjectives in this language cannot inflect; hence copulas are inserted in adjectival predicates as a rescue strategy to avoid ungrammaticality.
In TłĮchǫ Yatıı̀ (Dene, aka Athapaskan), copulas appear obligatorily with adjectives predicated o... more In TłĮchǫ Yatıı̀ (Dene, aka Athapaskan), copulas appear obligatorily with adjectives predicated of animate subjects, but are barred from appearing with adjectives predicated of inanimates. I propose that this asymmetry arises from a requirement to realize grammatical agreement for person, and that animate nouns alone bear a person feature. Unlike verbs, adjectives in this language cannot inflect; hence copulas are inserted in adjectival predicates as a rescue strategy to avoid ungrammaticality.
The languages of the Dene (aka Athapaskan) family in North America almost universally employ two ... more The languages of the Dene (aka Athapaskan) family in North America almost universally employ two copular verbs. In several languages of this family, copular forms are also employed as verbal auxiliaries: forms of one copula appear as markers of clausal focus while forms of the other mark TAM (tense/aspect/mode) categories. With reference to two Dene languages in particular, Tłı̨ chǫ Yatıı̀ and Tsuú̀ t'ı́nàı́nà , I explain this difference by positing distinct grammaticalization paths and motivations for each copula: both focus and TAM markers originate in a uniclausal reanalysis of biclausal constructions, the former from constructions where the matrix clause asserts the truth of the embedded clause, and the latter from those where the matrix clause supplies extra TAM information to the embedded clause. Both grammaticalizations involve an upward reanalysis of copulas as functional heads. Résumé Les langues de la famille Déné(DénéDéné(Athapascane) en AmériqueAmérique du Nord emploient presque universellement deux verbes copulaires. Dans plusieurs langues déneésdéneés, les formes copulaires sont aussi utiliseés comme auxil-iaires verbaux: les formes d'une copule marquent le focus sentential tandis que les formes de l'autre copule marquent les catégoriescatégories temporelles (temps / aspect / mode). A par-tir de deux langues déneésdéneés en particulier, le tłı̨ chǫ-yatıı̀ et le tsuú̀ t'ı́nàı́nà , j'explique cette différencedifférence en proposant des processus de grammaticalisation distincts ainsi que des motivations spéciiiquesspéciiiques pour chaque copule. Je propose qu'à la fois les marqueurs de focus et les marqueurs temporels sont tous deux issus de reánalyses uni-phrastiques de constructions à l'origine bi-phrastiques. Les marqueurs de focus dériventdérivent de constructions où la phrase matrice indique la valeur de véritédevéritévéritéde la phrase subordonneé, tandis que les marqueurs de temporaux dériventdérivent de constructions où la phrase matrice fournit de l'information temporelle additionelle à la phrase subordonneé. Les deux processus de grammaticalisation impliquent une reánalyse des copules comme tê tes fonctionnelles situeés plus haut dans l'arbre syntaxique.
The Na-Dene languages are spoken in a large discontinuous area of western North America. They are... more The Na-Dene languages are spoken in a large discontinuous area of western North America. They are known for highly complex, partly non-concatenative, predominately prefixal verb morphology that shows linearly alternating inflectional and derivational elements and has been the focus of extended theoretical investigation. Syntactically, they universally exhibit SOV constituent order but typically allow various kinds of scrambling. Other notable features are a two-copula system and doubly-marked possession. All Na-Dene languages are endangered, and many communities are engaged in revitalization efforts. * University of Toronto † Memorial University of Newfoundland 1 In addition to the conventions of the Leipzig Glossing Rules (Comrie, Haspelmath, & Bickel n.d.), we use the following abbreviations in this chapter: ANT = anterior; ATT = attitudinal; EVID = evidential; INC = inceptive; IOBJ = indirect object; ITER = iterative; LEX = lexical affix (or thematic, in the Dene literature); MOM = momentaneous; OPT = optative; PNS = possessed noun suffix; STAT = stative; 0.SBJ = impersonal (unspecified) subject. Examples are cited by source, by author and date for previously published sources, or by initials for fieldwork consultants (ANON for consultants who prefer not to have their names published): AW = Archie Wedzin; BRS = Bruce R. Starlight; LS = Linda Smith; MLBW = Marie-Louise Bouvier White; VM = Violet Meguinis. The data are generally drawn from the Dene group, with a few examples from Tlingit and Eyak; most are from languages that we have worked on and/or that are under-represented in the literature. We use transcription conventions from the sources.
