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Referential hierarchies: A new look at some historical and typological patterns
Abstract
This paper proposes a diachronic typology for the various patterns that have been referred to as Hierarchical Alignment or Inverse Alignment. Previous typological studies have tried to explain such patterns as grammatical reflections of a universal Referential Hierarchy, in which first person outranks second person outranks third person and humans outrank other animates outrank inanimates. However, our study shows that most of the formal properties of hierarchy-sensitive constructions are essentially predictable from their historical sources. We have identified three sources for hierarchical person marking, three for direction marking, two for obviative case marking, and one for hierarchical constituent ordering. These sources suggest that there is more than one explanation for hierarchical alignment: one is consistent with Givón’s claim that hierarchical patterns are a grammaticalization of generic topicality; another is consistent with DeLancey’s claim that hierarchies reflect the deictic distinction between present (1/2) and distant (3) participants; another is simply a new manifestation of a common asymmetrical pattern, the use of zero marking for third persons. More importantly, the evolution of hierarchical grammatical patterns does not reflect a consistent universal ranking of participants – at least in those cases where we can see (or infer) historical stages in the evolution of these properties, different historical stages appear to reflect different hierarchical rankings of participants, especially first and second person. This leads us to conclude that the diversity of hierarchical patterns is an artifact of grammatical change, and that in general, the presence of hierarchical patterns in synchronic grammars is not somehow conditioned by some more general universal hierarchy.
... While hierarchy effects in typology (and in Sahaptin) are often sensitive to phenomena like definiteness, animacy, or number of either the A or O of a transitive clause, 2 the interactions between Speech Act Participants (first and second person, abbreviated SAP) and third person (3) are arguably the domains in which the most pervasive hierarchical effects are attested cross-linguistically (cf. DeLancey 1981;Gildea & Zúñiga 2016). These interactions define four quadrants, as illustrated in Figure When a language has multiple main clause constructions that are conditioned by these quadrants, the language in question is often described as having hierarchical alignment (Nichols 1992;Siewierska 2004), or inverse alignment (Gildea 1994). ...
... Nez Perce verbal person prefixes Table 6, there are two sets of cells where one might identify a hierarchy: one is in the occurrence of the cislocative morpheme -m for all cases of 2A→1Oin fact, Zúñiga (2006: 166, following Rude 1991 explicitly calls this "a local direction marker" (cf. also § 2.2 of Gildea & Zúñiga 2016). The second is in the nonlocal domain, where the 3A and 3O prefixes are in complementary distribution in a single prefix slot -this means that when both A and O are third person, there is a competition to see which grammatical role (or some other category of information) predicts which core argument "wins" that slot. ...
... In this scenario, without the need of an independent functional motivation, simple reduction in use (Sahaptin) or loss (Nez Perce) of the 3pl enclitic would generate the clean hierarchical pattern predicted by the hierarchy: SAP is indexed in enclitics and third person on the verb. 28 This would be a variant of the mechanism that created the hierarchical indexation system in Reyesano (Guillaume this volume), and the other examples found in Gildea & Zúñiga (2016). ...
Sahaptin and Nez Perce, the two languages of the Sahaptian family, have both been cited as case studies in the typological literature on hierarchical patterns in main clause grammar. Nez Perce has ergative case marking on only third person singular transitive subjects, plus a minor pattern of indexation of SAP participants via (rarely occurring) second position enclitics. Sahaptin has one of the more complex hierarchical systems ever described, with SAP indexation via enclitics, third person indexation on verbs, differential object marking, an inverse verbal direction prefix, and two distinct ergative suffixes, each restricted to a subset of third person singular transitive subjects (one when objects are SAP, the other when objects are third person). This paper begins by reviewing, evaluating, and occasionally expanding on existing knowledge: we summarize the hierarchical patterns in Sahaptian and characterize each distinct construction. Then we compare relevant Sahaptin morphemes with cognates in Nez Perce, and review their reconstruction to Proto-Sahaptian. The primary contribution of this paper is organizing the morphemes (and their accompanying hierarchical patterns) in both languages into cognate constructions, then reconstructing each to its Proto-Sahaptian origins. We conclude by reviewing and evaluating proposals for Pre-Proto-Sahaptian developments claimed to explain the origins of hierarchical patterns that reconstruct to Proto-Sahaptian. The mechanisms we identify as having created the Sahaptian hierarchical effects are diverse, some motivated and others not, some arising from internal sources, others arguably from contact.
