Arguments in Abawiri (Foau) Does Abawiri have subjects? BRENDON YODER SIL International and University of California Santa Barbara WLP5, 17 JULY 2019 Outline ➢The Lakes Plain languages ➢Grammatical relations ➢Structures related to grammatical relations in Abawiri ➢Conclusion 2 The Lakes Plain Languages 3 https://www.ethnologue.com/map/ID_pnz The Lakes Plain languages ❑Reconstruction by Duane Clouse (1997) 5 Lakes Plain typological features ❑Phonology ➢ Very small consonant inventories, no nasals ➢ Extra-high “fricativized” vowels ➢ Complex tone, e.g. Iau (Bateman 1990), Doutai (Donohue et al. 2006), Edopi (Kim 1996), Sikaritai (Liem 2007), Abawiri (Yoder 2018) ❑Verbal morphology ➢ No person marking on the verb ➢ TAM marking via suffixes (tone in Iau) 6 Lakes Plain typological features ❑Syntax ➢ Verb-final ❑Discourse ➢ Topic-comment structure predominates 7 Grammatical relations 8 Grammatical relations ❑The syntactic relation between an argument and the clause it is in (Comrie 1989; Bickel 2010; inter alia) ❑Evidence found in alignment patterns Nominative/Accusative Ergative/Absolutive Semantic Alignment S S A P A P A P 9 Where evidence is found ❑Coding properties ➢ Flagging on nominals (case and adpositions) ➢ Indexing on verbs (bound pronominal forms, switch-reference) ➢ Word order ❑Behavioral properties ➢ Relativization ➢ Ellipsis in coordinated clauses ➢ Valency changing devices (applicatives, causatives, etc.) ➢ Etc. 10 Coding: Ergative case marking in Enga S a) akáli dóko p-é-á man DET go-PST -3SG ‘The man went.’ A P b) akáli dokó-mé mená dóko p-i-́á man DET-ERG pig DET hit-PST -3SG ‘The man hit (killed) the pig.’ ❑(from Li & Lang 1979: 314) 11 Behavior: Relativization on subjects in Indonesian c) orang yang ∅ duduk dekat jendela S person REL sit near window ‘The person who is sitting near the window’ d) orang yang ∅ me-lihat Umar itu A girl REL AF-see Umar that ‘The person who saw Umar’ e) *gadis yang Umar me-lihat ∅ itu *P girl REL Umar AF-see that ‘The girl that Umar saw’ f) gadis yang ∅ di-lihat Umar itu P → A girl REL PF-see Umar that ‘The girl that was seen by Umar’ (adapted from Sneddon 1996) 12 Arguments in Abawiri GRAMMAR, SEMANTICS, DISCOURSE 13 Arguments in Abawiri ❑Coding properties ➢ Word order ➢ Nominal marking ➢ (no person markers on the verb) ❑Behavioral properties ➢ Relative clauses ➢ Clause chaining ➢ Reflexives and reciprocals ➢ Complement clauses 14 Arguments in Abawiri ❑Coding properties ➢ Word order ➢ Nominal marking ❑Behavioral properties ➢ Relative clauses ➢ Clause chaining ➢ Reflexives and reciprocals ➢ Complement clauses 15 Word order ❑Strongly verb-final 16 Word order ❑Antitopic constructions (Chafe 1976; Lambrecht 1994) 17 Word order ❑Ubiquitous zero anaphora 18 19 Word order ❑The relative ordering of A and P arguments is determined by a variety of semantic and pragmatic factors ➢ Semantic factors • Person/animacy • Semantic integration of an argument (usually P) with verb ➢ Pragmatic (information structure) factors • Topicality • Activation status 20 Word order: frequency ❑229 examples where A and P were both overtly expressed in the same (simple) clause Order Number Percent APV 139 61% PAV 84 37% AVP 4 2% PVA 2 1% 21 Word order ❑Multiple reference ➢ More than one overt referential device ➢ Pointing to the same discourse referent ➢ With the same semantic relationship to the verb ➢ In the same clause ❑Usually because a long clausal element intervenes between first mention of the referent and the verb ➢ (e.g. A – long P – A – V) 22 Word order ❑Multiple reference 23 Word order ❑Both A and P can be repeated if things get too long 24 Arguments in Abawiri ❑Coding properties ➢ Word order ➢ Nominal marking ❑Behavioral properties ➢ Reflexives and reciprocals ➢ Relative clauses ➢ Complement clauses ➢ Clause chaining 25 Nominal marking: topics ❑Topics nearly obligatorily marked ➢ Subject-prominent vs. topic-prominent languages (Li & Thompson 1976) ➢ “Thematization” in Papuan languages (Heeschen 1998, de Vries 2006) ➢ Iau analyzed as primarily “topic-comment” (Bateman 1982) 26 Nominal marking: topics ❑NP topics: S, A, P 27 Nominal marking: topics ❑Clausal topics and Tail-Head Linkage 28 Nominal marking: topics ❑Multiple topics: NPs 29 Nominal marking: topics ❑Multiple topics: clauses 30 Nominal marking: topics ❑Both A and P can be marked with bo 31 Nominal marking: ɡi ❑Intransitive S ❑Transitive A 32 Nominal marking: ɡi ❑Transitive P ❑Instrument 33 Nominal marking: ɡi ❑Both A and P can be marked with ɡi 34 35 Nominal marking: ɡi 36 Nominal marking: ɡi ❑ɡi occurs more frequently: ➢ With discourse-new referents ➢ When there is high referential density leading to higher probability of referential conflict ➢ With instruments ➢ With A in second position because of an inverse animacy relationship between A and P 37 Arguments in Abawiri ❑Coding properties ➢ Word order ➢ Nominal marking ❑Behavioral properties ➢ Relative clauses ➢ Clause chaining ➢ Reflexives and reciprocals ➢ Complement clauses 38 Relative clauses 39 Relative clauses ❑Intransitive S ❑Transitive A 40 Relative clauses ❑Transitive P 41 Relative clauses ❑Location 42 Arguments in Abawiri ❑Coding properties ➢ Word order ➢ Nominal marking ❑Behavioral properties ➢ Relative clauses ➢ Clause chaining ➢ Reflexives and reciprocals ➢ Complement clauses 43 Clause chaining ❑No switch-reference marking ❑Zero anaphora between chained clauses based on activation status (Chafe 1976; 1994; Givón 2001) ➢ Higher activation → greater chance of zero • Main protagonist most commonly gets zero • Speech with low referential density has more zeros • Semantic agents and pragmatic topics are more frequently zero 44 45 Conclusion FORMAL CATEGORY VARIATION BASED ON ❑Coding properties ➢ Word order ➢ Animacy and information structure ➢ Nominal marking ➢ Topic-comment ❑Behavioral properties ➢ Relative clauses ➢ Complex, not correlated with GRs ➢ Clause chaining ➢ Activation status ➢ Complement clauses ➢ Valency of individual verbs (cognition) ➢ Reflexives and reciprocals ➢ Coreferential with A or S: Subject 46 Conclusion ❑How relevant are grammatical relations among Papuan languages more generally? ➢ No discernible grammatical relations • Abawiri • Iau ➢ Minimal grammatical relations • Haruai (Comrie 1991) 47 [email protected] This research was funded in part by grants from the Endangered Language Fundand the UCSB Graduate Division. 48 References Bateman, Janet. 1982. 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Language (Phonological Analysis) 94(4). e266– e292. doi:10.1353/lan.2018.0067. 49 Arguments in Abawiri ❑Coding properties ➢ Word order ➢ Nominal marking ❑Behavioral properties ➢ Relative clauses ➢ Clause chaining ➢ Reflexives and reciprocals ➢ Complement clauses 50 Reflexives ❑Two-argument clause with reflexive-suffixed pronoun ➢ A and coreferential P ➢ A and coreferential possessor of P 51 Reciprocals ❑Two-argument clauses with lexical reciprocal are ➢ A and coreferential P ➢ A and coreferential benefactive 52 Arguments in Abawiri ❑Coding properties ➢ Word order ➢ Nominal marking ❑Behavioral properties ➢ Relative clauses ➢ Clause chaining ➢ Reflexives and reciprocals ➢ Complement clauses 53 Complement clauses ❑Verbs of cognition and perception 54 Complement clauses ❑Rarely, verbs of speaking also have clausal complements 55 Complementation: other strategies ❑More commonly, the topic construction can have a complementation-like function: 56.