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[Studies in Language 41:1] 2017
► pp. 198–222

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A typological analysis of the Chained-Aorist construction in Ayt Atta Tamazight (Berber)

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Published online: 1 June 2017
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https://doi.org/10.1075/sl.41.1.06mau
Clause-linking mechanisms are subject to cross-linguistic variation. As far as non-subordinate clauses are concerned, any combination of two clauses may show two predicates mutually equal or different in terms of finiteness: these are known as co-ranking and clause-chaining structures, respectively ( 2007. Sentences as combinations of clauses. In Timothy Shopen (ed.), Language typology and syntactic description, 372–420. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar: 375). Clause-chaining constructions show two structural possibilities, namely medial-final and initial-medial chaining, depending on whether the more-finite verb follows or precedes the less-finite one. Clause-chaining constructions are found in unrelated language families scattered across the globe, including Afroasiatic ( 1990. Storyline concerns and word-order typology in East and West Africa. Los Angeles: The James S. Coleman African Studies Center and Dept of Linguistics, University of California.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar). However, the existing typological literature on the topic has totally neglected Berber, another Afroasiatic language. This work focuses on a clause-linking strategy found in Ayt Atta Tamazight (Berber, henceforth AAT) and in other Berber languages, the so-called Chained-Aorist construction (henceforth C-AOR). Stemming from my fieldwork on AAT, this paper provides an innovative typological analysis of C-AOR, analysing it in terms of initial-medial clause chaining.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.A typology of clause-chaining structures
    • 2.1Co-ranking and clause-chaining structures
      • 2.1.1Preliminary illustration
      • 2.1.2The syntactic nature of co-ranking and clause-chaining structures
    • 2.2A typological analysis of clause chaining
      • 2.2.1Medial-final chaining
      • 2.2.2Initial-medial chaining
  • 3.Chained Aorist as clause chaining
    • 3.1Deranking of predicates in AAT
    • 3.2On embeddedness
    • 3.3Directionality of deranking and constituent order in AAT
  • 4.Conclusions
  • Abbreviations
  • Notes
  • References
References (40)
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Cited by (2)

Cited by two other publications

Kossmann, Maarten
2024. The Use of the Bare Aorist in Figuig Berber (Eastern Morocco). In The Handbook of Berber Linguistics [Springer Handbooks in Languages and Linguistics, ], ► pp. 547 ff. DOI logo
Mauri, Simone
2020. Time and shared knowledge in the demonstrative system of Ayt Atta Tamazight (Berber). Lingua 247 ► pp. 102812 ff. DOI logo

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