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36-556: The name Mistassibi , only in use since the late 19th century, comes from the Innu-aimun language , meaning "large river". Its alternate name used to be Rivière aux Foins (Hay River). Just like the nearby Mistassini River , the Mistassibi River runs in a north–south direction. It passes through Lac au Foin (Hay Lake) and among its tributaries are the aux Oiseaux, du Dépôt, and North-East Mistassibi Rivers. It drains into

72-484: A predicate needs its arguments to complete its meaning, the adjuncts that appear with a predicate are optional; they are not necessary to complete the meaning of the predicate. Most theories of syntax and semantics acknowledge arguments and adjuncts, although the terminology varies, and the distinction is generally believed to exist in all languages. Dependency grammars sometimes call arguments actants , following Lucien Tesnière (1959). The area of grammar that explores

108-475: Is not an argument. A further division blurs the line between arguments and adjuncts. Many arguments behave like adjuncts with respect to another diagnostic, the omission diagnostic. Adjuncts can always be omitted from the phrase, clause, or sentence in which they appear without rendering the resulting expression unacceptable. Some arguments (obligatory ones), in contrast, cannot be omitted. There are many other arguments, however, that are identified as arguments by

144-410: Is a distinction between arguments and adjuncts which is not really noticed by many in everyday language. The difference is between obligatory phrases versus phrases which embellish a sentence. For instance, if someone says "Tim punched the stuffed animal", the phrase stuffed animal would be an argument because it is the main part of the sentence. If someone says, "Tim punched the stuffed animal with glee",

180-686: Is a member of the Cree –Montagnais– Naskapi dialect continuum and is spoken in various dialects depending on the community. Since the 1980s, Innu-aimun has had considerable exposure in the popular culture of Canada and France due to the success of the rock music band Kashtin and the later solo careers of its founders Claude McKenzie and Florent Vollant . Widely heard hit songs with Innu-language lyrics have included " Ish-kuess " ("Girl"), " E Uassiuian " ("My Childhood"), " Tipatshimun " ("Story") and in particular " Akua tuta " ("Take care of yourself"), which appeared on soundtrack compilations for

216-456: Is added to our three example sentences, one is dealing with adjuncts, e.g. The added phrases (in bold) are adjuncts; they provide additional information that is not necessary to complete the meaning of the predicate likes . One key difference between arguments and adjuncts is that the appearance of a given argument is often obligatory, whereas adjuncts appear optionally. While typical verb arguments are subject or object nouns or noun phrases as in

252-478: Is crucial to most theories of syntax and grammar. Arguments behave differently from adjuncts in numerous ways. Theories of binding, coordination , discontinuities , ellipsis , etc. must acknowledge and build on the distinction. When one examines these areas of syntax, what one finds is that arguments consistently behave differently from adjuncts and that without the distinction, our ability to investigate and understand these phenomena would be seriously hindered. There

288-418: Is often a content verb, demands certain arguments. That is, the arguments are necessary in order to complete the meaning of the verb. The adjuncts that appear, in contrast, are not necessary in this sense. The subject phrase and object phrase are the two most frequently occurring arguments of verbal predicates. For instance: Each of these sentences contains two arguments (in bold), the first noun (phrase) being

324-416: Is represented as phrase structure rules or the equivalent. Argument status determines the cognitive mechanism in which a phrase will be attached to the developing syntactic representations of a sentence. Psycholinguistic evidence supports a formal distinction between arguments and adjuncts, for any questions about the argument status of a phrase are, in effect, questions about learned mental representations of

360-417: Is the number and type of arguments that are linked to a predicate, in particular to a verb. In valence theory verbs' arguments include also the argument expressed by the subject of the verb. The notion of argument structure was first conceived in the 1980s by researchers working in the government–binding framework to help address controversies about arguments. The distinction between arguments and adjuncts

396-422: The complement is a closely related concept. Most predicates take one, two, or three arguments. A predicate and its arguments form a predicate-argument structure . The discussion of predicates and arguments is associated most with (content) verbs and noun phrases (NPs), although other syntactic categories can also be construed as predicates and as arguments. Arguments must be distinguished from adjuncts . While

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432-493: The Atikamekw ( Nēhinawēwin and Nehirâmowin ) of the Atikamekw ( Nehiraw , Nehirowisiw ) in the upper Saint-Maurice River valley of Quebec . Innu-aimun is divided into four dialects – Southern Montagnais (Mashteuiatsh, Betsiamites), Eastern Montagnais (Ekuanitshit, Nutashkuan, Unamen Shipu, Pakuashipi), Central Montagnais (Uashat and Maliotenam, Matimekosh) and Labrador-Montagnais (Sheshatshit). The speakers of

