Ergative Pattern Research Articles

A Typology Linguistic Study: Is the Sibolga Coastal Dialect Ergative?

This research explores the existence of ergative language features in the Sibolga Coastal dialect. Qualitative descriptive methods were used to analyze data obtained from nine folktale titles in Bunga Rampai Rakyat Tapanuli Tengah (The anthology of central Tapanuli folktales). Of the nine stories, ten clauses were found to show an ergative pattern, where the subject in the first clause acts as the object in the second clause. The findings show that the Sibolga Coastal dialect language has the characteristics of an ergative language in its structure, with a pattern where the subject of the first clause becomes the object of the following clause. These findings indicate a tendency to use ergative language features in the Sibolga Coastal dialect. This research concludes that the Sibolga Coastal dialect uses ergative language features, although in limited quantities. These findings contribute to understanding the syntactic structure of the Sibolga Coastal language and provide new insights into the phenomenon of ergative language in the local context. The implications of this research include supporting the development of linguistic studies and regional language studies and contributing to language teaching and translation in the region. Future research can be expanded to further investigate the features of ergative language in the Sibolga Coastal dialect and the context of its use in daily interactions.

A Corpus-Based Study of Alignment in Literary Gorani (Based on the Manuscript 11092 of Dīwān-i Mawlawī)

Abstract This paper examines alignment in Literary Gorani by analysing an unknown Gorani manuscript titled ‘Dīwān-i Mawlawī’ (Manuscript 11092), which is housed at the Āstān-e Qods-e Raḍavī library. The paper has two main objectives. Following Haig (2017) regarding the extent of the micro-variation of ergativity within Iranian languages, the paper explores strategies of interrelated subsystems such as case, indexation, verbal suffixes, and pronominal clitic systems to discover whether Gorani manifests an accusative or an ergative pattern. This helps us to answer the second more general question in this study: is it even possible to consider Literary Gorani as a written form of Hawrami?

Enclitic Pronouns In The Anbarāni Dialect Of Talyshi

Enclitic pronouns are used in most of New West Iranian languages. They are mainly used for marking the possessor, as well as objects, besides, those Iranian languages and dialects, which show ergative patterns, make use of enclitic pronouns for marking the agent in ergative constructions. This paper deals with the enclitic pronouns and their functions in Anbarāni, one of the Northern Talyshi dialects, spoken in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Where it is possible the features of Anbarāni enclitics will be compared with some other West Iranian languages.

Morphological Split Ergative Alignment and Syntactic Nominative-Accusative Alignment in Pesh

Pesh (Chibchan, Honduras) has until now been described as having a morphological nominative-accusative alignment. This paper argues that Pesh displays a bilevel split ergative pattern for morphological alignment. On the first level of the system, Pesh features a split alignment that is conditioned by the way the arguments are expressed. It has a nominative-accusative alignment for the obligatory indexing of arguments on the verb and three systems of alignment for flagging case. The distribution of these three systems shapes the second level, where ergative-absolutive, tripartite, and nominative-accusative are seen depending on the types of clause and the varieties spoken. On the other hand, Pesh shows a syntactic nominative-accusative alignment. Cross-clausal behaviors in two constructions show a subject/agent pivot. This is seen in the possibility of deletion of the intransitive subject or the transitive subject in the second conjoined clause and the control of coreference with core arguments in a purpose clause.

Эргативность и глубина анализа

In this paper, I argue that “depth of analysis” does not deserve the prestige that it is sometimes given in general linguistics. While language description should certainly be as detailed as possible, general linguistics must rely on worldwide comparison of languages, and this cannot be based on language-particular analyses. Rigorous quantitative comparison requires uniform measurement, and this implies abstracting away from many language-particular peculiarities. I will illustrate this on the basis of ergative patterns, starting out from I.A. Mel’čuk’s (1981) proposal for Lezgian. This proposal was not successful, but why not? And why is Baker’s (2015) theory of dependent case likewise unsuccessful? By contrast, quantitative worldwide research has found striking similarities of ergative coding patterns, which can be explained by the efficiency theory of asymmetric coding. I will argue that this success is due to a more cautious approach to understanding Human Language, which does not rely on the Mendeleyevian vision for grammar (that all grammars are made from the same innate building blocks).

