Ergative Case and the Transitive Subject: a View from Nez Perce
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The Strategy of Case-Marking
Case marking strategies Helen de Hoop & Andrej Malchukov1 Radboud University Nijmegen DRAFT January 2006 Abstract Two strategies of case marking in natural languages are discussed. These are defined as two violable constraints whose effects are shown to converge in the case of differential object marking but diverge in the case of differential subject marking. The strength of the case bearing arguments will be shown to be of utmost importance for case marking as well as voice alternations. The strength of arguments can be viewed as a function of their discourse prominence. The analysis of the case marking patterns we find cross-linguistically is couched in a bidirectional OT analysis. 1. Assumptions In this section we wish to put forward our three basic assumptions: (1) In ergative-absolutive systems ergative case is assigned to the first argument x of a two-place relation R(x,y). (2) In nominative-accusative systems accusative case is assigned to the second argument y of a two-place relation R(x,y). (3) Morphologically unmarked case can be the absence of case. The first two assumptions deal with the linking between the first (highest) and second (lowest) argument in a transitive sentence and the type of case marking. For reasons of convenience, we will refer to these arguments quite sloppily as the subject and the object respectively, although we are aware of the fact that the labels subject and object may not be appropriate in all contexts, dependent on how they are actually defined. In many languages, ergative and accusative case are assigned only or mainly in transitive sentences, while in intransitive sentences ergative and accusative case are usually not assigned. -
Quichua-Spanish Language Contact in Salcedo, Ecuador: Revisiting Media Lengua Syncretic Language Practices
QUICHUA-SPANISH LANGUAGE CONTACT IN SALCEDO, ECUADOR: REVISITING MEDIA LENGUA SYNCRETIC LANGUAGE PRACTICES BY MARCO SHAPPECK DISSERTATION Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Linguistics in the Graduate College of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2011 Urbana, Illinois Doctoral Committee: Professor Hans Henrich Hock, Director of Research Professor Rajeshwari Vijay Pandharipande, Chair Associate Professor Anna María Escobar Professor José Ignacio Hualde Abstract The purpose of the current thesis is to develop a better understanding of the interaction between Spanish and Quichua in the Salcedo region and provide more information for the processes that might have given rise to Media Lengua, a ‘mixed’ language comprised of a Quichua grammar and Spanish lexicon. Muysken attributes the formation of Media Lengua to relexification, ruling out any influence from other bilingual phenomena. I argue that the only characteristic that distinguishes Media Lengua from other language contact varieties in central Ecuador is the quantity of the overall Spanish borrowings and not the type of processes that might have been employed by Quichua speakers during the genesis of Media Lengua. The results from the Salcedo data that I have collected show how processes such as adlexification, code-mixing, and structural convergence produce Media Lengua-type sentences, evidence that supports an alternative analysis to Muysken’s relexification hypothesis. Overall, this dissertation is developed around four main objectives: (1) to describe the variation of Spanish loanwords within a bilingual community in Salcedo; (2) to analyze some of the prominent and recent structural changes in Quichua and Spanish; (3) to determine whether Spanish loanword use can be explained by the relationship consultants have with particular social categories; and (4) to analyze the consultants’ language ideologies toward syncretic uses of Spanish and Quichua. -
Polyvalent Case, Geometric Hierarchies, and Split Ergativity
[For Jackie Bunting, Sapna Desai, Robert Peachey, Chris Straughn, and Zuzana Tomkova (eds.), (2006) Proceedings of the 42nd annual meeting of the Chicago Linguistics Society, Chicago, Ill.] Polyvalent case, geometric hierarchies, and split ergativity JASON MERCHANT University of Chicago Prominence hierarchy effects such as the animacy hierarchy and definiteness hierarchy have been a puzzle for formal treatments of case since they were first described systematically in Silverstein 1976. Recently, these effects have received more sustained attention from generative linguists, who have sought to capture them in treatments grounded in well-understood mechanisms for case assignment cross-linguistically. These efforts have taken two broad directions. In the first, Aissen 1999, 2003 has integrated the effects elegantly into a competition model of grammar using OT formalisms, where iconicity effects emerge from constraint conjunctions between constraints on fixed universal hierarchies (definiteness, animacy, person, grammatical role) and a constraint banning overt morphological expression of case. The second direction grows out of the work of Jelinek and Diesing, and is found most articulated in Jelinek 1993, Jelinek and Carnie 2003, and Carnie 2005. This work takes as its starting point the observation that word order is sometimes correlated with the hierarchies as well, and works backwards from that to conclusions about phrase structure geometries. In this paper, I propose a particular implementation of this latter direction, and explore its consequences for our understanding of the nature of case assignment. If hierarchy effects are due to positional differences in phrase structures, then, I argue, the attested cross-linguistic differences fall most naturally out if the grammars of these languages countenance polyvalent case—that is, assignment of more than one case value to a single nominal phrase. -