468-462: The X-bar schema , e.g. The complement argument appears as a sister of the head X, and the specifier argument appears as a daughter of XP. The optional adjuncts appear in one of a number of positions adjoined to a bar-projection of X or to XP. Theories of syntax that acknowledge n-ary branching structures and hence construe syntactic structure as being flatter than the layered structures associated with

504-531: The thematic roles of the arguments of the given predicate remain consistent as the form of that predicate changes. The syntactic arguments of a given verb can also vary across languages. For example, the verb put in English requires three syntactic arguments: subject, object, locative (e. g. He put the book into the box ). These syntactic arguments correspond to the three semantic arguments agent, theme, and goal. The Japanese verb oku 'put', in contrast, has

540-702: The Innu dialects spoken in Quebec and Labrador [was] published in Innu, English and French ." Innu-aimun has the following phonemes (with the standard orthography equivalents in angle brackets, this section discusses the Sheshatshit dialect): The plosives are voiced to [b d dʒ ɡ ɡʷ] between vowels. /ʃ/ frequently merges with /h/ in younger speakers ( shīshīp [ʃiʃip ~ ʃihip ~ hihip] ' duck ' ). There are three pairs of so-called "long" and "short" vowels, and one long vowel with no short counterpart, though

576-700: The Mistassini River at Dolbeau-Mistassini . The company Minashtuk Inc. operates a 12 MW run-of-the-river hydroelectric power station on the Mistassibi River since 2000. This article related to a river in Quebec , Canada is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Innu-aimun language Innu-aimun or Montagnais is an Algonquian language spoken by over 10,000 Innu in Labrador and Quebec in Eastern Canada . It

612-600: The X-bar schema must employ some other means to distinguish between arguments and adjuncts. In this regard, some dependency grammars employ an arrow convention. Arguments receive a "normal" dependency edge, whereas adjuncts receive an arrow edge. In the following tree, an arrow points away from an adjunct toward the governor of that adjunct: The arrow edges in the tree identify four constituents (= complete subtrees) as adjuncts: At one time , actually , in congress , and for fun . The normal dependency edges (= non-arrows) identify

648-422: The active sentence, for instance, becomes the subject of the passive sentence. Despite this variation in syntactic functions, the arguments remain semantically consistent. In each case, Jill is the experiencer (= the one doing the liking) and Jack is the one being experienced (= the one being liked). In other words, the syntactic arguments are subject to syntactic variation in terms of syntactic functions, whereas

684-420: The arguments of a predicate must appear with the correct case markings (e.g. nominative, accusative, dative, genitive, etc.) imposed on them by their predicate. The semantic arguments of the predicate, in contrast, remain consistent, e.g. The predicate 'like' appears in various forms in these examples, which means that the syntactic functions of the arguments associated with Jack and Jill vary. The object of

720-468: The book or He deposited the book . A large body of literature has been devoted to distinguishing arguments from adjuncts. Numerous syntactic tests have been devised for this purpose. One such test is the relative clause diagnostic. If the test constituent can appear after the combination which occurred/happened in a relative clause, it is an adjunct, not an argument, e.g. The same diagnostic results in unacceptable relative clauses (and sentences) when

756-544: The different dialects can communicate well with each other. The Naskapi language and culture are quite different from those of the Montagnais, in which the dialect changes from y to n as in Iiyuu versus Innu . Verb argument In linguistics , an argument is an expression that helps complete the meaning of a predicate , the latter referring in this context to a main verb and its auxiliaries. In this regard,

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792-616: The examples above, they can also be prepositional phrases (PPs) (or even other categories). The PPs in bold in the following sentences are arguments: We know that these PPs are (or contain) arguments because when we attempt to omit them, the result is unacceptable: Subject and object arguments are known as core arguments ; core arguments can be suppressed, added, or exchanged in different ways, using voice operations like passivization , antipassivization , applicativization , incorporation , etc. Prepositional arguments, which are also called oblique arguments , however, do not tend to undergo

828-641: The functions of language as the link to fully understanding linguistics by referencing grammar elements to their functions and purposes. A variety of theories exist regarding the structure of syntax, including generative grammar , categorial grammar , and dependency grammar . Modern theories of semantics include formal semantics , lexical semantics , and computational semantics . Formal semantics focuses on truth conditioning . Lexical Semantics delves into word meanings in relation to their context and computational semantics uses algorithms and architectures to investigate linguistic meanings. The concept of valence

864-986: The length distinction is giving way to a place distinction. The column titles here refer chiefly to the place of articulation of the long vowel. Macron accent marks over the long vowels are omitted in general writing. e is not written with a macron because there is no contrasting short e . Innu-aimun is a polysynthetic , head-marking language with relatively free word order . Its three basic parts of speech are nouns , verbs , and particles . Nouns are grouped into two genders , animate and inanimate, and may carry affixes indicating plurality , possession , obviation , and location. Verbs are divided into four classes based on their transitivity : animate intransitive (AI), inanimate intransitive (II), transitive inanimate (TI), and transitive animate (TA). Verbs may carry affixes indicating agreement (with both subject and object arguments ), tense , mood , and inversion . Two different sets, or orders , of verbal affixes are used depending on

