Interrogative Constructions in Kanakanavu
Date Issued
2014
Date
2014
Author(s)
Deng, An-Ting
Abstract
This thesis aims to explore the morpho-syntax of interrogative constructions in Kanakanavu, which include the following three types: nominal, adverbial, and verbal interrogative constructions. In spite of being regarded as a subgroup of Tsou, academic researchers paid less attention on this minority group. Anthropological, linguistic, and ethnic studies on Kanakanavu are relatively few, compared with the research of other indigenous groups. Therefore, the goals of this study are three-fold. Firstly, the thesis aims to provide a detailed syntactic description on the interrogaitve constructions of Kanakanavu. Next, the thesis will examine the syntactic features of every interrogative words observed in Kanakanavu. Third, the verbal and adverbial functions of interrogative verbal complexes in adverbial verb constructions (AVCs) will be more elaborated in this thesis.
Interrogative words, based on their syntactic categories, are classified as the following three types: nominal, adverbial, and verbal types. Each type has its own ways of syntactic distribution and characteristics. First of all, a nominal wh-element must occur in argument positions, unless it is cleaved to the sentence-initial position as a nominal predicate in an equational construction. Secondly, an adverbial wh-element behaves like its indicative adverbial counterparts, able to occur in different locations. Lastly, a verbal wh-element occupies the predicate position, preceded by various aspect markers, inflected for different voices, and bound by pronominal clitics.
In accordance with the morphological analyzability of verbal interrogative words, they can be sub-divided into two types. One type is unanalyzable interrogative verbs, and the other is analyzable interrogative verbal complexes. Verbal interrogative words have the same grammatical distribution as common verbs. However, as verbal interrogative words occur in verb series, they are like the adverbial modifiers of the following verbs. Such adverbial function of verbal interrogative words can be well explained with the adverbial verb constructions (AVCs), a typologically unusual syntactic pattern of Formosan languages (Chang 2009, 2010). The syntactic patterns of Kanakanavu AVCs are much closer to the Tsou-type.
In brief, this thesis is expected to provide a bird’s-eye view of Kanakanavu interrogative constructions in an attempt to bring in some contributions to the Kanakanavu studies or even Formosan linguistics in general.
Subjects
疑問詞
疑問句構
卡那卡那富語
語言類型學
副詞性動詞結構
Type
thesis
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