Case as an Anaphor Agreement Effect: Evidence from Inuktitut

Abstract

The anaphor agreement effect (AAE) is the crosslinguistic inability for anaphors to covary with φ-agreement (Rizzi 1990, Woolford 1999); languages use various strategies that conspire to circumvent this effect. In this squib, I identify and confirm a prediction arising from two previous observations by Woolford (1999) concerning the scope of the AAE, based on new evidence from Inuktitut (Eastern Canadian Inuit). I propose that anaphors in Inuktitut are lexically specified as projecting additional syntactic structure, spelled out as oblique case morphology; because φ-Agree in Inuktitut may only target ERG and ABS arguments, encountering an anaphor inevitably leads to failed Agree in the sense of Preminger 2011, 2014. I moreover argue that this exact AAE pattern is previously unattested, yet is predicted to arise given the range of existing strategies. Finally, this squib provides evidence against previous detransitivization-based approaches to reflexivity in Inuktitut (e.g., Bok-Bennema 1991).