Kwak'wala "Agreement" as Partial Subject Copy

Abstract

In the literature on Kwak'wala, a Northern Wakashan language of British Columbia, the term "agreement" refers to a particular phenomenon in which a determiner-like enclitic agreeing with the subject can occur in clause-second position when the subject itself does not. Using subject topicalizations, conjoined predicates, and other structures, I will argue that this phenomenon is not "agreement" as ordinarily understood. Instead, I will propose an account of Kwak'wala agreement in which this enclitic is a partial copy of the subject; that is, that it is movement of the D head of the DP subject under a copy theory of movement.