UC Santa Cruz

San Martín Peras Mixtec has two elements which function as indefinites without quantifiers – however, despite superficial similarities, the identities and distributions of these indefinites differ. Na (“someone” or “them”) is a clitic, while ña’a (“something,” “thing,” or “things”) is not. Both can be described as bare nouns that are number neutral. Through elicitation sessions with a native speaker, we can make some conclusions about the distribution of na in particular. Na is generally prohibited clause-initially, but it can raise to this position when it receives an additional tone. Conversely, it cannot occur after other raised elements. This paper proposes that the facts of na can be explained as effects of an intonational phrase which maps to the clause, which requires that its first element be a full prosodic word.