Ergative as Perfective Oblique

Abstract

AbstractMany languages with ergative systems of case or agreement exhibit splits in their alignment. Viewpoint aspect is a common basis for such splits, with perfective aspect often associated with ergative alignment and imperfective with the absence of ergativity (Moravcsik , Silverstein ). Recent work has argued that splits arise from properties of the imperfective that disrupt otherwise‐available mechanisms of ergative alignment (Laka , Coon ). This article argues rather that the perfective can be a source of ergative case, and specifically that ergative alignment in Hindi‐Urdu arises from the intersection of two different ways of expressing perfective aspect, each attested independently in other languages: the first is the use of oblique case to mark perfect or perfective subjects, while the second is a morphosyntactic sensitivity to transitivity, a hallmark of auxiliary selection in Germanic and Romance languages. The result is a more unified view of the morphosyntax of perfective aspect, though at the cost of a nonunified account of aspectually split ergativity.