ABSTRACT
Chapter 2 capitalized on the absence of temporality in Plains Cree roots, and explained why it favors a particular theory of eventualities implemented in terms of νP structures. The crucial factors are the following: first, it is ν1 (the syntactic head to which transitivity suffixes correspond), not ROOT (the syntactic head to which Plains Cree roots correspond), that conveys temporality τ; second, temporality τ on ν1 is the binary dynamicity feature advanced by Verkuyl (1972, 1993), namely, [±ADD TO]. These two factors together derive the empirical generalization that there is no morphological stacking of predicates (i.e., verb stem=root+transitivity suffix) in Plains Cree; in particular, no static predicate is contained by dynamic predicates.
