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Split Ergativity The marked status of ergativity Published by LOT phone: +31 30 253 6006 Janskerkhof 13 fax: +31 30 253 6406 3512 BL Utrecht e-mail: [email protected] The Netherlands http://wwwlot.let.uu.nl/ Cover illustration: view of the road to Hakkâri, the capital of Turkey’s far southeastern province. Picture taken by the author in the summer of 2001 when visiting the stunning ruins of Ho şap castle, built in 1643 by a Kurdish chieftain. ISBN-10: 90-78328-12-6 ISBN-13: 978-90-78328-12-4 NUR 632 Copyright © 2006: Mario van de Visser. All rights reserved. The marked status of ergativity De gemarkeerde status van ergativiteit (met een samenvatting in het Nederlands) Proefschrift ter verkrijging van de graad van doctor aan de Universiteit Utrecht op gezag van de rector magnificus, prof. dr. W.H. Gispen, ingevolge het besluit van het college voor promoties in het openbaar te verdedigen op vrijdag 13 oktober 2006 des middags te 12.45 uur door Mario Alexander van de Visser geboren op 1 november 1975 te Goes Promotoren: Prof. dr. N.F.M. Corver Prof. dr. F.P. Weerman Co-promotor: Dr. P. Ackema Acknowledgements On the first of June 2001, I started my career as a PhD-student at the Utrecht Institute of Linguistics OTS. I had no idea what it was going to be like, and in order to get some inspiration I started reading other people’s dissertations, in particular their acknowledgements sections. This proved to be very comforting. Even the smartest dissertation appeared to have been accomplished in a period of ups and downs. I promised myself that no matter what would happen, the day would come at which I would be able to write my own Acknowledgements! Today, this day has arrived, thanks to many, many people. Of course, I owe a great deal to Norbert Corver, Fred Weerman and Peter Ackema. Having access to no less than three supervisors is sheer luxury. Each one of them had their own way to make me feel more confident about what I wanted to do. Norbert’s presence was permanent yet not ubiquitous. His door was always open for me, and he kept reminding me that I should consult him whenever in trouble. This was obviously something I needed to learn, but I have always appreciated having this kind of openness. Thanks to Norbert, many generative insights were revealed to me. As fellow commuters the two of us would often continue our discussion in a train heading south. Also, Norbert gave me the opportunity to teach during and after my project. Furthermore, he encouraged me to go to conferences and write articles, and he was most helpful in organizing my trip to Cambridge and the extension of my contract. I am grateful to Fred for giving me a guided tour of Trans 10, where one vi The marked status of ergativity gets lost so easily, for all of his advice, which was always stimulating and practical, and for continuing to attend our meetings after he left us for Amsterdam. He and Norbert were a massive help when it turned out that my original research proposal needed serious revision. Fred and Peter, in turn, were most familiar with the topic of my project, due to their expertise on agreement issues. It was very nice having Peter as an office mate for several years before he moved to Edinburgh. He was often the first to understand exactly what I had in mind, and has taken the trouble to continue commenting on my work by phone and email, which worked well and was always very useful. Looking back, I can say that my meetings with Norbert, Fred, Peter, or a subset of them, were always fruitful. They urged me to make my ideas more explicit, up to the point where not only the languages under discussion but also the four of us displayed a great deal of agreement. Carrying out research at UiL-OTS has many advantages. I have especially enjoyed the fact there were so many colleagues and guests from all over the world. It would be pointless to mention all the people I am indebted to, as there are too many of them. I simply hope that those involved will read this and know how I have appreciated their company and expertise. I thank both UiL-OTS and the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) for funding my trip to MIT and Harvard in the fall of 2002, during which I had the opportunity to exchange thoughts with many people about my project. I am very grateful to the members of the reading committee: Jonathan Bobaljik, Martin Everaert, Kees Hengeveld, Eric Reuland and Johan Rooryck. A very special ‘thank you’ goes to Anna Asbury for reading the entire manuscript and correcting my English wherever needed. I take full responsibility for any typos or incorrect formulations that might have been overlooked or added afterwards. This book would have gone nowhere without the help of my informants. It Acknowledgements vii would be too much to mention all of them here, so their names are included