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Are Algonquian Languages Ergative?

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Are Algonquian Languages Ergative? Are Algonquian Languages Ergative? JOHN HEWSON Memorial University of Newfoundland The difference between accusative and ergative typology concerns the actors or arguments of the transitive verb. To be properly transitive a verb requires not only an agent or source of the action, but a patient or goal to which the action of the verb is transferred. These are essentially semantic or meaningful roles that can be grammaticalized in different ways in different languages. Traditionally, the difference between accusative and ergative typology has been stated in terms of case in the noun. In accusative languages the agent of the transitive verb has the same case as the subject of the intransitive verb. Indo-European languages are of this type, as the following data from Latin demonstrates: 1) Petr-us Marc-um videt Peter-NOM Mark-ACC sees 'Peter sees Mark' 2) Marc-us legebat Mark-NOM was reading 'Mark was reading' 3) Marc-us Petr-um amat Mark-NOM Peter-ACC loves 'Mark loves Peter' In ergative languages, by contrast, it is the patient of the transitive verb that has the same case as the subject of the intransitive verb, as the fol­ lowing sentences from Inuktitut (Labrador dialect) show:1 JThe forms ending in -* are the unmarked forms of the paradigm, normally called absolutive case; there is a verbal agreement, in both transitive and intransitive verbs, with the noun in the absolutive. 147 148 JOHN HEWSON 4) anguti-p tuttuk takuvauk man-ERG caribou sees-TR 'The man sees the caribou' 5) angutik takuvuk man sees-INTR 'The man sees' 6) tuttu-p angutik takuvauk caribou-ERG man sees-TR 'The caribou sees the man' This typological distinction in the use of cases has sometimes been pre­ sented in the following diagrammatic form: 7) ERGATIVE transitive Agent Patient intransitive Subject ^ ACCUSATIVE transitive Agent Patient intransitive **•» Subject Case distinctions clearly distinguish ergative from accusative typology. But if we restrict ourselves to making this typological distinction entirely on the basis of case distinctions in nouns or pronouns, we shall fall short in two regards: we shall be unable to draw conclusions concerning the transitive verb in languages that have no cases in either nouns or pronouns, such as the Algonquian languages; and we may well fail to understand the func­ tional purpose of these two different typological strategies for the transitive verb since the difference lies in the predicational role of the verb, rather than in the case of any noun or pronoun. In accusative languages the verb is primarily dependent upon the element that plays the role of agent, and shows this dependency in its morphological agreement. In ergative lan­ guages the verb is primarily dependent upon the element that plays the role of patient, and likewise shows this dependency in its morphological agreement. Or, to put it another way, in accusative languages the agent is the pivot, the support on which the verb depends, whereas in ergative languages the patient is the pivot, the primary support to which the verb is predicated. We can represent these dependencies in schematic form as follows:2 In taking this position we have obviously rejected the position of Tesniere (1959) that both the agent and patient are directly dependent upon the valency of the verb, a position which is totally incapable of casting any fight on the difference between ergative and accusative typology. Instead we have returned to the earlier position of Jespersen (1965:100) that the verb is a dependent element, and that the verbal agreement is a mark of this dependency, just as the agreement of an adjective is a mark of dependency. In those languages where the finite verb can stand alone as a total sentence the verbal inflection then marks a dependency to an internal pronominal element. ARE ALGONQUIAN LANGUAGES ERGATIVE? 149 8) ACCUSATIVE A < V < P ERGATIVE A > V > p Beside the difference of case, therefore, we have to take into account, when analyzing this typological difference, a fundamental difference of verb agree­ ments: whereas a transitive verb in an accusative language will readily agree in number and gender with its agent, in an ergative language such agree­ ments will be with the number or gender of the patient, as shown by the following data from Russian and Inuktitut: RUSSIAN (accusative type) 9) d'evusk-a v'id'el-a mal'cik-a girl-SG saw-SG boy-SG 'The girl saw the boy' 10) d'evusk'-i v'id'el-i mal'cik-a girl-PL saw-PL boy-SG 'The girls saw the boy' INUKTITUT {ergative type) 11) anguti-t tuttuk takuvauk man-PL caribou-SG see-SG 'The men see the caribou' 12) anguti-t tuttu-it takuva-it man-PL caribou-PL see-PL 