... With respect to diachrony, recent studies have shown that hierarchical systems may have various sources unrelated to a person hierarchy per se (Cristofaro 2013, Gildea & Zúñiga 2016. These sources can be the reanalysis of deictic verbal morphology, the reanalysis of third-person forms, a shift from passive to inverse, a shift from cleft constructions to hierarchical alignment, or a change in word order. ...
... . The genesis of the Proto-Tupi-Guarani indexing system Several authors have recently discussed the genesis of hierarchical indexing systems (Cristofaro 2013, Gildea & Zúñiga 2016. In this domain, the genesis of the Proto-Tupi-Guarani system has not yet been satisfactorily explained (Gildea 2002). ...
Tupi-Guarani languages are supposedly perfect examples of hierarchical indexing systems, where the relative ranking of A and P on the 1 > 2 > 3 person hierarchy determines the selection of the person markers. This chapter questions the relevance of the person hierarchy as a synchronic and diachronic explanation for such systems, with data from 28 languages. First, only SAP > 3 can really be posited in the actual languages, and second, it explains only part of the facts that it is supposed to account for in Proto-Tupi-Guarani. The chapter ends by suggesting that these systems do not result from the person hierarchy as a functional motivation. Instead, they may result from grammaticalization of pronominal paradigms lacking third-person forms.
... The proposed reconstruction of the Reyesano hierarchical pattern provides an interesting contribution to the on-going theoretical debate around the functional motivations for the cross-linguistic recurring role of the SAP>3 hierarchy and, more generally, the 1 > 2 > 3 proper > 3 human > 3 animate > 3 inanimate 'nominal' hierarchy (Dixon 1994), in the working of several grammatical systems (e.g., person agreement, direct-inverse marking, case marking, etc.). Contrary to the traditional view that the person (or nominal) hierarchy would be a universal of human language reflecting a more general principal of human cognition, several recent typological work, such as Cristofaro (2013) or Gildea and Zúñiga (2016), have challenged this view, arguing that it is not supported by the diachronic evidence. They show that the source morphemes and/or constructions that lead to hierarchical effects are not unique but fairly heterogeneous, and that the diachronic changes that affect these source morphemes and/or constructions to eventually lead to grammatical systems with hierarchical effects typically do not involve the intervention of a person hierarchy. ...
... In this language, the SAP>3 hierarchical effect is the accidental result of the fact that pre-Reyesano (and Proto-Takanan) had a verbal suffix for indexing 3rd person arguments in A function, with the historical consequence that the language never used 3rd person pronouns in P2 and never grammaticalized 3rd person prefixes. In Gildea and Zúñiga's (2016) typology of sources for hierarchical (and inverse) systems, the Reyesano pattern can be placed within the 'zero 3rd person forms' source type (the other source types being passive constructions, deictic verbal morphology, and cleft constructions). As for the 2>1 hierarchical effect, I argued that it is also the accidental result of a well-known sociopragmatic avoidance strategy, characteristic of local configurations, which prevented speakers from using 1st person pronouns in P2 in transitive. ...
This paper reconstructs the history of a set of innovated 1st and 2nd person verbal prefixes in Reyesano which manifest the phenomenon of 'hierarchical agreement' in transitive clauses, according to a 2>1>3 hierarchy. I argue that these prefixes come from independent ergative-absolutive pronouns which first became case-neutral enclitics in 2nd position in main clauses and then verb prefixes. And I show that the hierarchical effects that the prefixes manifest in synchrony have nothing to do with the working of a hierarchy during the grammaticalization process. In doing so, the paper contributes to the growing body of diachronic evidence against the idea that the person hierarchy is a universal of human language reflecting a more general principal of human cognition.