in the examples they have provided. Among them, Subhî Ahmed, Penny Brown, Slava Chirikba, Dmitry Ganenkov, Mali and Tülay Yavan, Noel Rude and David Watters deserve extra mention. Mr. Ahmed was my very first informant, teaching me all the ins and outs of Kurmanji (Kurdish). Penny, always highly energetic, provided much data from Chiapas, Mexico, and happily taught me some ‘baby Tzeltal’ in her office at the MPI in Nijmegen. Slava introduced me into his native language Abkhaz, which was a fascinating experience. Also in Nijmegen, I have had the pleasure to meet Dmitry, who subsequently brought in loads of data from his area of specialization, Daghestan and Azerbaijan. Unfortunately, most of this data has not been included here, so I hope to be able to work on that in the future. I will never forget the first time I heard people speak Kabardian and Adyghe. This was in the Breda home of the Yavans. I am grateful to them for spending hours with me, trying to get to grips with possible quantifiers. Finally, Noel and David were extremely helpful by sending emails from Oregon and Nepal, respectively. In particular, I have enjoyed discussing my ideas with Noel, as every question of mine was enthusiastically replied with more data. Two people have been tremendously important in teaching me how to ask appropriate questions. First of all, there was Leonie Cornips from the Meertens Institute. She helped me structure the questionnaire I set up together with Peter. Next, there was the late Helma van den Berg, who convinced me that nobody in the right mind would ever answer all the questions I had prepared. Thanks to her constructive criticism, the questionnaire was reduced to manageable size. After that, Helma took everything to Makhachkala, Daghestan, where she, sadly enough, met an untimely death. In addition, I would like to thank Patrick Brandt and Natalia Slioussar for translating my questionnaire into German and Russian, respectively, and the various colleagues who provided data from languages that have not made it viii The marked status of ergativity to the chapters to follow. On a more personal note, I would like to thank Marjo van Koppen for being an excellent teaching colleague. Our discussions on Dutch Linguistics helped me to get a better understanding of the theoretical foundation on which we build our work. If only we could agree on the correct schema for embedded and root questions! The frequent company of Evangelia Vlachou has been a very stimulating factor over the past few years. After many lunches, we have concluded that These Things really do come to an end. Outside Utrecht, there is Sander Steeman, who has always taken a deep interest in my professional and personal life, even when he was away on one of his exhausting fieldtrips in Tanzania. Jenny Audring has taken part in many eye-opening email discussions, several of which turned out to open cans rather than eyes. My fault! Outside linguistics, family and friends have done their best to help me keep my feet on the ground. If only they would let me cook them a proper meal! Noud, Hans, Henia, Jan & Maya, Wim & Wilhelmien and others: thanks for taking part in my culinary experiments, for having us and for asking after my progress. In Zeeland, I have enjoyed many birthday parties and holidays, thanks to Leo & Andrea, André & Liesbeth and my four lovely nieces. Most of all, I need to thank my parents, Ko and Cobi. It is hard to imagine what would have become of me without their continuous support throughout the years. Last, but certainly not least, I am grateful to Frans, for accompanying me in life (or putting up with me), even if it means going on crazy trips to border crossings nobody likes to visit during his holiday. Keibedankt! Tilburg, 17th of August 2006 Table of contents Acknowledgements v Table of contents ix List of abbreviations xiii chapter 1 The unmarked status of accusativity 1 1 Introduction 1 2 Ergativity in the languages of the world 3 2.1 Nominative and Accusative 3 2.2 Ergative and Absolutive 6 2.3 Ergative morphology 8 2.4 Not exclusively ergative 14 2.5 Conclusion 24 3 Ergativity in generative grammar 25 3.1 Case and agreement in principles & 25 parameters theory 3.2 The asymmetry between subject ( S/A) and 34 object ( O) 3.3 Syntactic ergativity and the reversal of theta 40 roles 3.4 Different ways of case marking 52 3.5 Allowing for both types of ergativity: Bittner & 59 Hale (1996a,b) 4 Sketch of the proposal 65 chapter 2 Accusative case and ‘nominative’ agreement 69 1 Introduction 69 x The marked status of ergativity 2 Grammatical licensing of core arguments 71 2.1 Direct objects ( O) and case 72 2.2 Subjects ( S/A) and agreement 88 3 Object agreement: clitic-doubling 92 4 Ergative case marking: Tukang Besi 102 5 Universal argument licensing in syntax: the main 107 hypothesis.
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