Tłchǫ Yatıı ̀ , a Dene language of the Northwest Territories, Canada, has a number of post-verba... more Tłchǫ Yatıı ̀ , a Dene language of the Northwest Territories, Canada, has a number of post-verbal auxiliaries and particles indicating categories such as futurity, mode, negation, information structure, and evidentiality. The interaction of these elements reveals that they occur in a strict order, which in turn illuminates the structure of the clause in this language, with positions for future, mode, negation, and focus as functional categories at the right edge.
In Tłchǫ Yatıı ̀ (Dogrib), spoken in the Northwest Territories, Canada, the periphrastic particl... more In Tłchǫ Yatıı ̀ (Dogrib), spoken in the Northwest Territories, Canada, the periphrastic particle ı ̨ lè, which has been considered a past marker, is optional in the clause. As in other Dene (Athapaskan) languages, viewpoint aspect is encoded morphologically on the verb. These two facts can give the impression that aspect is the only obligatory temporal category in this language and that other temporal distinctions are peripheral. I argue, on the contrary, that a future/non-future distinction is a necessary element of well-formed clauses, that Future, rather than Past/Non-Past Tense or Aspect, serves as an anchor in the sense of Enç (1987), and that anchoring does not necessarily correlate with the prominence of a temporal category in the sense of Bhat (1999). I adduce evidence in support of these proposals from the contrasting obligatoriness of past and future marking in predicates, as well as from word order facts.
Dene (Athapaskan) languages typically have a small inventory of semantically light verbs. This ch... more Dene (Athapaskan) languages typically have a small inventory of semantically light verbs. This chapter demonstrates that their interpretations derive wholly from their syntactic context in predictable ways and proposes these verbs are spellouts of morphosyntactic structure with either semantically vacuous roots or none at all. They are shown to form a cline of structural complexity and it is suggested that some of the cross-linguistic semantic variability observed in light verbs may originate from this structural variation. Additionally, since these verbs serve as matrix verbs of full clauses, they cast doubt on claims that light verbs are syntactically dependent on main verbs. The extreme semantic impoverishment and configurational relatedness of these verbs suggests that they are a unified class. Two of them are commonly termed copulas; the data and analysis presented here, however, suggest that a principled distinction between copulas and light verbs may ultimately be illusory.
Canadian Journal of Linguistics/Revue canadienne de linguistique, 2021
A widely accepted assumption in both the syntactic and semantic literature is that copulas lack s... more A widely accepted assumption in both the syntactic and semantic literature is that copulas lack semantic content. A consequent question is how to explain the existence in certain languages of two copular verbs that give rise to different interpretations. Such is the case in numerous languages of the Dene family (formerly known as Athapaskan). We explain this situation with the hypothesis that the copulas realize an underlying three-copula system differing in argument structure. Differences between the interpretations of copular clauses in these languages originate in the compositional semantics of these structures, not in any lexical semantic differences.This hypothesis successfully predicts the distributional differences between the surface forms of the Dene copulas, such as their compatibility with adjuncts of time and intentionality, interactions with accusative case, and semantic lifetime effects.
Canadian Journal of Linguistics/Revue canadienne de linguistique, 2021
This squib presents evidence from the Algonquian and Dene language families to support a connecti... more This squib presents evidence from the Algonquian and Dene language families to support a connection between person and animacy. A range of morphosyntactic patterns in these languages, including pronoun inventories, agreement restrictions, and hierarchy effects, are argued to indicate that inanimate nominals lack formal person features. This proposal allows the morphosyntactic patterning of inanimates to fall out from grammatical principles that are independently required to account for person effects. We conclude that the often-assumed model in which third persons are "personless" must be revised to allow for languages in which only inanimate third persons lack formal person features. The squib is organized as follows. Section 1 provides background on person features and the notion of personlessness. Section 2 shows that various patterns in Algonquian and Dene morphosyntax follow from an analysis in which inanimate third persons are personless but animate third persons are specified for person. Section 3 considers whether the proposed person-animacy connection is conditioned by semantic animacy or grammatical animacy. *To Marie-Louise Bouvier White, Lena Drygeese, the late Archie Wedzin, and an anonymous consultant, masìcho for sharing your knowledge of the Tłıchǫ language. Special thanks and memory to Ojibwe language teachers Donald Keesig, Ella Waukey, and Berdina Johnston of Cape Croker. We thank the organizers and audience of "Gender, Class, and Determination: A Conference on the Nominal Spine", where we first presented this work, for excellent and stimulating feedback.
