Number in Meryam Mir

This thesis examines the role of number in the syntax and semantics of Meryam Mir. It aims to provide evidence to support the claim that verbal number is a grammatical category in the language and can provide a more complete account of various syntactic phenomena than that of Piper (1989/2013) based solely on argument number. It also considers the number feature set within the syntax of the language and provides evidence to challenge Arka's (2012) assumption that the same feature set is used for argument and verbal number. This has wider implications for understanding the syntax of other languages with grammaticalised verbal number. The thesis is divided into six chapters: Chapter 1 introduces Meryam Mir, and gives a brief overview of the grammar of the language. It includes a literature review and notes on the creation of the text corpus used for this thesis, including orthographic and glossing conventions. It also sets out methodological challenges and constraints and defines the number theoretical concepts that will be used throughout the analysis. Chapter 2 provides a systematic review of number marking in the grammar of Meryam Mir, which motivates a focus on number in the language and presents the data which are used in the subsequent analyses and accounts. Chapter 3 proposes an account of argument number in Meryam Mir, considering the availability of categories through constructive number and relating these to Corbett's (2000) number hierarchy. Chapter 4 proposes an account of verbal number in Meryam Mir. It examines in more detail those patterns that are not explained by argument number, and reanalyses them assuming verbal number categories developed in the light of Wood's (2007) semantic typology of pluractionality and Moens and Steedman's (1988) work on verbal plurality and aspect. Chapter 5 proposes an account of the number feature system, drawing on work within the Lexical Functional Grammar framework (Bresnan, 2001) and in particular extending Arka's (2012) work on Marori to account for the oppositions seen in Meryam Mir. Chapter 6 draws together these three accounts, identifies outstanding issues, and pro- poses questions that can be tested through targeted data collection with native speakers.