'The men see the caribous' When we come to examine the data of transitive verbs in the Algonquian languages, we find that the verbal agreements follow the typical ergative pattern that we see in the Inuktitut data. In all Algonquian languages intransitive verbs agree with their subject, but the transitive verbs show agreements with what is notionally their patient or goal — what would be the object in an Indo-European language. This fact suggests that Algo­ nquian languages follow a typically ergative pattern. In all Algonquian languages, for example, the stem of the transitive verb agrees in gender with the goal, which gives us a fundamental division in morphology between TA verbs (transitive verbs with an animate goal) and TI verbs (transitive verbs with an inanimate goal), as we see in such a typical pair as Cree niwa:pama:w 'I see him/her' and niwa.pahte.n 'I see it'. The TA verb also agrees in number with its goal as we see in the following paradigm from Ojibwa: 150 JOHN HEWSON 13) niwa:pama:(k) 'I see him (them)' kiwa:pama:(k) 'thou seest him (them)' owa:pama:n 'he-PROX sees him/them-OBV wa:pama:(wak) '(someone) sees him (them)' Here we note the following elements: a) root -wa.p- 'see'; b) prefixes ni- , ki-, o-, marking the agent; c) TA final -am- showing that the verb is transitive and that the goal is animate; d) theme sign -a:- indicating direct transitivity; e) -(it) ~ -(wak) marking plurality of goal, a typical ergative style agreement; and f) -n marking the goal as obviative, another typical ergative style agreement. The last two forms in this paradigm are particularly revealing. The explicit third person proximate agent is marked with o- in owa:pama:n, whereas the third person obviative patient is marked with the suffix -n. When the subject is indeterminate, however, as in wa.pama:, the patient, being the only explicit third person in the verb, remains proximate, and there is no obviative. What we have here is a transitive verb without an explicit agent, which is possible in an ergative typology, but difficult to realize in an accusative typology, where the agent is required as either the syntactic or internal (i.e., morphological) support of the verb. In accusative typology, on the other hand, it is perfectly feasible to have a transitive verb in which there is no explicit patient, no accusative; this contrast between the two typologies we may outline as follows: 14) Accusative: He sees (x), where (x) = the patient, an accessory element, which may, in certain circumstances, be ignored. v- 15) Ergative: (x) sees him, where (x) = the agent, an accessory element, which may, in certain circumstances, be ignored. There are therefore three facets of Algonquian verb morphology that are typically ergative: the gender agreement of the transitivity markers (the finals), the number agreement with the patient, and the existence of indef­ inite subject forms. Problems nevertheless remain, not the least of which is the existence of the notorious inverse forms of the verb, where the direction of the transi­ tivity is determined by the hierarchy of persons. The significant fact about these forms is that they all contain an identifiable inverse marker to indicate that the normal direction of the transitivity has been inverted. The forms corresponding to the Ojibwa transitives given above, for example, are as follows: 16) DIRECT INVERSE niwa:pama:(k) niwa:pamik(o:k) 'he (they) sees me' kiwa:pama:(k) kiwa:pamik(o:k) 'he (they) sees thee' owa:pama:n owa:pamiko:n 'the other(s) see(s) him/her/them' wa:pama:(wak) [no form, since it would be intransitive] ARE ALGONQUIAN LANGUAGES ERGATIVE? 151 Here in the morphology we can see that the direct marker -a:- has ben replaced by an inverse marker -ik whose role is to reverse the direction of the transitivity that has already been established in the direct forms. The inverse forms maintain all the agreements of the direct forms so that the plural or obviative suffix at the end, once the transitivity is inverted, begins to agree with the agent. This is, of course, an accusative type agreement unless one takes the direct forms as being the basic forms on which the whole morphology is based. The very terms direct and inverse show clearly, in fact, that this has always been the traditional view among Algonquianists. Perhaps a more serious problem is that in Cree, Fox, Menominee and other languages some TA direct forms clearly show a plural agreement with the agent, as the following data from Cree illustrate: 17) niwa:pama:wak 'I see them' kiwa:pama:wak 'thou seest them' wa:pame:wak 'they see him/them' In this paradigm the -ak of the third person form indicates that the agent is plural, whereas in the other two forms the same inflection indicates that the patient is plural.
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