Diachronica. International Journal for Historical Linguistics, 2019
The languages of the Dene (aka Athapaskan) family in North America almost universally employ two ... more The languages of the Dene (aka Athapaskan) family in North America almost universally employ two copular verbs. In several languages of this family, copular forms are also employed as verbal auxiliaries: forms of one copula mark clausal focus while forms of the other mark TAM (tense/aspect/mode) categories. With reference to two Dene languages in particular, Tłı̨chǫ Yatıì and Tsúùt’ínà, I explain this difference by positing distinct grammaticalization paths and motivations for each copula: both focus and TAM markers originate in a uniclausal reanalysis of biclausal constructions, the former from constructions where the matrix clause asserts the truth of the embedded clause, and the latter from those where the matrix clause supplies extra TAM information to the embedded clause. Both grammaticalizations involve an upward reanalysis of copulas as functional heads.
The Canadian Journal of Linguistics / La revue canadienne de linguistique, 2016
In Tłıc̨hǫ Yatıì (Dene/Athapaskan; aka Dogrib), patterns of copula use appear to undermineMoro’s ... more In Tłıc̨hǫ Yatıì (Dene/Athapaskan; aka Dogrib), patterns of copula use appear to undermineMoro’s (1997: 248–261) claim that copulas’only function is to provide a site for the morphological realization of inflection. The aimof 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 1997: 249). Though the view that copulas are enablers of predication continues to be supported by many syntacticians today (e.g., among others, Bowers 1993, den Dikken 2006, Baker and Vinokurova 2012), 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 2013: 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.
International Journal of American Linguistics, 2015
In Tłı̨chǫ Yatıì (Dogrib), spoken in the Northwest Territories, Canada, the periphrastic particle... more In Tłı̨chǫ Yatıì (Dogrib), spoken in the Northwest Territories, Canada, the periphrastic particle ı̨lè, which has been considered a past marker, is optional in the clause. As in other Dene (Athapaskan) languages, viewpoint aspect is encoded morphologically on the verb. These two facts can give the impression that aspect is the only obligatory temporal category in this language and that other temporal distinctions are peripheral. I argue, on the contrary, that a future/non-future distinction is a necessary element of well-formed clauses, that Future, rather than Past/Non-Past Tense or Aspect, serves as an anchor in the sense of Enç (1987), and that anchoring does not necessarily correlate with the prominence of a temporal category in the sense of Bhat (1999). I adduce evidence in support of these proposals from the contrasting obligatoriness of past and future marking in predicates, as well as from word order facts.
International Journal of American Linguistics, 2015
Tłı̨chǫ Yatıì, a Dene language of the Northwest Territories, Canada, has a number of post-verbal ... more Tłı̨chǫ Yatıì, a Dene language of the Northwest Territories, Canada, has a number of post-verbal auxiliaries and particles indicating categories such as futurity, mode, negation, information structure, and evidentiality. The interaction of these elements reveals that they occur in a strict order, which in turn illuminates the structure of the clause in this language, with positions for future, mode, negation, and focus as functional categories at the right edge.
In Tłı̨chǫ Yatıì (Dene, aka Athapaskan), copulas appear obligatorily with adjectives predicated ... more In Tłı̨chǫ Yatıì (Dene, aka Athapaskan), copulas appear obligatorily with adjectives predicated of animate subjects, but are barred from appearing with adjectives predicated of inanimates. I propose that this asymmetry arises from a requirement to realize grammatical agreement for person, and that animate nouns alone bear a person feature. Unlike verbs, adjectives in this language cannot inflect; hence copulas are inserted in adjectival predicates as a rescue strategy to avoid ungrammaticality.
In TłĮchǫ Yatıı̀ (Dene, aka Athapaskan), copulas appear obligatorily with adjectives predicated o... more In TłĮchǫ Yatıı̀ (Dene, aka Athapaskan), copulas appear obligatorily with adjectives predicated of animate subjects, but are barred from appearing with adjectives predicated of inanimates. I propose that this asymmetry arises from a requirement to realize grammatical agreement for person, and that animate nouns alone bear a person feature. Unlike verbs, adjectives in this language cannot inflect; hence copulas are inserted in adjectival predicates as a rescue strategy to avoid ungrammaticality.
