Doubly-inflected Verb Forms in Maliseet-Passamaquoddy

Abstract

Transitive Inanimate Verb forms with two inflectional endings marking the same feature have been reported for Maliseet-Passamaquoddy (Leavitt and Francis, 1984). Further investigation has shown that double inflections are not limited to these particular II examples, but appear in transitive and intransitive verbs of both genders in the changed and unchanged conjunct modes. In addition, there are other doubly - or multiply - inflected and derived verb forms in Maliseet-Passamaquoddy. The function of many of these redundancies seems to be either emphasis or humour. They are at the least stylistic idiosyncrasies of speakers.