Constraints on Obviation in Ktunaxa
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2020
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Swarthmore College. Dept. of Linguistics
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en
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Abstract
In Algonquian languages, when a transitive sentence contains only third-person arguments, one
of the arguments is marked as obviative. Factors such as animacy and possession govern the
assignment of an argument as obviative. In this paper, I follow the framework of Aissen (1997)
and use Optimality Theory to apply constraints on obviation to the language Ktunaxa. Ktunaxa is
not an Algonquian language, yet obviation is morphologically marked and is not applied after the
fact, unlike in Aissen’s application of the constraints to the languages Tzotzil and Chamorro.
These constraint rankings from Algonquian hierarchies adhere to Ktunaxa with little
modification needed.