Noun Incorporation in Northern Iroquoian

Abstract

The main testing ground for the theory of phrase structure proposed in this monograph is NI in Northern Iroquoian. This chapter presents a thorough account of NI in Northern Iroquoian arguing that NI is syntactic. It shows that the theory of phrase structure developed in the previous chapter is sufficient to provide an explanatorily adequate account of NI and its properties. This chapter introduces Northern Iroquoian languages and gives some relevant background on their syntactic structure. It also offers a comprehensive description of the properties of NI in this group of languages. It goes on to present the analysis of NI, showing how the morpheme order follows from the theory of phrase structure proposed here, and accounts for the properties of NI in Northern Iroquoian, presenting an analysis of doubling constructions, which have traditionally been problematic for syntactic analyses of NI.