Speaker: Giovanni Roversi (MIT)
Title: Adjectival “concord” in North Sámi is not concord (and it’s two different phenomena)
Time: Tuesday, April 18th, 1pm – 2pm
Abstract: Adjectives in North Sámi only inflect for case and number when they are predicative and
in case of NP ellipsis (NPE), and carry invariant morphology otherwise. I argue that the two contexts where they are inflected need two different accounts, and that neither of them reflects genuine nominal concord. In the NPE case, the morphology showing up on the adjective is the result of a stranded affix configuration caused by eliding the nP. I show that predicative adjectives, although they’re inflected, cannot be reduced to a case of NPE, but must get case/number features from a different source. I also propose an account of the adjectival morphology both when inflected and when not inflected.
— This is a practice talk for CLS, so I aim to talk for 20 minutes.