Irrealis Morphology in Montana Salish (or, my senior thesis)

[roninbodhisattva]

I just finished the final draft of my senior honors thesis, titled Irrealis Morphology in Montana Salish.

Irrealis Morphology in Montana Salish
This thesis investigates the form and function of irrealis morphology in Montana Salish. The category irrealis, which is marked with a prefix on both nouns and verbs, indicates that the word it marks belongs to an ‘unreal’ world, generally expressing future or hypothetical meanings. While the irrealis prefix was previously thought to have two allomorphs, qł- and q-, this thesis aims to show that there are in fact three allomorphs, qł-, qs-, and q-. The first two allomorphs are lexically conditioned: nouns are prefixed with qł- and verbs are prefixed with qs-. Both may appear as q- in certain morphological contexts. A second aim is to explore the interaction of the irrealis with aspectual morphology (called 'marked irrealis' here). The irrealis prefix may combine with what appears at first to be continuative suffixes, -mí/-i (for intransitives) or -m (for transitives), yet these forms do not seem to mark continuative aspect. This brings into question the role of the ‘continuative’ suffixes in those irrealis form which have them. I demonstrate that there is a syntactic, not a semantic, difference between those irrealis forms which have the ‘continuative’ suffixes and those that do not. Taking this fact into account, I offer an approach to the historical development of the marked irrealis which differs from that offered by Kroeber (1999), and show that this approach better explains the synchronic distribution and use of the marked irrealis in Montana Salish.

[eodrakken]

Cool. I'd definitely read this if you uploaded it.

[Trailsend]

Ditto!

[Xephyr]

That there sure is one impressive abstract you got there, roninbodhisattva.

[Kereb]

All things Salish are awesome.

But your thesis ... what *could* anyone say from just the abstract except "please show the actual document" ?

[Xephyr]

All things Salish are awesome.

But your thesis ... what *could* anyone say from just the abstract except "please show the actual document" ?

What a philistine. True abstract connoisseurs know and appreciate the difference between a pedestrian abstract and a quality one like roninbodhisattva's up there!

[Grimalkin]

This is indeed a quality abstract, but I hope you are aware that none of our ravenous linguistic appetites will be satiated until we see the entire thesis.

PS. Just noticed a minor error - third line down, second paragraph:

this thesis aims to show that there are in fact has three allomorphs, qł-, qs-, and q-.

[roninbodhisattva]

This is indeed a quality abstract, but I hope you are aware that none of our ravenous linguistic appetites will be satiated until we see the entire thesis.

Yes, I'll be uploading after this reaction. Though it's gonna have to wait to tonight.

]PS. Just noticed a minor error - third line down, second paragraph:

this thesis aims to show that there are in fact has three allomorphs, qł-, qs-, and q-.

Dammit. Thanks for pointing this out. The abstract was written up maybe...15 minutes before I turned this thing in (it was quite a tight deadline yesterday), and this slipped through. Oh well. Changed in the document and here, thanks for pointing it out.

[MrKrov]

(demand for uploading .pdf file)

[roninbodhisattva]

[link removed]