Relativisation in Wobzi Khroskyabs and the integration of genitivisation

Abstract This paper focuses on the morphosyntax as well as the semantics of relativisation in Wobzi Khroskyabs, a Rgyalrongic language spoken in Sichuan, China. Different strategies of relativisation are presented, especially the nominalisation strategy. Wobzi Khroskyabs exhibits an innovative relativisation strategy with the genitive marker =ji, which is rarely found in other Rgyalrongic languages. Several hypotheses are put forward to account for the evolutionary pathway from genitivisation to relativisation, showing that genitive =ji probably followed an ergative pattern to enter the relativisation of core arguments.

An Innovative Main Clause Construction with Ergative Patterns in Kari’nja (Cariban, Suriname)

This paper presents an analysis of an innovative finite main clause construction in Kari’nja (Cariban, Suriname). Although mentioned briefly in previous works, there has to date been no principled description of the construction. Nevertheless, it appears with some frequency in texts of procedural narratives based on documentation videos.The construction is unique in Kari’nja in that it exhibits ergative patterns of morphosyntax. This is typologically significant in that it represents a counter-universal, tense/aspect-based ergative split. This claim is validated based on the construction’s consistence with an imperfective aspectual value and non-past tense.In addition to describing formal and functional properties of the synchronic construction, this paper examines potential source constructions, situates it among cognate constructions in other languages in the family, and posits a mechanism by which it entered main clauses. In addition, an examination of the genres in which it appears addresses why the construction has not been described to date.

Syntactic Ergativity: Analysis and Identification

Some languages showing morphological ergativity in case and/or agreement also show ergative patterns in core syntactic domains—syntactic ergativity. The most-studied type of syntactic ergativity is a ban on the Ā movement of ergative subjects; an additional type concerns the distribution of absolutives in nonfinite clauses. This article first presents the standard view of syntactic ergativity, which is closely connected to the treatment of ergative as an inherent case. Evidence from Shipibo suggests that a ban on ergative Ā extraction does not require inherent ergative. This points to a view of syntactic ergativity centered around morphological case discrimination. One consequence is that pure head-marking languages cannot feature a true ban on ergative extraction, because ergative morphological case is not in use. This conclusion highlights the challenging tasks of diagnosing extraction restrictions in pure head-marking languages, as in the Mayan and Salish families, and of distinguishing extraction restrictions from instances where extraction merely interacts with agreement. A variety of crosslinguistic evidence suggests that agreement/extraction interactions are fully possible in morphologically ergative languages, and not only for ergative arguments. Special morphology in the context of transitive subject extraction is therefore not necessarily evidence of syntactic ergativity.

The discourse basis of ergativity revisited

Since Du Bois’s (1987b) seminal paper, ergative alignment in morphosyntax has been claimed to correlate with a characteristic constellation of argument realization in discourse: both intransitive subjects (S) and transitive objects (P) serve to introduce new referents via full noun phrases (NPs), while transitive subjects (A) are dispreferred for this function and are thus mostly realized as pronouns or zero (e.g. Dixon 1995, Du Bois et al. 2003, Goldberg 2004). This ergative patterning in discourse is generally accounted for in terms of information-management strategies employed by speakers in dealing with the cognitive demands of introducing and monitoring referents in discourse. These claims have recently been questioned by Everett (2009), whose data (English and Portuguese) show no support for the claimed ergative bias in discourse and raise doubts about explanations in terms of information management. The present article subjects the claims of an ergative bias in discourse to more rigorous testing, drawing on the largest database compiled to date (nineteen spoken-language corpora from fifteen typologically diverse languages), and assesses the explanatory frameworks. We find that, with the exception of Du Bois’s original Sakapultek data, there is very little evidence for the postulated ergative pattern in natural spoken-language discourse crosslinguistically. Although our findings do confirm low levels of full NPs in the A role (Du Bois’s ‘Non-lexical A’ constraint), we concur with Everett (2009) that the semantic feature [±human] provides an empirically more sound and conceptually more economical account than earlier explanations framed in terms of information management. Finally, we address the plausibility of emergentist claims for a diachronic link between ergative alignment in morphosyntax and information flow in discourse. The raw data used in this article and extensive exemplification of the methodology employed are available as online supplementary materials.

