Decomposing distributive numerals in ?ay?a?u??m (Comox-Sliammon Salish)

Abstract

In this paper we examine distributive numerals in ?ay?a?u??m (a.k.a. Comox- Sliammon; Central Salish). We first show that unlike in neighbouring St’át’imcets (Northern Interior Salish), ?ay?a?u??m distributive numerals require specifically temporal distribution over sub-events, as opposed to over locations or event participants. We then provide a compositional analysis of the three morphological components of distributive numerals: the numeral itself; diminutive reduplication, which excludes alternatives in the denotation of the numeral; and a pluractional infix, which when applied to a numeral and a predicate of events yields temporally distributed sub-events, where the number of participants in each sub-event is given by the numeral. Finally, we point out that though our account handles core cases of distributed numerals, their syntactic distribution is extremely broad, mirroring precisely that of bare numerals: this causes non-trivial problems for compositionality.