When Dependent Case Is Not Enough
When dependent case is not enough András Bárány, [email protected] SOAS University of London Michelle Sheehan, [email protected] Anglia Ruskin University 9 May 2019, GLOW 42, University of Oslo Our claims • Even if dependent case exists, we need case-assignment via Agree • CPs can be case competitors, but do not get case-marking • Agreement-based case splits in Romance, Kashmiri and elsewhere suggests a closer link between φ-features and case than in dependent case theory • It is possible to adapt both Agree and dependent case to these patterns but we argue that Agree is often more parsimonious 1 The dependent case approach (1) Dependent case theory Morphologically marked cases (acc/erg/dat) result from a relationship between two DPs rather than from a relationship between a head and a DP. There are many different versions of this general approach, e.g. Anderson (1976), Yip, Maling & Jackendoff (1987), Marantz (1991), Bittner & Hale (1996), McFadden (2004), Baker & Vinokurova (2010), M. C. Baker (2015), Levin & Preminger (2015), Nash (2017). • M. C. Baker (2015) argues that dependent cases are determined at the phase level and as- signed at the transfer to spell-out bárány & sheehan — dep. case — GLOW 42 (2) Dependent case by c-command (M. C. Baker 2015: 48–49, our emphasis) a. If there are two distinct NPs in the same spell out domain such that NP1 c-commands NP2, then value the case feature of NP2 as accusative unless NP1 has already been marked for case. b. If there are two distinct NPs in the same spell out domain such that NP1 c-commands NP2, then value the case feature of NP1 as ergative unless NP2 has already been marked for case. -
Case Typology and Case Theory* 1. Overview of the Issues 2
December 1997 Case Typology and Case Theory* Yehuda N. Falk Department of English The Hebrew University of Jerusalem [email protected] 1. Overview of the Issues In recent years, as the question of the nature of Case assignment has come into focus, the question of Case typology in general, and ergative Case marking (and agreement) systems in particular, has come to be seen as very important. The interdependence between typology and theory is perhaps nowhere clearer than in the area of Case. On one hand, a typology without a theoretical basis is merely descriptive and cannot lead us to a true understanding of the reasons for whatever typological generalizations are discovered. On the other hand, a (generative) theory of Case, which aims to be a model of the Case component of Universal Grammar and not just a theoretically elegant description of familiar types of Case, has to be able to predict the typological facts; a clear understanding of typology is necessary to be able to do this. One fact that has become clear from typological studies of Case is that a model based only on the familiar nominative-accusative pattern is doomed to be inadequate as an expression of universal Case theory. The problems raised for a theory of Universal Grammar by ergative systems are compounded by the demonstrable syntactic differences between (some) ergative languages and the more familiar nominative-accusative languages. A theory of ergativity must address the question of ergative syntax and its relation to ergative Case and agreement. Here in particular it is important to resist the temptation to shoehorn ergative languages into a nominative- accusative mold. -
Ergative As Accusative Case: Evidence from Adiyaman
ERGATIVE AS ACCUSATIVE CASE: EVIDENCE FROM ADIYAMAN KURMANJI ÜMİT ATLAMAZ ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! BOĞAZİÇİ UNIVERSITY 2012 ERGATIVE AS ACCUSATIVE CASE: EVIDENCE FROM ADIYAMAN KURMANJI Thesis submitted to the Institute for Graduate Studies in the Social Sciences in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of Arts in Linguistics by Ümit Atlamaz ! ! Boğaziçi University 2012 ! ! Thesis Abstract Ümit Atlamaz, “Ergative as Accusative Case: Evidence from Adıyaman Kurmanji” This study aims to investigate the nature of ergativity in Adıyaman Kurmanji within the premises of the Minimalist Program. Adıyaman Kurmanji displays two alignment patterns depending on the tense. In non-past structures nominative alignment is observed whereas the past tense requires an ergative alignment. Based on these two types of alignments many linguists like Haig (2004), Thackston (2006), and Gündoğdu (2011) argue that Kurmanji is a split ergative language. Accordingly, the major aim of this study is to investigate the structure of the ergative pattern in Adıyaman Kurmanji. In this study, the initial step was to compare the ergative and nominative subjects in terms of certain tests like binding, scope and EPP to determine the phrase structure and where the subjects reside on the structure. Additionally, voice properties of the language were inspected as a background to the major claim. Based on the results of the tests applied and the motivation obtained from the data, it was argued that what has been called ergative in Adıyaman Kurmanji is, indeed, a passive structure diachronically reanalyzed as the past tense. According to Trask’s (1979) typology of ergative languages, there are two types of ergative languages, which labels as Type A and Type B. -