Promiscuous Paradigms and the Morphologically Conditioned “Ergative Split” in Texistepec Popoluca (Zoquean)

0. Introduction Many authors have struggled to capture the relationship between the various phenomena to which the label “ergativity” is applied. Languages can conflate transitive objects with intransitive subjects, to the exclusion of transitive subjects, at several different levels: syntactic structure, morphological case marking, and verbal agreement systems (Dixon 1994). While some of these patterns may partially overlap in a single language, the overlap is never complete—no language seems to be 100 percent ergative, by any definition (Dixon 1977, 1994). The diversity of these patterns both within and across languages has challenged efforts to define ergativity in a way that is both informative and restrictive. I argue against the assumption that ergative patterns share some underlying syntactic commonality, based on evidence that, in verbal agreement systems, the source of “ergativity” or “split ergativity” may originate in the morpho-phonology, rather than the assignment of Case in the syntax. This paper advocates a position first adopted by Woolford (1999), that there are two distinct types of ergative agreement. One type is parasitic on Case, typically involving agreement only with Nominative (a.k.a. “Absolutive”) arguments, as in Hindi. A second type occurs in languages with no ergative case morphology on nominals, and crucially does not depend on the assignment of Ergative Case in the syntax (Woolford 1999). I argue that the second type is just one of many examples of phonology and morphology “intrusively” affecting the choice between syntactically distinct agreement paradigms. In support of the distinction between ergative agreement systems that are based on Case and those based on morphological paradigm selection, I present

The Äiwoo verb phrase: Syntactic ergativity without pivots

Formal models of syntax typically accord the structural position external to the verb's domain a privileged status in the overall syntactic makeup of a language, either by assuming that external arguments are always S or A, or by linking external argument position to syntactic pivothood. This paper demonstrates that the Oceanic language Äiwoo has an ergative verb phrase – i.e. A as the VP-internal argument and S/O as external arguments – but no corresponding S/O pivot. That is, the ergative structure of the verb phrase in Äiwoo does not entail any syntactically privileged status of the VP-external arguments; rather, it is simply a by-product of various diachronic developments. This situation shows that what has traditionally been perceived as fundamental differences in grammatical organisation – the difference between an accusative and an ergative pattern of VP structure – need not in fact be associated with any broader differences in syntactic or pragmatic structure. More importantly, it goes against the assumption that it is possible to assign universal functions to syntactic configurations. Instead, it can be seen as providing support for the view argued for by Evans & Levinson (2009: 444) that ‘most linguistic diversity is the product of historical cultural evolution operating on relatively independent traits’.

On the syntax and semantics of the past perfect participle and gerundive in early New Indo Arian Evidence from Eastern Pahari

AbstractThe article discusses the earliest attestations of participial tenses in early Eastern Pahari and the obligative pattern based on the gerundive. The data consist of a collection of inscriptions from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries found in the Indian state of Uttarakhand, inscriptions found in western Nepal, and early Western Pahari inscriptions found in the Chamba state of Himachal Pradesh in India. Despite the highly formulaic and repetitive language of these inscriptions, they constitute some of the earliest attestations of constructions which gave rise to contemporary ergative and obligative patterns. The two types of construction are dealt with against the background of the emerging postpositional system. The case-marking of the main arguments is analyzed and compared with other contemporary New Indo Aryan languages, and verbal forms based on the -ta participle as well as conjunctive participles that appear in the texts are investigated with regard to their control properties. The agreement patterns had already started to diverge in the earliest stages of NIA, and we can observe the transitional phase of a language in which alignment is far from stable.