The languages of the Dene (aka Athapaskan) family in North America almost universally employ two ... more The languages of the Dene (aka Athapaskan) family in North America almost universally employ two copular verbs. In several languages of this family, copular forms are also employed as verbal auxiliaries: forms of one copula appear as markers of clausal focus while forms of the other mark TAM (tense/aspect/mode) categories. With reference to two Dene languages in particular, Tłı̨ chǫ Yatıı̀ and Tsuú̀ t'ı́nàı́nà , I explain this difference by positing distinct grammaticalization paths and motivations for each copula: both focus and TAM markers originate in a uniclausal reanalysis of biclausal constructions, the former from constructions where the matrix clause asserts the truth of the embedded clause, and the latter from those where the matrix clause supplies extra TAM information to the embedded clause. Both grammaticalizations involve an upward reanalysis of copulas as functional heads. Résumé Les langues de la famille Déné(DénéDéné(Athapascane) en AmériqueAmérique du Nord emploient presque universellement deux verbes copulaires. Dans plusieurs langues déneésdéneés, les formes copulaires sont aussi utiliseés comme auxil-iaires verbaux: les formes d'une copule marquent le focus sentential tandis que les formes de l'autre copule marquent les catégoriescatégories temporelles (temps / aspect / mode). A par-tir de deux langues déneésdéneés en particulier, le tłı̨ chǫ-yatıı̀ et le tsuú̀ t'ı́nàı́nà , j'explique cette différencedifférence en proposant des processus de grammaticalisation distincts ainsi que des motivations spéciiiquesspéciiiques pour chaque copule. Je propose qu'à la fois les marqueurs de focus et les marqueurs temporels sont tous deux issus de reánalyses uni-phrastiques de constructions à l'origine bi-phrastiques. Les marqueurs de focus dériventdérivent de constructions où la phrase matrice indique la valeur de véritédevéritévéritéde la phrase subordonneé, tandis que les marqueurs de temporaux dériventdérivent de constructions où la phrase matrice fournit de l'information temporelle additionelle à la phrase subordonneé. Les deux processus de grammaticalisation impliquent une reánalyse des copules comme tê tes fonctionnelles situeés plus haut dans l'arbre syntaxique.
The Na-Dene languages are spoken in a large discontinuous area of western North America. They are... more The Na-Dene languages are spoken in a large discontinuous area of western North America. They are known for highly complex, partly non-concatenative, predominately prefixal verb morphology that shows linearly alternating inflectional and derivational elements and has been the focus of extended theoretical investigation. Syntactically, they universally exhibit SOV constituent order but typically allow various kinds of scrambling. Other notable features are a two-copula system and doubly-marked possession. All Na-Dene languages are endangered, and many communities are engaged in revitalization efforts. * University of Toronto † Memorial University of Newfoundland 1 In addition to the conventions of the Leipzig Glossing Rules (Comrie, Haspelmath, & Bickel n.d.), we use the following abbreviations in this chapter: ANT = anterior; ATT = attitudinal; EVID = evidential; INC = inceptive; IOBJ = indirect object; ITER = iterative; LEX = lexical affix (or thematic, in the Dene literature); MOM = momentaneous; OPT = optative; PNS = possessed noun suffix; STAT = stative; 0.SBJ = impersonal (unspecified) subject. Examples are cited by source, by author and date for previously published sources, or by initials for fieldwork consultants (ANON for consultants who prefer not to have their names published): AW = Archie Wedzin; BRS = Bruce R. Starlight; LS = Linda Smith; MLBW = Marie-Louise Bouvier White; VM = Violet Meguinis. The data are generally drawn from the Dene group, with a few examples from Tlingit and Eyak; most are from languages that we have worked on and/or that are under-represented in the literature. We use transcription conventions from the sources.
Tłchǫ Yatıı ̀ , a Dene language of the Northwest Territories, Canada, has a number of post-verba... more Tłchǫ Yatıı ̀ , a Dene language of the Northwest Territories, Canada, has a number of post-verbal auxiliaries and particles indicating categories such as futurity, mode, negation, information structure, and evidentiality. The interaction of these elements reveals that they occur in a strict order, which in turn illuminates the structure of the clause in this language, with positions for future, mode, negation, and focus as functional categories at the right edge.
In Tłchǫ Yatıı ̀ (Dogrib), spoken in the Northwest Territories, Canada, the periphrastic particl... more In Tłchǫ Yatıı ̀ (Dogrib), spoken in the Northwest Territories, Canada, the periphrastic particle ı ̨ lè, which has been considered a past marker, is optional in the clause. As in other Dene (Athapaskan) languages, viewpoint aspect is encoded morphologically on the verb. These two facts can give the impression that aspect is the only obligatory temporal category in this language and that other temporal distinctions are peripheral. I argue, on the contrary, that a future/non-future distinction is a necessary element of well-formed clauses, that Future, rather than Past/Non-Past Tense or Aspect, serves as an anchor in the sense of Enç (1987), and that anchoring does not necessarily correlate with the prominence of a temporal category in the sense of Bhat (1999). I adduce evidence in support of these proposals from the contrasting obligatoriness of past and future marking in predicates, as well as from word order facts.
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