The person hierarchy: Primitive or epiphenomenal? Evidence from Halkomelem Salish

Abstract

There are two apparent person-hierarchy effects in Halkomelem Salish discussed in this paper: split ergativity, and person based gaps in the transitive paradigm. Aissen (1999) argues that Optimality Theory (OT) can be used to account for these person hierarchy effects. Since OT is a formal theory of markedness, it should naturally account for markedness effects that result from the person hierarchy. In Aissen’s account, Silverstein and Dixon’s intuition is formalized by means of harmonic alignment between different hierarchies (Prince and Smolensky 1993). Thus, the hierarchies in (1) and (2) are primitives in an OT account.