The Evolution of Ergativity in Iranian Languages

This paper presents an attempt to investigate the origins of ergativity in Iranian languages, drawing upon diachronic and synchronic analyses. In so doing, I will trace the development of the ergative structure back to Old and Middle Persian where, it is argued, the roots of ergativity lie. I will specifically show that the ergative pattern as currently obtained in the grammatical structure of some Iranian languages has evolved from a periphrastic past participle construction, the analogue of which is attested in Old Persian. It will further be argued that the predecessor past participle construction imparted a resultative construal in Old Persian and, subsequently, in the transition to Middle Persian, has assumed a simple past reading. The bottom-line of the analysis will be represented as a proposal regarding the nature of the ergative verb, to the effect that an ergative verb, as opposed to a regular (non-ergative) transitive verb, is semantically transitive, but syntactically intransitive.

Split ergativity and transitivity in Chol

In this paper I examine two types of splits in the otherwise ergative-absolutive person marking system of Chol Mayan. First, Chol shows what is known as a “split-S” system: subjects of unergatives pattern as transitive subjects (ergative), while subjects of unaccusatives pattern as transitive objects (absolutive) (Gutiérrez Sánchez, 2004). This pattern is obscured in the non-perfective aspects, where we find an aspect-based split (see Vázquez Álvarez, 2002): both transitive and intransitive subjects receive the same morphological marking. Specifically, in the non-perfective aspects, all intransitive subjects pattern with transitive subjects. I argue below, extending Laka's (2006) proposal for Basque, that the appearance of these splits results from differences in syntactic structure, rather than from different rules of Case assignment or agreement. I show that these different structures fall out from independent facts about the language; neither split represents a departure from Chol's ergative system. While the analysis focuses on Chol, I propose that a biclausal analysis of split ergativity may account for splits in a number of unrelated languages. Finally, I examine other language with splits that lend themselves to this type of analysis, and suggest a grammatical basis for the universal tendency for languages with aspectual splits to always retain the ergative pattern in the perfective aspect.

Dėl baltų kalbų nenominatyvinės praeities

ON THE NON-NOMINATIVE PAST OF THE BALTIC LANGUAGESSummaryThe article enumerates the main works (from 1901 up to 1970) on the non-nominative (ergative) structure of the Indo-European and Baltic parent languages; in the latter the lability of such verbs as virti, sverti, genetivus auctoris and impersonal constructions with object nominative are pointed out to be remnants of its ergativism. Genetivus auctoris shows that an action be­longs to its actor and so reflects the archaic Indo-European ergative case from which nominative and genetive have descended. Sentences of visa vagių išvogta type repeat the ergative pattern with vagių as a subject in the „ergative“ case, visa – an object in the „absolute“ case and with predicate išvogta as a seminominal form naming action. Impersonal variants of this pattern may be senten­ces of the type vãgos išarta and reikia vãgos išarti, the predicate of the latter being an extended predicate of the former: reikia = reikta (impersonal form naming action). A premise for the nomi­native mounting of the object was the developing of concording of the logical subject with intransitive verb in favour of acc./nom. neutrius as much as in favour of nom. communis in which concording of the logical subject with a transitive verb was developing. This fact weakened the differentiation between acc./nom. neutrius = acc. communis and nom. communis and stimulated the possibility to preserve the sameness of the logical object and the logical subject (the latter earlier connected with intransitive verb) also in the shape of nom. communis. The existence of similar constructions with object nominative in Slavic, Sanskrit, Uralic and Altaic languages is to be explained as coming from the ergative structure of the Boreal (nostratic) super-system. The ergative structure decaying, the homonymy of cases arising in the nominative system in place of the fewer number of former cases brought forth the appearing of synonymous case forms, e.g. I.-E. non-ergat. >nom., non-nom. *-ā = non-nom. *-āi (-i arisen at the same time as in o/e-stems) → nom. *-āi from what have developed Latin nom., dat. -ae, gen. -ae<-āi< *-āi (-i perceived as a genitive marker and so lengthen­ed at the same time as in (according to V. Mažiulis) gen. (lup)-ī< *(ulp?)-i) and Prussian nom. (st)ai. It seems possible that the „confusion“ of cases in the Prussian Catechisms is partly to be explained in the same way. All discussed has the best parallels in the history of Baltic pronouns (see tables).

