Tenetehára: A predicate-fronting language

Abstract

AbstractThis article investigates whether Tenetehára is a predicate-raising language. The purpose is to determine whether VSO order results from verb movement to the heads T0or C0only, or whether Tenetehára exhibits VP remnant movement, similarly to languages like Niuean, Choi, Malagasy, and Seediq. The analysis concludes that Tenetehára does allow predicate movement, to Spec-CP or Spec-TP. Either option depends on particles related to tense and complementation, in sentence-final position. Additionally, assuming Kayne’s antisymmetry theory, in which all movement occurs to the left, and the predicate-raising hypothesis, it is proposed that final tense particle orders are derived from the basic word order [Tense [SVO]]. To derive the fact that T0can be head-final, the analysis holds that the predicate, represented by the v-VP complex, must move to the specifier position of TP. Finally, it is proposed that the syntactic trigger for predicate-raising is the presence of a [+PRED] feature both in the head C0and in the head T0, a fact that explains why Tenetehára grammar systematically strands tense and complementizer particles in clause-final position.