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Author ORCID Identifier

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7835-5288

AccessType

Open Access Dissertation

Document Type

dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Degree Program

Linguistics

Year Degree Awarded

2022

Month Degree Awarded

May

First Advisor

Seth Cable

Second Advisor

Ana Arregui

Third Advisor

Daniel Altshuler

Fourth Advisor

Jack B. Martin

Abstract

This dissertation is concerned with the past tense system in Mvskoke (Creek), an endangered Muskogean language spoken by the Muscogee (Creek) Nation and Seminole Nation of Oklahoma, as well as by the Seminole Tribe of Florida. Mvskoke has four (previously five) past tenses and a speaker's choice between them depends on both i) how far in the past the eventuality took place and ii) whether the speaker learned of that eventuality as it happened. Additionally, three of the past tenses appear on nouns where they either receive interpretations similar to English former or provide a relevant past time from which the NP's referent is known, similar to the English expression that N from this morning. While the past tense system of Mvskoke has been described by numerous sources in the 1800's and 1900's, this dissertation constitutes the most extensive semantic investigation of the tenses.

DOI

https://doi.org/10.7275/28621480

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License

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