Adverbial and Argument-Doubling Clauses in Cree - MSpace

person, singular, animate and proximaie, and rnost importantly, they refer to the same
referent .
1 -sec-TA-( 1 -3) dog-3
'1 see the dog.'
Al1 of the characteristics of Cree rnentioned above are in consonance with the Pronominal
Argument Hypothesis (PAH). More details of the PAH wiil be given in chapter 2.
1.4 Subordinate Ctausa in a Pronominal Argument Language
The preceding section descnbed the restriction of overt NPs to non-argument positions.
We need to ask whether this treatment can be applied to other elements that regularly
appear in argument (A) positions in configurational langages. In the version of the
Pronominal Argument Hypothesis which I adopt, other elements, for example, subordinate
clauses (CPs), are also constrained to occur in non-argument positions. This becomes
obvious, if we assume that al1 subject and object roles are stated within the verbal complex
bypros - there can be no subject or object clauses. Subordinate clauses would dl have to
be situated in non-argument positions. This does not pose a problem for adverbial clauses,
since they never occur in argment positions in any laquage. However, this takes us to
the central problem addressed in this thesis. Based on the pronominal argument structure,
we should expect pronominal argument languages to lack complement clauses, since there
is no argument position for a non-pronominal complement of the verb to occupy.