A feature-geometric approach to verbal inflection in Onondaga

Iroquoian inflectional verbal morphology is well-documented in the descriptive literature, but has received less attention from a generative perspective, a fact this chapter sets to remedy. Most generative analyses rely on the notion of tense as a central category and assume a universal projection of a T(ense) Phrase in tensed/finite clauses. Onondaga (Northern Iroquoian), however, typically makes very little use of tense as a grammatical concept, despite the fact that it only allows for finite clauses. Instead, this language capitalizes on the notions of aspect and mood, thereby rendering the standard generative approach inappropriate. Consequently, this chapter argues that a feature geometric analysis, which does not rely on tense as a central concept, is better suited for analysing the Onondaga verbal inflectional domain where it is aspect that serves as the crucial ingredient in activating Infl.