"Bleeding" Condition C in Kanien'kéha
Keywords: binding, Condition C, syntactic ambiguity, discourse configurationality, Kanien'kéha (Mohawk)
TL;DR: Contra previous accounts, Kanien'kéha (Mohawk) obeys Condition C, but that these effects are apparently bled by discourse configurational word order.
Abstract: Baker's (1996) account of Kanien'kéha (Mohawk) argues that Condition C effects hold cross-clausally in the language, but that Condition C effects are ignored between arguments in the same clause. Baker uses this as evidence that Kanien'kéha must introduce arguments in a radically different configuration than standard argument structure proposals. This talk builds on recent work (e.g., Royer 2023) in suggesting that Kanien'kéha always exhibits Condition C effects, but that language-internal quirks can bleed these effects. Specifically, I propose that the discourse-configurational word order displayed by Kanien'kéha creates syntactic ambiguity that allows certain sentences appearing to violate Condition C to also exhibit a Condition C-obeying parse, hence allowing coreference to obtain. I argue this using novel data from conjoined possessed objects: differing orders of R-expression and possessed conjuncts alternate between allowing and disallowing subject and object possessor coreference, this alternation correlating with whether the string is syntactically ambiguous or not. I show that when word order creates unambiguous parses, Kanien'kéha instead behaves as expected of standard argument structure configurations where the subject asymmetrically c-commands the object. In addition to proposing additional mechanisms languages may use to camouflage expected Condition C effects, this account also suggests that Kanien'kéha must in fact introduce arguments in a crosslinguistically standard way.
Submission Number: 60
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