... Languages differ in which distinctions within the animacy hierarchy are relevant to grammatical distinctions. Grammatical structures that are sensitive to animacy distinctions include case and number marking, bound person marking ("agreement"), relativization, etc. (Silverstein 1976;Keenan and Comrie 1977;Comrie 1989;Cristofaro 2013;Gildea and Zúñiga 2016, and many others). Constructions in many languages are sensitive to some subset of the following scale: 1st person > 2nd person > 3rd person humans > animals > inanimates. ...
While there is a substantial literature on topic in discourse, the varying terminology and approaches in the literature make it difficult for linguists to describe structures in individual languages that relate to discourse topic. This book seeks to fill the gap by providing a straightforward and easy-to-access volume, useful as both an initial guide and a reference for linguists investigating discourse topic. Speakers of different languages encode discourse topic in different ways, including switch-reference markers, distinct word orders, cleft constructions, absence of overt reference, and more. The volume focuses on the grammatical correlates of discourse topic – that is, how topic shows up in the grammars of individual languages. This introductory chapter provides an overview of the literature on discourse topic, the cognitive and interactional motivations for discourse topic, and related phenomena such as animacy, referential continuity, discourse schemas, and the concepts related to information structure. A meth
... I am at present unacquainted withGildea & Haude (2011) other than throughGildea & Haude (2021), which resumes co-authored (2011). As forGildea & Zúñiga (2016), such ''key elements'' appear to consist in posing the oriented nominalizers as the diachonic precursors of the direction suffixes. Now, the reason why the patient-oriented nominalization is syntactically basic, and how this fact impinges upon the singular mapping between functional and formal hierarchies the crux of the matter in accounting for the Movima case does not seem to have been a real issue in either contribution, contrary toQueixalós's (2013: 69 ff.). ...
... The inverse is deictic in origin, deriving from the cislocative marker pʰ-~pʰʌ 0 -. Cislocatives are a common source for inverse markers (see Gildea and Zúñiga 2016). Muklom has two other homophonous markers, the ingressive and the adhortative, which derive from the same source. ...
... The diachrony of hierarchically conditioned alignment is less well understood due to the scarcity of historical data for most languages that display such patterns. Nevertheless, there appears to be little counter-evidence for some hypotheses as to their disparate origins (Gildea & Zúñiga 2016): person-sensitivization of erstwhile passives due to a preference for SAP subjects (Wakashan, Chimakuan, Salishan, Tanoan; perhaps also Algonquian); reanalysis of deictic verbal morphology as inverse markers (Sahaptian, Tibeto-Burman, South-Central Dravidian); reanalysis of zero 3A-forms as inverse verbs (Cariban, Tupí-Guaraní); and, possibly, the division of labor of two erstwhile cleft constructions that leads to direct and inverse clauses (Movima). 23 ...
With morphological and syntactic argument properties, some arguments behave alike (i.e., they align with each other) while others do not. Such alignment patterns have received significant attention in the literature, but claims as to their origin and development are sometimes difficult to assess, due to scant actual data. This paper surveys the main hypotheses proposed in early and recent work on the topic, focusing on alignment type change and on major alignment types (ergativity, accusativity, and split intransitivity) of morphological properties, with some remarks on syntactic properties. The survey shows that alignment type change may often occur when clauses denoting low transitivity are reanalyzed as clauses of either higher or lower syntactic valency, sometimes even introducing a partition in the verbal lexicon (occasionally being conditioned by semantic, pragmatic, or structural factors), or are extended from low‐transitivity predicates to most bivalent predicates. Lastly, alignment type change can be either functionally motivated or not.
... Independently, there is reasonably strong evidence for an internal reconstruction in which all verbal predicates arise etymologically from cleft constructions (cf. Gildea & Haude 2011; reiterated with much less detail in Gildea & Zúñiga 2016), which are themselves a subtype of identification predicate. As such, it could be argued that Movima is a case in which the original identification predicate construction has taken over the full range of nonverbal predication strategies and the entire domain of verbal predication as well. ...
