Nuclear complex predicates in Niuean

Abstract

This paper presents the rich array of nuclear complex predicates in Niuean, an Oceanic (Polynesian) language of the Tongic subgroup. Niuean exhibits closed class secondary elements such as pre-verbs and light verbs and post-verbal directionals and completion verbs. In addition, there is a wide range of open class secondary elements denoting resultative, depictive, and modificational meanings, as well as many ‘duplicates’ where both predicates have essentially the same meaning, and exocentric noun-adjective compound predicates. After the various types of complex predicates are presented, they are grouped into four categories, according to their argument-sharing properties: external argument shared, internal argument shared, no arguments shared, and all arguments shared. Based on these properties, and on word order, a structural analysis is developed. It is argued that the secondary predicates are merged in one of four different positions in the structure, taking an IP, vP, VP, or V complement. Due to two types of VP movement independently posited for Niuean (rollup VP movement and predicate fronting), each of these merge positions results in a surface V+V juxtaposition structure, but each merge position correlates with different semantic, word order, and argument-sharing properties for the resulting complex predicate.