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Syntactic Ergativity in Q'anjob'al

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Syntactic Ergativity in Q'anjob'al Syntactic ergativity in Q’anjob’al Omer Preminger MIT/Harvard, March 2012 This talk is based on collaborative work with Jessica Coon ([email protected]) and Pedro Mateo Pedro ([email protected]). 1. Introduction The suffix -on (glossed “AF”) appears in Q’anjob’al in two seemingly disparate environments: • In clauses from which transitive subjects have been extracted:1 (1) transitive subject extraction →“Agent Focus” maktxel max-ach il-on-i? who asp-2abs see-af-itv ‘Who saw you?’ • In embedded transitive clauses—regardless of whether extraction has taken place: (2) embedded transitives chi uj [ hach y-il-on-i ]. asp be.able.to 2abs 3erg-see-af-itv ‘She can see you.’ ➻ Developing the intuition in Pascual (2007), and building on the proposal in Ordóñez (1995), we develop an account which explains the appearance of -on in both these environments The larger question: What restricts transitive subjects (ergatives) from extracting in the first place? • In many—but not all—ergative languages, transitive subjects cannot be extracted without using special morphology on the verb (Aldridge 2008, Dixon 1972, Manning 1996) * Thanks to the audiences at FAMLi, Leipzig, UCSC, MIT, UCLA, and the Harvard Agent Extraction reading group, and especially to Judith Aissen, Ava Berinstein, Edith Aldridge, Robert Henderson, David Pesetsky, Maria Polinsky, Clifton Pye, Norvin Richards, Kirill Shklovsky, Lisa Travis, and Valentina Vapnarsky for useful feedback and discussion. Special thanks to Chol language consultants Virginia Martínez Vázquez, Doriselma Gutiérrez Gutíerrez, and Matilde Vázquez Vázquez; and to Kaqchikel language consultant Ana López de Mateo. 1Q’anjob’al data are from collaborator Pedro Mateo Pedro. Abbreviations in glosses are as follows: abs — absolutive; af — agent focus; ap — antipassive; asp — aspect marker; caus — causative; cl — clitic; det — determiner; dir — directional; dtv — derived transitive suffix; erg — ergative; foc — focus marker; itv — intransitive verb suffix; ncl — noun class clitic; nml — nominal; perf — perfect; pl — plural; prep — preposition; prfv –perfective; prog — progressive; rn — relational noun; tv — transitive verb suffix. –1– Syntax Square MIT — March 2012 Proposal: The AF morpheme licenses the transitive object in environments where it would otherwise be unlicensed. • The problem with extracting transitive (ergative) subjects arises due to the manner in which absolutive arguments are licensed. ◦ In Q’anjob’al, absolutive = nominative (assigned by Infl0) ◦ The absolutive object raises above the subject to receive absolutive/nominative, trapping it inside the verbal phase ➻ AF permits extraction in (1) by altering the case assignment properties of the clause • The morpheme -on is also required in non-finite contexts like (2), where case is otherwise unavailable to the object We show this through a comparison of Q’anjob’al with Chol, a related ergative language which does not show extraction asymmetries, showing that: • ergative languages do not form a homogenous group (Aldridge 2004, Johns 1996, Legate 2002) • (at least in Mayan) the problem with extracting the ergative subject is not about properties of the subject ................................................. outline: §2 – Ergative and absolutive in Mayan §3 – The problem with ergative extraction §4 – Agent Focus §5 – Predictions §6 – Summary and conclusions –2– Syntactic ergativity in Q’anjob’al Omer Preminger 2. Ergative and absolutive in Mayan 2.1. Morphological ergativity The Mayan language family consists of about thirty languages, usually grouped into five or six major sub-groups (Campbell & Kaufman 1985), spoken altogether by over six million people in Mexico, Guatemala, and Belize. (3) Mayan family classification (Campbell &Kaufman 1985) a. Wastekan: Wastek b. Yukatekan: Yukatek, Lakandon; Mopan, Itza’ c. Greater Tseltalan: i. Cholan: Chol, Chontal; Ch’orti’ ii. Tseltalan: Tseltal, Tzotzil d. Greater Q’anjob’alan: i. Q’anjob’alan: Q’anjob’al, Akatek, Jakaltek; Mocho’ ii. Chujean: Chuj, Tojol’ab’al e. Kichean–Mamean: i. Kichean: Q’eqchi’; Uspantek; Poqomchi’, Poqomam; K’ichee’, Kaqchikel, Tz’utujil, Sakapultek, Sipakapense ii. Mamean: Tekiteko, Mam; Awakatek, Ixil • Q’anjob’al is spoken primarily in Huehuetenango, Guatemala by about 80,000 people • We’ll also discuss Chol, a member of the Tseltalan branch spoken in the northern part of the state of Chiapas by approximately 200,000 people (Historical works suggests Q’anjob’alan and Tseltalan split close to 3000 years ago.) ................................................. Despite significant diversity within the family, all Mayan languages share a number of core characteristics. • Morphological ergativity (4) ergative-absolutive nominative-accusative A P A P transitive: erg abs nom acc S S intransitive: abs nom –3– Syntax Square MIT — March 2012 • In Mayan languages, we see the ergative system via person marking on the predicate: (5) Chol a. tyi i-mek’-e-yoñ. asp 3erg-hug-tv-1abs ‘She hugged me.’ b. tyi ts’äm-i-yoñ. asp bathe-itv-1abs ‘I bathed.’ ◦ ergative and possessor agreement morphemes are identical (often referred to as “set a” in Mayanist literature): (6) a. tyi ii-ch’il-i ja’as jiñi xk’aläli. asp 3erg-fry-tv banana det girl ‘The girl fried bananas.’ b. ii-chich jiñi xk’aläli 3erg-older.sister det girl ‘the girl’s (older) sister’ ◦ subjects, objects, and possessors may be dropped ◦ 3rd-person absolutive is null (will be left unglossed in what follows) (7) a. tyi k-ch’il-i-φ. asp 1erg-fry-tv-3abs ‘I fried it.’ b. tyi majl-i-φ. asp go-itv-3abs ‘She left.’ • Clause-initial aspect-markers (8) a. tyi k-wuts’-u pisil. prfv 1erg-wash-tv clothes ‘I washed clothes.’ b. mi k-wuts’ pisil. impf 1erg-wash clothes ‘I wash clothes.’ c. choñkol k-wuts’ pisil. prog 1erg-wash clothes ‘I’m washing clothes.’ ◦ one of these aspect markers is obligatory in eventive matrix predicates – but they are absent in non-finite embedded clauses ◦ argued to occupy Infl0 (Aissen 1992) –4– Syntactic ergativity in Q’anjob’al Omer Preminger • “Status suffixes” ◦ vary with transitivity, aspect; argued to occupy v0 (Coon 2010, Coon & Preminger 2010) ◦ In Q’anjob’al, these only surface when they would occupy a phrase-final position; we’ll use square brackets to show which status suffix would surface if the stem had appeared finally – see also Henderson 2012 (9) Chol tyi wäy-i jiñi wiñik. asp sleep-itv det man ‘The man slept.’ (10) Q’anjob’al a. max way[-i] naq winaq. asp sleep-itv ncl man ‘The man slept.’ b. max way-i. asp sleep-itv ‘He slept.’ • Voice morphology ◦ may appear between the root and the status suffix: (11) a. tyi wäy-i-yoñ. asp sleep-itv-1abs ‘I slept.’ b. tyi i-wäy-is-ä-yoñ. asp 3erg-sleep-caus-dtv-1abs ‘She made me sleep.’ 2.2. The location of absolutive • Though the order of these morphemes is fairly stable across the family, the location of the absolutive marker varies: “high-abs”: the absolutive morpheme surfaces right after the aspect-marker “low-abs”: the absolutive morpheme surfaces after the verb stem high-abs aspect abs erg root (voice) suffix (12) low-abs aspect erg root (voice) suffix abs –5– Syntax Square MIT — March 2012 Q’anjob’al and Chol illustrate this difference:2 (13) Q’anjob’al – “high-abs” (14) Chol – “low-abs” a. max-ach y-il-a’. a. tyi y-il-ä-yety. asp-2abs 3erg-see-tv asp 3erg-see-tv-2abs ‘She saw you.’ ‘She saw you.’ b. max-ach way-i. b. tyi wäy-i-yety. asp-2abs sleep-itv asp sleep-itv-2abs ‘You slept.’ ‘You slept.’ c. max-ach hin-way-tzene-j. c. tyi k-wäy-is-ä-yety. asp-2abs 1erg-sleep-caus-dtv asp 1erg-sleep-caus-dtv-2abs ‘I made you sleep.’ ‘I made you sleep.’ 2.3. Syntactic ergativity and its distribution • Tada (1993): The location of the absolutive morpheme correlates with the appearance of extraction asymmetries (languages not originally present in Tada’s have been italicized)3 (15) +asymmetries -asymmetries high-abs Q’anjob’al, Akaktek, Jakaltek, Chuj, Q’eqchi’, Uspantek, Poqomchi’, Poqomam, K’ichee’, Kaqchikel, Tz’utujil, Sakapultek, Sipakapense, Mam, Awakatek low-abs Yucatec, Ixil Lakandon, Mopan, Itza’, Chol, Chontal, Tseltal, Tojol’ab’al 2.3.1. Low-abs In low-abs languages like Chol, all core arguments (S, A, P) can extract freely for questions, focus, and relativization: (16) Chol intransitive subject (=absolutive) extraction a. tyi wäy-i jiñi x’ixik. asp sleep-itv det woman ‘The woman slept.’ b. Maxkii tyi wäy-i ti? who asp sleep-itv ‘Who slept?’ 2high-abs languages can be further divided based on the location of the abs morphemes in stative or “non- verbal” predicates, not discussed here. 3See Coon, Mateo Pedro & Preminger 2011 for a discussion of Yucatec and Ixil, which differ from the languages discussed in other important respects; e.g. in Yucatec there is no Agent Focus morpheme and the construction referred to as “Agent Focus” is often optional (Norcliffe 2009); in Ixil absolutive markers are free-standing words (Ayres 1983). –6– Syntactic ergativity in Q’anjob’al Omer Preminger (17) Chol transitive object (=absolutive) extraction a. tyi aw-il-ä aj-Maria. asp 2erg-see-dtv det-Maria ‘You saw Maria.’ b. Maxkii tyi aw-il-ä ti? who asp 2erg-see-dtv ‘Who did you see?’ (18) Chol transitive subject (=ergative) extraction a. tyi y-il-ä-yety aj-Maria. asp 3erg-see-dtv-2abs det-Maria ‘Maria saw you.’ b. Maxkii tyi y-il-ä-yety ti? who asp 3erg-see-dtv-2abs ‘Who saw you?’ • Because both DPs are post-verbal (VOS), and there is no morphological case on nouns, when both are third person, ambiguity results (see Eby Clemens et al. 2012) (19) MaxkiA/P tyi y-il-ä {tP} aj-Maria {tA}? who asp 3erg-see-dtv det-Maria ‘Who saw Maria?’ / ‘Who did Maria see?’ 2.3.2.
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