Teaching &amp; Learning Guide for: Typology of Ergativity

Teaching &amp; Learning Guide for: Typology of Ergativity

Typology of Ergativity

AbstractErgativity refers to patterning in a language whereby the subject of a transitive clause behaves differently to the subject of an intransitive clause, which behaves like the object of a transitive clause. Ergativity can be manifested in morphology, lexicon, syntax, and discourse organisation. This article overviews what is known about ergativity in the world's languages, with a particular focus on one type of morphological ergativity, namely in case‐marking. While languages are rarely entirely consistent in ergative case‐marking, and the inconsistencies vary considerably across languages, they are nevertheless not random. Thus splits in case‐marking, in which ergative patterning is restricted to certain domains, follow (with few exceptions) universal tendencies. So also are there striking cross‐linguistic commonalities among systems in which ergative case‐marking is optional, although systematic investigation of this domain is quite recent. Recent work on the diachrony of ergative systems and case‐markers is overviewed, and issues for further research are identified.

The rise of ergativity in Hindi: Assessing the role of grammaticalization

This article investigates the origins and development of the ergative patterning in Hindi. Following traditional Indo-Aryan scholarship, two evolutions are discerned: (i) the reanalysis of a passive as an ergative construction, and (ii) the development of an ergative case marker ne. Three different hypotheses have been postulated in the literature to account for the latter change, two of which suggest a grammaticalization path: the first argues for a case marker as a possible source, the second points towards a lexical source. The third hypothesis maintains that language contact is involved in the change. We scrutinize all three hypotheses and conclude that the ne-clitic is borrowed from Old Rajasthani and introduced in analogy to other clitics, which were already in use as reinforcers of existing case functions. We argue furthermore that the rise of the ergative marker can only be adequately explained in relation to the constructional change in (i). Drawing on the traditional account which traces the origins of the ergative construction back to a former passive construction through reanalysis, we argue that it was actually this constructional reanalysis that allowed the introduction of an ergative marker in the language.

Uncommon patterns of core term marking and case terminology

Two majors patterns of core term marking are found cross-linguistically: an accusative pattern in which P is the only core syntactic role marked by a case form distinct from the quotation form of nouns or by an adposition, and an ergative pattern in which A is the only core syntactic role marked by a case form distinct from the quotation form of nouns or by an adposition. Current case terminology is adapted to the description of systems consistently following one of these two patterns, but is difficult to extend to core term marking systems characterized by alignment variations. Moreover, several minor patterns are attested, characterized by a wider use of marked case forms or adpositions, and current terminology fails to provide convenient labels for case forms or adpositions occurring in such patterns. It is argued that: (a) in languages in which nouns are inflected for case, the case form coinciding with the quotation form of nouns should be labeled in a uniform way, irrespective of the uses it may have in syntactic constructions, (b) new labels should be coined for marked case forms or adpositions used in S/A or S/P role.

Antipassive in Matses

In this paper I analyze ergative patterns and the antipassive construction in Matses, a Panoan language spoken in western Amazonia. The Matses antipassive appears initially to be fairly typical, but is unique in that, in addition to the cross-linguistically typical indefinite Patient reading, it can also be used to code an unmentioned first-person Patient. Furthermore, only verbs specifying human O’s can take the antipassive suffix, and only verbs coding significantly affected Patients can have an indefinite reading. This is exactly the opposite of what one would expect of an antipassive construction. This atypical distribution of the Matses antipassive is explained by a combination of interacting factors, including a first-person empathy phenomenon and accommodation to a competing functionally similar object omission construction.