This volume explores typological variation within nonverbal predication in Amazonian languages. Using abundant data, generally from original and extensive fieldwork on under-described languages, it presents a far more detailed picture of nonverbal predication constructions than previously published grammatical descriptions. On the one hand, it addresses the fact that current typologies of nonverbal predication are less developed than those of verbal predication; on the other, it provides a wealth of new data and analyses of Amazonian languages, which are still poorly represented in existing typologies. Several contributions offer historical insights, either reconstructing the sources of innovative nonverbal predicate constructions, or describing diachronic pathways by which constructions used for nonverbal predication spread to other functions in the grammar. The introduction provides a modern typological overview, and also proposes a new diachronic typology to explain how distinct types of nonverbal predication arise.
... For example, in line with previous proposals (Mithun 1991b;Cristofaro 2013;Gildea and Zúñiga 2016; see also Griffith, Mithun, this volume), Rose argues that the indexation patterns found in Tupi-Guarani languages can be explained by the original absence of third person pronouns. Indexation is usually the result of the affixation of independent pronouns, and many languages only have first and second person pronouns. ...
Typological hierarchies are widely perceived as one of the most important results of research on language universals and linguistic diversity. Explanations for typological hierarchies, however, are usually based on the synchronic properties of the patterns described by individual hierarchies, not the actual diachronic processes that give rise to these patterns cross-linguistically. This book aims to explore in what ways the investigation of such processes can further our understanding of typological hierarchies. To this end, diachronic evidence about the origins of several phenomena described by typological hierarchies is discussed for several languages by a number of leading scholars in typology, historical linguistics, and language documentation. This evidence suggests a rethinking of possible explanations for typological hierarchies, as well as the very notion of typological universals in general. For this reason, the book will be of interest not only to the broad typological community, but also historical linguists, cognitive linguists, and psycholinguists.
... The only relatively robust evidence we find is for the ranking of first person over third person in Kiranti, but this evidence is limited to one method and one tense paradigm and this makes it unlikely to reflect the effects of an underlying principle that would generally constrain diachrony towards hierarchical agreement in the family. This is consistent with the findings by Gildea & Zúñiga (2016), who show that the evolution of apparent hierarchy effects in synchronic grammars follows a disparate set of reconstructable pathways and that there is no signal of a general hierarchy principle that would have shaped these pathways. ...
Apart from common cases of differential argument marking, referential hierarchies affect argument marking in two ways: (a) through hierarchical marking, where markers compete for a slot and the competition is resolved by a hierarchy, and (b) through co-argument sensitivity, where the marking of one argument depends on the properties of its co-argument. Here we show that while co-argument sensitivity cannot be analyzed in terms of hierarchical marking, hierarchical marking can be analyzed in terms of co-argument sensitivity. Once hierarchical effects on marking are analyzed in terms of co-argument sensitivity, it becomes possible to examine alignment patterns relative to referential categories in exactly the same way as one can examine alignment patterns relative to referential categories in cases of differential argument marking and indeed any other condition on alignment (such as tense or clause type). As a result, instances of hierarchical marking of any kind turn out not to present a special case in the typology of alignment, and there is no need for positing an additional non-basic alignment type such as “hierarchical alignment”. While hierarchies are not needed for descriptive and comparative purposes, we also cast doubt on their relevance in diachrony: examining two families for which hierarchical agreement has been postulated, Algonquian and Kiranti, we find only weak and very limited statistical evidence for agreement paradigms to have been shaped by a principled ranking of person categories.
