Ebook: The Navajo Prolongative and Lexical Structure

MIT Working Papers in Linguistics, 2000. — 28 p.The article consists of the following sections: §1 presents the data, namely, Navajo verb bases with the Prolongative in different combinations. §2 discusses event structure and the contribution of the Prolongative. §3 outlines the tripartite approach to lexical representation and how to represent the Prolongative in that format. §4 considers the interaction of the Prolongative with a class of related prefixes, looking at syntactic and semantic scopal issues. §5 offers a modest proposal concerning classifiers in the tripartite framework. §6 concludes with some comments on event structure in Navajo.The Prolongative prefix is realized by the form dini- and its variants (Young & Morgan 1987). Very generally, the prefix indicates a situation that is in effect for a prolonged period of time. This is close to the general meaning given by Young & Morgan: "The prolongative is the produce of arrested inception or of arrested termination of the action denoted by the verb theme" (1987: 876). I shall make this meaning more precise and relate it to the structure of events. Most of my examples and translations are drawn from Young & Morgan 1987 (YM), or from Young, Morgan, and Midgette 1993 (YMM).