Abstract
AbstractThe article discusses gender agreement alternation in Aqusha Dargwa (Nakh-Daghestanian, the Caucasus, Russian Federation). The phenomenon is observed in periphrastic verbal forms with transitive verbs where gender agreement on the auxiliary can show the gender features of either the ergative subject or the absolutive direct object. Considering existing analyses of the phenomenon in terms of information structure, I argue that agreement alternation cannot be captured by sentence-topic-oriented accounts. I also discuss a structural proposal developed bySumbatova and Lander (2014)and show that their analysis cannot be maintained in full. Instead, I propose a modified analysis according to which only subject agreement, but not object agreement, results from a cross-clausal referential dependency between the ergative subject of the lexical verb and the absolutive subject of the matrix restructuring verb. On this view, agreement alternation may be assimilated to the familiar distinction between ergative and biabsolutive constructions found elsewhere in Nakh-Daghestanian.
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Disclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.