Las dos narraciones introducidas aquí versan sobre la interacción que tienen los protagonistas con el diablo. La primera fue narrada por Antonino Gonz.áez Gutiérrez. En ella se cuenta la historia de un hombre que se encuentra con un bebé llorando a la orilla del camino, a quien recoge y monta en su caballo. En el camino, el protagonista se percata que el supuesto bebé es el mismo diablo. Este encuentro produce que el jinete se trastorne hasta convertirse en un hombre malvado. La segunda narración, contada por Primitivo González Gutiérrez, narra la historia de la edificación de la iglesiade la cabecera municipal de Jitotol, Chiapas. Para hacer esa edificación, los santos encargados de dirigir la obra contrataron a un individuo que se comprometió en terminar la edificación de la iglesia en una sola noche. La persona contratada resultó ser un diablo que trajo como trabajadores a entidades de vida nocturna en forma de aves que estuvieron a punto de terminar el trabajo en una sola noche. Para que no se terminara la obra en el tiempo comprometido por el diablo, los santos despertaron a los gallos del pueblo para simular que poco después de media noche ya era el amanecer.
Middle voice systems are characterized by the distribution of a middle marker over two macro-classes of verbs: oppositional and non-oppositional verbs. In diachronic studies, it has been proposed that the historical link between the two groups is unidirectional, with middle marking spreading from oppositional to non-oppositional verbs. In this paper, we challenge this assumption and discuss two case studies, one from Anatolian and one from Paman languages that show the opposite development, that is, from non-oppositional to oppositional. In both cases, we argue, constructions that originally had a lexically determined distribution develop grammatical functions connected with valency reduction.
This entry describes the role of prominence hierarchies in agreement, focusing on the Algonquian language Menominee (ISO mez). Thorough consideration of the data shows that there are four hierarchies rather than just one, each corresponding to a different affix slot. A brief look at other Algonquian languages shows that additional configurations of the hierarchy exist. Reasons why such hierarchies are usually rejected in certain kinds of formal approaches are also explored, as well as the kinds of generalizations they do capture. The entry concludes that despite at least three decades of attempts to account for these generalizations without reference to hierarchies, the problem still awaits an elegant and definitive solution.
This work explores the coupling of person-split nominative objects with anomalous subjects (Jahnsson’s Rule (JR), Person-Case Constraint (PCC)). In Breton, split-nominative objects spread from an Icelandic-like combination with oblique subjects of unaccusatives, to Finnish-like combinations with subjects of transitives in constructions like the imperative, and then retreated piecewise. These changes admit of externalist sources, such as frequency entrenchment and analogy over clitic forms, but are bounded by persistent coupling of split-nominative objects with anomalous subjects, and disfavour external sources for it like ambiguity avoidance. An approach is set out through constraints on φ-dependencies, their relationship to case and licensing, and their interaction with grammaticalisable partial φ-specification, building on other work on JR/PCC. The anomalies of the restricting subject are analysed as person-only specification, and extended from quirky obliques to pronouns minimal in absence of number + n/N: imperative pro and human impersonals. The ineffability or accusative of the restricted persons is analysed through the integration of dependent case into Φ/Case theory but apparent syntactic variation is modelled through externalisation.
This paper offers a synchronic and diachronic analysis of the diverse forms in Old Latin (third–second century BCE) that can be connected to Proto-Indo-European (PIE) *s(w)e-: se, sibi, sum, sam, sos, sas, sis, ipse. We classify our sample according to different grammatical, semantic, and pragmatic values, such as the construction type, animacy, and topicality of their referents. Among the results, we show that se and sibi are not primarily used as reflexives and that they share remarkably similar grammatical, semantic, and pragmatic features with the rest of the studied forms. These findings lead us to support the hypothesis of a single etymological origin in the PIE *s- + vowel (*sV) root and to further claim that this root was not a reflexive or a simple anaphoric marker, but a demonstrative pronoun that ranked high in a referential hierarchy.
In this introduction we propose an agenda for working towards a diachronic typology of individual person markers. Rather than tracking the development of entire paradigms, our goal is to arrive at a better understanding of the diachronic pathways of those source constructions that end up as a conventionalized means of marking a particular person or person scenario, i.e. the specific (di)transitive person configuration. We discuss how this diachronic typology will need to consider certain types, or characteristics, of person markers, such as free vs. bound forms; SAP vs. 3rd person forms; or the status of person scenario markers. With respect to the source constructions and pathways, it is useful to distinguish between category-internal (e.g., person shift) and category-external (e.g., impersonal constructions) sources that give rise to person forms. We further offer a brief summary of the types of motivations that have been argued to lie behind the observed changes. Other issues of interest involve the stability vs. susceptibility for change as well as the optionality and synchronic variation of person forms, which may precede diachronic change.