Verb Agreement and Case Marking in Burushaski
Work Papers of the Summer Institute of Linguistics, University of North Dakota Session Volume 40 Article 5 1996 Verb agreement and case marking in Burushaski Stephen R. Willson SIL-UND Follow this and additional works at: https://commons.und.edu/sil-work-papers Part of the Linguistics Commons Recommended Citation Willson, Stephen R. (1996) "Verb agreement and case marking in Burushaski," Work Papers of the Summer Institute of Linguistics, University of North Dakota Session: Vol. 40 , Article 5. DOI: 10.31356/silwp.vol40.05 Available at: https://commons.und.edu/sil-work-papers/vol40/iss1/5 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by UND Scholarly Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Work Papers of the Summer Institute of Linguistics, University of North Dakota Session by an authorized editor of UND Scholarly Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Verb Agreement and Case Marking in Burushaski Stephen R. Willson 1 Burushaski verb agreement and case marking phenomena are complex and have not been described adequately by any current theory ofsyntax. In particular, no explanation has yet been given as to why a variety of nominals can trigger agreement in the verbal prefix. In some cases the apparent subject triggers this agreement, in others the direct object appears to do so, in others the indirect object, in others the possessor of the direct object, in others a benefactive or source nominal. Also, the constraints on the usage of ergative, absolutive and oblique case, and other indicators ofgrammatical relations on nominals, have been insufficiently characterized in the literature on Burushaski. -
Ergativity Can Be Defined As Either a Morphological of Syntactic Process
Laura J. Mahalingappa - University of Texas at Austin Acquisition of Split-Ergativity in Kurmanji Kurdish: Variability and Language Change Questions of learnability surrounding ergativity have prompted studies suggesting that children acquire the morphological systems of ergative and accusative languages equally easily (Pye 1990) and that sociolinguistic distribution can cause the late appearance of ergative case- marking (Ochs 1982). However, what do children acquiring ergativity do when presented with the problem of variability in caretaker input? Research suggests that children can acquire “variable forms of a language at an early stage, reflecting the proportion in which the variants occur” in caregiver input (Henry 2002, 278). This study examines the acquisition of split-ergativity in Kurmanji Kurdish, where, in present-tense transitive sentences, the oblique case (OBL) marks patients and the direct case (DIR) marks agents, the verb agreeing with the agent. In past-tense transitive sentences, however, agents are marked with OBL and patients are marked with DIR, the verb agreeing with patient instead of agent (Example 1). Subjects of intransitive sentences are always marked with DIR. However, recent research suggests that split-ergativity in Kurmanji is weakening due to either internally-induced change or contact with Turkish (Dixon 1994, Dorleijn 1996), perhaps moving towards a full nominative-accusative system. This change is demonstrated by the disappearance of OBL on masculine nouns and the increasing use of OBL to mark objects in past-tense transitive structures (Example 2). Therefore, children acquiring Kurmanji are faced with learning split-ergative grammatical relations with highly variable non-systematic input from caretakers, likely due to language change in progress. -
The Concept of Intentional Action in the Grammar of Kathmandu Newari
THE CONCEPT OF INTENTIONAL ACTION IN THE GRAMMAR OF KATHMANDU NEWARI by DAVID J. HARGREAVES A DISSERTATION Presented to the Department of Linguistics and the Graduate School of the University of Oregon in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy August 1991 ii APPROVED: Dr. Scott DeLancey iii An Abstract of the Dissertation of David J. Hargreaves for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Linguistics to be taken August 1991 Title: THE CONCEPT OF INTENTIONAL ACTION IN THE GRAMMAR OF KATHMANDU NEWARI Approved: Dr. Scott DeLancey This study describes the relationship between the concept of intentional action and the grammatical organization of the clause in Kathmandu Newari, a Tibeto-Burman language spoken primarily in the Kathmandu valley of Nepal. In particular, the study focuses on the conceptual structure of "intentional action" along with the lexical, morphological, and syntactic reflexes of this notion in situated speech. The construal of intentional action consists of two distinct notions: one involving the concept of self-initiated force and the other involving mental representation or awareness. The distribution of finite inflectional forms for verbs results from the interaction of these two notions with a set of evidential/discourse principles which constrain the attribution of intentional action to certain discourse roles in situated interaction. iv VITA NAME OF AUTHOR: David J. Hargreaves PLACE OF BIRTH: Detroit, Michigan DATE OF BIRTH: March 10, 1955 GRADUATE AND UNDERGRADUATE -
9 Argument Structure and Argument Structure Alternations Gillian Ramchand
