Alice Tremblay (UQAM) will be presenting at ACAL 53 on the morpheme f(i) in Igala, hosted virtually by the University of California San Diego. The full programming can be found here and registration can be done here.
Abstract: In this talk, I examine the morpheme f(i) in Igala (Benue-Congo), an isolating tenseless language of Nigeria. I argue that f(i) (i) is a functional category within the vP (not above it) and (ii) carries perfective meaning. It has been argued by Travis (2010) that there is an inflectional domain embedded within the vP, namely Inner Aspect, and that these inflectional categories are used to mark telicity in languages with non-culminating/atelic Accomplishments. I argue that while some Accomplishments are telic in Igala, others are not. Telic entailment in this language is therefore created by adding special morphology within the vP, in a very similar way as in other isolating languages in which all verbs are atelic. The fact that f(i) is lower than other aspectual markers in Igala explains the word order change with this morpheme.
