A Distributed Morphology analysis of Kannada tense-aspect

Abstract

In this paper, we develop a comprehensive account of the realization and interpretation of tense-aspect morphology in Standard Kannada clauses within the Distributed Morphology framework. Our starting point is a contrast between affirmative and negative sentences, where the latter have been observed to contain non-finite verbal morphology yet give rise to specific temporal readings. In contrast to recent proposals, our account reverts to a crosslinguistically standard clause structure for Kannada that contains a TP projection, as well as a single infinitival morpheme in the language that is compatible with different temporal interpretations in different contexts. Instead, the non-finite morphology in past and non-past negative sentences are explained as a result of featural impoverishment – a standard operation within the DM framework, and homophony avoidance respectively. We argue that the proposed account is both theoretically more parsimonious and has greater empirical coverage compared to its predecessors.