Questions and their Relatives in Sm’algyax

Abstract

This paper describes content questions in Sm’algyax (or Coast Tsimshian, Maritime Tsimshianic) based on novel fieldwork. I outline the complex morphosyntactic reflexes of movement, or “extraction,” including wh-movement, relativization, and focus. Despite behaving rigidly ergative in terms of number and person agreement, Sm’algyax exhibits a three-way distinction when extracting core arguments of the predicate: the extraction of an intransitive subject, a transitive subject, and a direct object are all marked uniquely. Extraction therefore reveals an underlying structural distinction between intransitive subjects and transitive objects that is not otherwise apparent in their in situ positions. We observe similar phenomena in the extraction of oblique arguments: a number of extraction configurations mark different types of adjunct and non-core argument extraction that are often marked identically in situ. Moving beyond local movement, I show that long-distance movement is possible and exhibits the same morphosyntactic marking found in local movement in each intermediate clause.