Barayin Morphosyntax: A Lexical-Functional Approach

This volume offers a Lexical-Functional Grammar (LFG) analysis of the morphosyntax of Barayin, a Chadic language spoken by about 6000 people in the Guera region of Chad. The core chapters of the book draw on rich empirical data to provide analyses of the basic clause, noun phrases, verb phrases, and serial verb constructions. The version of LFG adopted here includes two recent innovations: the first is minimal c-structure, which results in simpler phrase structure representations; the second is the assumption that glue semantics accounts for argument selection, rejecting the need for a level of a-structure or for Completeness and Coherence in f-structure. Argument sharing in serial verb constructions can thus be modeled in a connected s-structure. This method of modeling semantic composition in complex predicates is extended to directional and associated motion complex predicates in Choctaw and Wambaya, removing the need to appeal to a special mechanism to unite semantic forms in such constructions.

Joseph Lovestrand, British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow, SOAS University of London

Joseph Lovestrand is a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow at SOAS University of London, where he studies the expression of motion at the syntax-semantics interface from a cross-linguistic perspective. He spent over a year in Chad studying Barayin, a previously unstudied language spoken by about
5000 people in the Guera region of Chad. This research helped launch the first literacy program in Barayin, and was the subject of his graduate thesis at Dallas International University and doctoral dissertation at the University of Oxford.