This paper discusses the emergence and demise of verbal person-number indexes on the basis of a sample of 310 languages. First, qualitative evidence is provided to show that there are different ways in which indexes may emerge, and that independent anaphoric pronouns are not the only possible source. Second, quantitative evidence is provided against the claim that indexes tend to demise via phonological attrition in the course of time. A considerable degree of demise is not a universally likely process, but rather a major restructuring process that requires additional – areal – triggers in order to come about. Thus, 92% of the languages of my sample do not show any strong tendency toward losing their indexes, and the degree of demise of their indexes is persistently low when compared to the proto-forms. This is despite the fact that indexes constantly change over time, and the phonetic shape found in the proto-languages is never faithfully preserved in the modern languages. Finally, those few languages that exhibit a relatively high degree of demise are not randomly distributed across the world, but are clustered in the following areas: Northwestern Europe, Eastern South East Asia with Oceania and, possibly, Mid Africa as well Northern South America.
Alignment patterns in the Eastern varieties of modern Aramaic varieties are generally said to originate in an ergative source construction based on the so-called ‘passive’ participle qṭīl - ‘killed’ and the preposition l - where ergative person markers gradually extended to all intransitive predicates. While various source constructions have been suggested, this article demonstrates that most explanatory power and scope for the complex historical background of the alignment microvariation in Neo-Aramaic is offered by the typology of resultatives. There was instability from the beginning due to the versatile nature of resultatives and the increasing polyfunctionality of the preposition l -. This, in turn, indicates that the suggested source constructions for ergative alignment need not be mutually exclusive. Moreover, this also points to ergativity as merely one among several outcomes rather than the original source.
Previous theoretical discussion about inverse systems has largely revolved around the synchronic and diachronic relationship between the inverse and the passive. In contrast, this study argues for the antipassive origins of two inverse constructions in Monsang (Trans-Himalayan), which are used for 3→SAP and 2→1 scenarios. This questions central assumptions from previous accounts about the functional motivation underlying inverse systems, and suggests that strategies of avoiding overt reference may be at play. The diachronic pathway proposed here connects the traditional inverse with other special marking patterns that involve speech act participant objects, in particular the ‘pseudo-inverse’ construction of innovative first person object indexation.
Cognitive linguists and psychologists have often argued that language is best understood as an association network; however, while the network view of language has had a significant impact on the study of morphology and lexical semantics, it is only recently that researchers have taken an explicit network approach to the study of syntax. This innovative study presents a dynamic
network model of grammar in which all aspects of linguistic structure, including core concepts of syntax (e.g., phrase structure, word classes, grammatical relations), are analyzed in terms of associative connections between different types of linguistic elements. These associations are shaped by domain-general learning processes that are operative in language use and sensitive to frequency of occurrence. Drawing on research from usage-based linguistics and cognitive psychology, the book provides an overview of frequency effects in grammar and analyzes these effects within the framework of a dynamic network model.
In typology, rara provide valuable tests for theoretical hypotheses. Here I consider the rarum of PERSON inflection in Kayardild, which has only two surface contrasts but is found across all words in complementized subordinate clauses. I introduce a general schema for reasoning about the diachronic emergence of rara, and reconstruct the evolution of Kayardild subordinate PERSON agreement, from an earlier state in which a main-clause inverse system was coupled to a system of complementizing CASE agreement. Serendipitously, the same synchronic facts have been analysed twice earlier without the benefit of the full diachronic backstory, and so present a retrospective case study in what diachrony offers for the analysis of rara, structures which by definition are difficult to contextualize using synchronic typology alone. I argue that since rara are so valuable for the testing of typological theories, and since diachrony may offer the only source of convincing explanation for them, it follows that typological science will need to refer to diachrony for the successful development of theory. It cannot rely on synchrony alone.
