Reconstructing the Proto-Carib VP
Now that we have explained away the VP structure in all the innovative verbal systems, this section addresses the complex configurational properties of the Set I verbal system, the only one which reconstructs to Proto-Carib as a verbal system. While it is difficult to deduce much about the evolution of the VP in a system so old, at least some of the complexity yields to a combination of comparative and internal reconstruction, until we are left with a residue which cannot be further reconstructed in the absence of new comparative data.
The Set I system is characterized primarily by a complex set of personal prefixes, analyzed by various linguists as reflecting an ergative, an absolutive, a tripartite, an inverse, a hierarchical, or an active-stative system (for a survey, cf. Gildea 1998:16–18,79–96). However one chooses to characterize them, the forms of the prefixes are cognate across the 19 languages which retain the system. The system is additionally identifiable by unique Tense-Aspect-Modality suffixes, which interact in idiosyncratic ways with number suffixes (Derbyshire to appear, Gildea 1998:96–103). There is no case-marking on nouns, nor do auxiliaries ever occur.
In the modern Set I systems, configurational properties of O appear to depend on the person of A and O: for clauses with third person A and third person O, O normally must precede the V, forming a tight VP bond with it (4.1). For clauses with third person A and non-third-person (Speech Act Participant — SAP) O, the VP in most modern Set I systems does not contain the free O pronoun, but the verb bears a prefix indicating person of O; I argue that a VP can be reconstructed to Proto-Carib, with the O prefix the remnant of a VP-internal O pronoun (4.2). When A is non-third person (SAP A), O may precede or follow the V, and in no order is there any evidence for a VP constituent (4.3). Intransitive clauses appear to have no syntactically rigid order of S and V, nor do transitive clauses ever appear to have a syntactically rigid order of A and V (4.4).
