• Corpus ID: 201075223

Body part noun incorporation in Blackfoot : Allomorphy analysis *

@inproceedings{Lee2012BodyPN,
  title={Body part noun incorporation in Blackfoot : Allomorphy analysis *},
  author={Jeongeun Lee},
  year={2012}
}

• Jeongeun Lee
• Published 2012
• Linguistics

This paper investigates body part Noun Incorporation (NI) in Blackfoot to examine the motivation for using Blackfoot medials instead of the corresponding nouns in NI. I will claim that medials are used with intransitive verb stems while independent nouns with transitive verb stems in Blackfoot body part NI. This claim explicates theta roles of an intransitive verb (e.g., an intransitive verb ssiikaawaatsi means ‘wash one’s own feet’ which needs ‘washer’ and ‘washee’). The discrepancy in intransitive verbs will be explained with using a medial ika ‘foot’, a reduced form of the corresponding noun ‘foot’ under an allomorphy analysis. To support this claim, I will compare three previous accounts for NI in general based on the Rosen’s (1989) NI classification; my claim is grounded on the hypothesis that transitivity is the defining factor of Blackfoot verbs (Armoskaite 2011; Frantz 2009).