900-523: The lexical heads. An important distinction acknowledges both syntactic and semantic arguments. Content verbs determine the number and type of syntactic arguments that can or must appear in their environment; they impose specific syntactic functions (e.g. subject, object, oblique, specific preposition, possessor, etc.) onto their arguments. These syntactic functions will vary as the form of the predicate varies (e.g. active verb, passive participle, gerund, nominal, etc.). In languages that have morphological case,

936-440: The nature of predicates, their arguments, and adjuncts is called valency theory . Predicates have a valence; they determine the number and type of arguments that can or must appear in their environment. The valence of predicates is also investigated in terms of subcategorization . The basic analysis of the syntax and semantics of clauses relies heavily on the distinction between arguments and adjuncts . The clause predicate, which

972-583: The other constituents as arguments of their heads. Thus Sam , a duck , and to his representative in congress are identified as arguments of the verbal predicate wanted to send . Argumentation theory focuses on how logical reasoning leads to end results through an internal structure built of premises, a method of reasoning and a conclusion. There are many versions of argumentation that relate to this theory that include: conversational, mathematical, scientific, interpretive, legal, and political. Grammar theory, specifically functional theories of grammar, relate to

1008-516: The other hand, one allows for a further division between obligatory and optional arguments. Most work on the distinction between arguments and adjuncts has been conducted at the clause level and has focused on arguments and adjuncts to verbal predicates. The distinction is crucial for the analysis of noun phrases as well, however. If it is altered somewhat, the relative clause diagnostic can also be used to distinguish arguments from adjuncts in noun phrases, e.g. The diagnostic identifies Bill's and of

1044-424: The poem as arguments, and bold and after lunch as adjuncts. The distinction between arguments and adjuncts is often indicated in the tree structures used to represent syntactic structure. In phrase structure grammars , an adjunct is "adjoined" to a projection of its head predicate in such a manner that distinguishes it from the arguments of that predicate. The distinction is quite visible in theories that employ

1080-413: The relative clause diagnostic but that can nevertheless be omitted, e.g. The relative clause diagnostic would identify the constituents in bold as arguments. The omission diagnostic here, however, demonstrates that they are not obligatory arguments. They are, rather, optional. The insight, then, is that a three-way division is needed. On the one hand, one distinguishes between arguments and adjuncts, and on

1116-456: The same processes. Psycholinguistic theories must explain how syntactic representations are built incrementally during sentence comprehension. One view that has sprung from psycholinguistics is the argument structure hypothesis (ASH), which explains the distinct cognitive operations for argument and adjunct attachment: arguments are attached via the lexical mechanism, but adjuncts are attached using general (non-lexical) grammatical knowledge that

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1152-520: The same three semantic arguments, but the syntactic arguments differ, since Japanese does not require three syntactic arguments, so it is correct to say Kare ga hon o oita ("He put the book"). The equivalent sentence in English is ungrammatical without the required locative argument, as the examples involving put above demonstrate. For this reason, a slight paraphrase is required to render the nearest grammatical equivalent in English: He positioned

1188-500: The subject argument, and the second the object argument. Jill , for example, is the subject argument of the predicate likes , and Jack is its object argument. Verbal predicates that demand just a subject argument (e.g. sleep , work , relax ) are intransitive , verbal predicates that demand an object argument as well (e.g. like , fry , help ) are transitive , and verbal predicates that demand two object arguments are ditransitive (e.g. give , lend ). When additional information

1224-440: The television series Due South and the documentary Music for The Native Americans . The lyrics of Akua Tuta are featured on over 50 websites, making this one of the most broadly accessible pieces of text written in any native North American language. Florent Vollant has also rendered several well-known Christmas carols into Innu in his 1999 album Nipaiamianan . In 2013, "a comprehensive pan-Innu dictionary, covering all

1260-434: The test constituent is an argument, e.g. This test succeeds in identifying prepositional arguments as well: The utility of the relative clause test is, however, limited. It incorrectly suggests, for instance, that modal adverbs (e.g. probably , certainly , maybe ) and manner expressions (e.g. quickly , carefully , totally ) are arguments. If a constituent passes the relative clause test, however, one can be sure that it

1296-553: The verb's syntactic context . In simple main clauses, the verb is marked using affixes of the independent order , whereas in subordinate clauses and content-word questions, affixes of the conjunct order are used. Innu-aimun is related to East Cree ( Īyiyū Ayimūn – Northern/Coastal dialect and Īnū Ayimūn – Southern/Inland dialect) spoken by the James Bay Cree of the James Bay region of Quebec and Ontario and

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