Adverbial and Argument-Doubling Clauses in Cree - MSpace

presented above, NPs are situated in specifier or cornplement positions of the projections
of fiinctional categones, Focus and Topic. In this thesis, 1 push this stniaure one step
further, by clairning that subordinate clauses are also relegated to nonmgurnent positions.
This entails that we must find a way to distinguish between two types of clauses that are
situated in the same type of position, yet display different behavioun.
3.3 Cree
The remainder of this chapter is devoted to a profile of Cree verbal morphology, NPs and
subordinate clauses. An overview of Cree verbs and agreement morphology follows in
section 3.3.1. Sections 3.32 and 3.3.3 will examine overt NPs and subordinate clauses in
Cree. One goal of this chapter is to make apparent the similarities between the standard
treatment of NPs in Cree and the proposed treatment for subordinate clauses.
3.3.1 Verbal Morphology
Cree verbs have four morphological classes, labelled according to transitivity and the
gammatical animacy of the participants.' Intransitive verbs are conventionally divided
into two groups based upon the animacy of their subject, while transitive verbs are
subdivided according to the animacy of the object. Verb classification is indicated by a
Cree has a gender classification based upon grammatical animacy. Nouns are either animate or inanimate
(classification is not necessarily semticaIIy baseci).