Abstract
Ever since they were first described and named by Boas in the early twentieth century, the determiner-like elements known as “connectives” in the literature on Tsimshianic languages have posed a puzzle: though the two branches of the family (Maritime and Interior) are otherwise very closely related, their connective systems appear to be quite distinct. In this paper, I produce a comprehensive analysis of connectives in both branches of the family, showing that the principal difference between them—the apparent case sensitivity of connectives in the Maritime branch—actually reflects a minor parametric difference in the pronoun systems of the two branches, mediated by morphological rules that are sensitive to agreement and adjacency, and that apply identically across the family. Boas’s puzzle is thus resolved.
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