Two Types of “Incorporation” in Mi’gmaq
This paper explores the structure of verb stems in Mi’gmaq (Eastern Algonquian) by investigating Noun
Incorporation (NI). In Mi’gmaq, there are at least two di↵erent synchronically productive constructions that
can both be superficially called NI. These are shown in (1) below:
(1)
a.
Medial incorporation, primary derivation
b.
Maq-atp-a-t
big-head-VAI-3
‘s/he has a big head’
DNV, secondary derivation
Ti’am-u-e’ge-t
moose-DER-get.VAI-3
‘S/he hunts moose’ (lit. ‘S/he moose-Vs’)
The first type, shown in (1-a), is what Algonquianists refer to as medial or stem-internal incorporation. In
this construction a stem is derived directly by inflectional material affixed to the Root—primary derivation
in Algonquianist literature. The second type, shown in (1-b) is a denominal verb construction (DNV), where
-e’ge is a light verb meaning something like ‘get’. This is formed via secondary derivation, which involves
category-changing and valence-changing operations (Goddard 1990).
In this paper I compare the two constructions in (1) and show that they di↵er; the incorporee in the first
type is a Root while the incorporee in the second type is a little n. I analyze body-part medial-incorporation
constructions as syntactic compounds using M-Incorporation, which allows a head to be adjoined to another
head via external Merge to create a compound (Tomioka 2006). Previous analyses have taken these compounds
to be a case of Root-Root Merger in the lexicon (e.g. Barrie & Mathieu to appear).
There has been a long-standing debate about whether DNVs should be considered as Noun Incorporation
(Mithun 1986: Sadock 1986; Haugen 2007, among others). I argue that DNVs are an instance of NI, building on
the analysis of Barrie & Mathieu (to appear). However, unlike Barrie & Mathieu (to appear), who argue that
DNVs in Ojibwe involve phrasal movement, I show that in Mi’gmaq this construction involves head movement.
This is supported by the fact that DNVs in Mi’gmaq are 1) not referential; 2) do not allow for stranded modifiers;
3) cannot be plural, and 4) do not allow NP doubling (hyponymous objects). However, like DNVs in Ojibwe,
DNVs in Mi’gmaq can take nominalizing/derivational morphology.
(2)
Medial Incorporation
(3)
DNV
vP
vP
v
v
p
p
Derk
maq
maq
j
v
p
-a
atp
DerP
tj
nj
p
ti0 ami
v
-u
n
-e’ge
tk
tj
nP
p
P
ti
The data in this paper supports the idea that incorporation phenomena are not homogenous (Mithun 1984;
Mithun 2010). The proposed analysis provides an in-depth look into morphology in Mi’gmaq, situated within
the generative syntactic framework of Distributed Morphology (DM) (Halle & Marantz 1993; Marantz 1997).
More broadly, this study advances our understanding of how words are built up in polysynthetic languages.
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References
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ˇ
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