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Home , Algonquian languages

Are Algonquian Ergative?

JOHN HEWSON Memorial University of Newfoundland

The difference between accusative and ergative typology concerns the actors or arguments of the transitive . 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 (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 , 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 anyfight o n 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 thefinite ver b 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 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 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 , 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, 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. Comparison with Ojibwa, however, reveals that this form is out of line, and as Goddard (1967) has shown, belongs to the paradigm of the transitive absolute rather than that of the transitive objective, as illustrated by Ojibwa. We note, for example, the lack of a personal prefix, and the lack of an obviative agreement, both of which are found in the Ojibwa form. The morphology of the transitive absolute, therefore, resembles that of the intransitive verbs, in contrast to the transitive objective, which shows a fully transitive morphology. Those languages such as which have maintained the two distinctive transitive paradigms distinguish them as follows: the fully transitive morphology of the objective forms is used either when the goal or patient is not explicitly named, or else it may be used to make an explicit goal definite. It follows that the morphology of the absolute forms, on the other hand, is used when the goal or patient is explicit but indefinite, as may be seen in the following data from Laurent (1884:165, 168):3 18) OBJECTIVE: wnamiho mosbasa 'he sees the mink' — definite wnamiho 'he sees it-an' — no noun object ABSOLUTE: namiha mosbasa

3w- = 3rd. person prefix, cognate with Ojibwa o-; -6 = direct transitivity marker, cognate with -a: in the Ojibwa forms; the prefix is missing in the absolute forms, and thefinal -a in the absolute corresponds to thefinal -e:w inflection of Cree wa:pame:w in 15) above. 152 JOHN HEWSON

'he sees a mink' — indefinite

This double standard, between objective and absolute, might be a mys­ tery, were it not that ergative languages such as Inuktitut also have a dou­ ble morphology to express transitive notions: a fully transitive form, the ergative construction, which contains pronominal, definite reference to the goal or patient; and an intransitive form, commonly called the anti-passive, whereby an intransitive verb, agreeing with its agent, has an object in an oblique case, with indefinite reference. If no nouns are used, of course, the fully transitive form of the verb must be used to express transitivity. The appropriate forms and their usage are as follows:

19) ERGATIVE angutip tuttuk takuvauk 'the man sees the caribou'

takuvauk 'he sees him/her/it'

ANTI-PASSIVE angutik takuvuk tuttumik 'the man sees a caribou'

The distribution of ergative and anti-passive in Inuktitut is, in fact, identical to that of the objective and absolute found in Abenaki and reconstructed by Goddard for Proto-Algonquian. The contrast between the objective and the absolutive, it should be noted, is the ergative equivalent of our active and passive in accusative style languages. Our active form may be fully transitive, whereas our passives express what would otherwise be transitive relationships entirely through the medium of an intransitive morphosyntax: if the agent is included in the passive construction, it must be through the mediation of a preposition, a clear sign that the ordinary predication strategies of a transitive verb are not available. The contrast is best expressed through a diagram:

20) ACCUSATIVE Active (trans) agent < verb < patient Passive (intrans) patient < verb + (agent) ERGATIVE Ergative (trans) patient < verb < agent Anti-passive (intrans) agent < verb + (patient)

Nothing could demonstrate more clearly, in fact, that the ergative and the accusative typologies are the exact inverse of each other. We have seen the following in Algonquian languages: a) the finalo f the transitive verb agrees with the gender of the patient, thereby marking a fun­ damental dependency relationship; b) the agent of the transitive verb may be morphologically and syntactically unspeci- fied, unmarked, technically ARE ALGONQUIAN LANGUAGES ERGATIVE? 153 and strategically ignored; c) the objective form of the transitive verb agrees in number with the patient, confirming the pivotal role of the patient; and d) the absolute form of the transitive verb corresponds exactly in function to anti-passive forms commonly found in ergative typology. The cumula­ tive effect of these observations leads to the conclusion that Algonquian languages are of an ergative typology. Although ergative typology is obviously the opposite pole to accusative typology, it would be erroneous to conclude that the languages of the world are thus polarized, or that active and passive, objective and absolutive, ergative and anti-passive are always found with identical function. Some languages, for example, use ergative typology with nouns, but accusative typology with personal pronouns, in what is known as "split ergative ty­ pology" (see for example Comrie 1981:122ff). These various typologies and functions, in short, are all a reflection of the fact that there are different predicational procedures that are possible in the languages of the world, and that these different procedures may be exploited in a variety of different ways.

REFERENCES Comrie, Bernard 1981 Language Universals and Linguistic Typolygy. : University of Chicago Press.

Goddard, Ives 1967 The Algonquian Independent Indicative. Pp. 66-106 in Contributions to Anthropology: Linguistics, I (Algonquian). Anthropological Series 78, National Museum of Bulletin 214. .

Jespersen, Otto 1965 The Philosophy of Grammar. New York: Norton. [1924].

Laurent, Joseph 1884 New Familiar and English Dialogues. : Leger Brousseau.

Tesniere, Lucien 1959 Elements de syntaxe structurale. Paris: Klincksieck. 154