ABSTRACT
In this paper, Jelinek provides a constructionalist view of Yaqui argument structure, proposing that thematic arguments in Yaqui are introduced by functional projections, Voice (for agents and other external arguments) and TRAN (for patients, benefactees, and other internal arguments). The verb itself merely composes with the abstract argument structure introduced by the infl ectional superstructure of the clause, rather than determining the existence of that structure, in the spirit of theories put forward by Hale and Keyser (1987), Kratzer (1994), and especially Borer (1994). This paper is important in representing one of the fi rst in-depth applications of this syntacticized approach to argument structure to an understudied, typologically unusual language like Yaqui. It also brings together a very wide range of facts about the language in the service of the central argument and demonstrates Jelinek’s broad mastery of the Yaqui verbal domain, achieved over several years of intensive study and collaboration with native-speaker scholars.
