Johnson 2004 - CDLI - UCLA

than offer a tentative suggestion. But if the *bi-√ prefix refers to a single, bounded event
(as might be suggested by my discussion of the particle-verb constructions in 2.6), the
formation of the marû stem may well indicate a plurality of possible events. I do not
mean to suggest that the marû of a *bi-√ prefix verb is equivalent in some way to ˙amt≥u
reduplication as a sign of absolutive/nominative plurality, nor that it is iterative in the
usual sense. When I speak of a plurality of possible events, what I have in mind is the
pair-list reading of a focus-affected phrase in a definiteness effect environment. Recall
example (45) from section 3.4, repeated below:
(45) Joe: “Who is going to drive me back home?”
Mary: “Well, there’s [ Focus my brother, or the guy standing on the corner].”
In (45), when the definiteness effect environment (to the left of the copula in an
existential sentence) is focus-affected, as in answer to a wh-question for example, any
phrase that occurs in that environment—even if there is only one—is interpreted as one
member of a list of possibilities. I would suggest that the marû form of the verb in *XP
nam bi-√ constructions is due to the pair-list reading of the focused constituent to its left.
In other words, under contrastive focus (as in the *XP nam bi-√ construction) a bare noun
to the left of the verb can no longer be interpreted as an indefinite noun that only
contributes to the specification of the meaning of the verb (“Restrict” in the opposition
described by Chung and Ladusaw 2004); instead, the introduction of the copula that acts
as a contrastive focus marker converts the bare noun into a specific, referential noun
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