9 Argument structure and argument structure alternations Gillian Ramchand 9.1 Introduction One of the major scientific results of Chomskian syntactic theory is the understanding that the symbolic representations of natural language are structured, by which I mean that symbols are organized in hierarchical constituent data structures, and are not simply linearly ordered strings or lists of memorized items. The semantic ‘arguments’ of predicates are expressed within natural language data structures, and therefore also form part of structured representations. This chapter is devoted to exam- ining the major theoretical results pertaining to the semantics of verbal predicate argument relations and their systematic patterning in lan- guage. However, we will see that even isolating the logical domain of inquiry will involve certain deep questions about the architecture of grammar, and the relationship between listedness and compositional semantics. Historically, the most important results in argument structure have come from those studying the properties of the Lexicon as a module of grammar, for a number of rather natural reasons as we will see. While this chapter will aim to give the reader a clear historical and ideological con- text for the subject matter and will document major influential strands of research, it will primarily concentrate on extracting the generalizations that I judge to be the lasting results of the past fifty years, and then secondarily, draw attention to the (still unresolved) architectural and theoretical issues that are specific to this domain. Section 9.2 gives the perspective on the issues from the vantage point of the Lexicon, i.e. the practical problem of deciding how much and what kind of information is necessary for the listing of verbal lexical entries. -
Languages of the Middle Andes in Areal-Typological Perspective: Emphasis on Quechuan and Aymaran
Languages of the Middle Andes in areal-typological perspective: Emphasis on Quechuan and Aymaran Willem F.H. Adelaar 1. Introduction1 Among the indigenous languages of the Andean region of Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, northern Chile and northern Argentina, Quechuan and Aymaran have traditionally occupied a dominant position. Both Quechuan and Aymaran are language families of several million speakers each. Quechuan consists of a conglomerate of geo- graphically defined varieties, traditionally referred to as Quechua “dialects”, not- withstanding the fact that mutual intelligibility is often lacking. Present-day Ayma- ran consists of two distinct languages that are not normally referred to as “dialects”. The absence of a demonstrable genetic relationship between the Quechuan and Aymaran language families, accompanied by a lack of recognizable external gen- etic connections, suggests a long period of independent development, which may hark back to a period of incipient subsistence agriculture roughly dated between 8000 and 5000 BP (Torero 2002: 123–124), long before the Andean civilization at- tained its highest stages of complexity. Quechuan and Aymaran feature a great amount of detailed structural, phono- logical and lexical similarities and thus exemplify one of the most intriguing and intense cases of language contact to be found in the entire world. Often treated as a product of long-term convergence, the similarities between the Quechuan and Ay- maran families can best be understood as the result of an intense period of social and cultural intertwinement, which must have pre-dated the stage of the proto-lan- guages and was in turn followed by a protracted process of incidental and locally confined diffusion. -
Ditransitive Constructions Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig (Germany) 23-25 November 2007
Conference on Ditransitive Constructions Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig (Germany) 23-25 November 2007 Abstracts On “Dimonotransitive” Structures in English Carmen Aguilera Carnerero University of Granada Ditransitive structures have been prototypically defined as those combinations of a ditransitive verb with an indirect object and a direct object. However, although in the prototypical ditransitive construction in English, both objects are present, there is often omission of one of the constituentes, usually the indirect object. The absence of the indirect object has been justified on the basis of the irrelevance of its specification or the possibility of recovering it from the context. The absence of the direct object, on the other hand, is not so common and only occur with a restricted number of verbs (e.g. pay, show or tell).This type of sentences have been called “dimonotransitives” by Nelson, Wallis and Aarts (2002) and the sole presence in the syntactic structure arises some interesting questions we want to clarify in this article, such as: (a) the degree of syntactic and semantic obligatoriness of indirect objects and certain ditransitive verbs (b) the syntactic behaviour of indirect objects in absence of the direct object, in other words, does the Oi take over some of the properties of typical direct objects as Huddleston and Pullum suggest? (c) The semantic and pragmatic interpretations of the missing element. To carry out our analysis, we will adopt a corpus –based approach and especifically we will use the International Corpus of English (ICE) for the most frequent ditransitive verbs (Mukherjee 2005) and the British National Corpus (BNC) for the not so frequent verbs.