Capitalizing on the by now widely accepted idea of the construction-specific and language-specific nature of grammatical relations, the editors of the volume developed a modern framework for systematically capturing all sorts of variations in grammatical relations. The central concepts of this framework are the notions of argument role and its referential properties, argument selector, as well as various conditions on argument selections. The contributors of the volume applied this framework in their descriptions of grammatical relations in individual languages and discussed its limitations and advantages. This resulted in a coherent description of grammatical relations in thirteen genealogically and geographically diverse languages based on original and extensive fieldwork on under-described languages. The volume presents a far more detailed picture of the diversity of argument selectors and effects of predicates, referential properties of arguments, as well as of various clausal conditions on grammatical relations than previously published grammatical descriptions.
There are three distinct transitive constructions in four Coast Salish languages, Squamish, Halkomelem, Klallam and Lushootseed. In the V-tr construction, both A and P are unmarked for case; in the V-mid construction (often considered antipassive), A is unmarked and P marked; in the V-tr-mid construction (often considered passive), P is unmarked and A marked. Individually, none of these constructions is a hierarchical system, but in combination, asymmetries in their distribution are well on the way to creating a person-based hierarchical system. This paper discusses the diachronic development of each of these constructions, then describes their differential distribution into the four functional domains: local (SAP A → SAP P), direct (SAP → 3P), nonlocal (3A → 3P), and inverse (3A → SAP P). While the distribution is not identical in each of the languages, the trend is clear: the etymologically passive V-tr-mid construction cannot occur in the direct domain and has become the pragmatically unmarked construction in the inverse domain, whereas the etymologically antipassive V-mid construction cannot occur in the inverse domain. While it only occurs in the direct and nonlocal domains, even there it is rare, giving the appearance that its function is still that of an antipassive. In combination, the result is that whenever the two core arguments of a clause are an SAP and a third person, regardless of grammatical role the SAP participant is always an unmarked core argument, whereas the third person is most often marked, leading to a situation where the oblique case in these languages is beginning to resemble the obviative case-marker of inverse languages.
A critical assessment of the ongoing lack of a theoretical definition to validate the subject properties identified in Keenan's (1976) paper, followed by the proposal that we can identify the most critical subject properties via certain patterns of historical change.
This unique collection of articles in honor of Marianne Mithun represents the very latest in research on language contact and language change in the Indigenous languages of the Americas. The book aims to provide new theoretical and empirical insights into how and why languages change, especially with regard to contact phenomena in languages of North America, Meso-America and South America. The individual chapters cover a broad range of topics, including sound change, morphosyntactic change, lexical semantics, grammaticalization, language endangerment, and discourse-pragmatic change. With chapters from distinguished scholars and talented newcomers alike, this book will be welcomed by anyone with an interest in internally- and externally-motivated language change.
This paper reconstructs the history of a set of innovated 1st and 2nd person verbal prefixes in Reyesano which manifest the phenomenon of 'hierarchical agreement' in transitive clauses, according to a 2>1>3 hierarchy. I argue that these prefixes come from independent ergative-absolutive pronouns which first became case-neutral enclitics in 2nd position in main clauses and then verb prefixes. And I show that the hierarchical effects that the prefixes manifest in synchrony have nothing to do with the working of a hierarchy during the grammaticalization process. In doing so, the paper contributes to the growing body of diachronic evidence against the idea that the person hierarchy is a universal of human language reflecting a more general principal of human cognition.
This volume presents a state-of-the-art survey of synchronic and diachronic dimensions of Ergativity in the Indo-Aryan language family. It contains an introduction drawing on the most important recent typological and theoretical contributions to this field, plus seven papers about the origin, development and distribution of ergative alignment in ancient and modern Indo-Aryan languages written by well-established expert authors. The articles provide detailed explorations of language-specific synchronic systems or patterns of change, and large-scale studies of the distribution of ergative morphosyntax across the Indo-Aryan languages. The papers have a typological-functional approach and are based on thorough fieldwork experience and/or philological investigation. As the Indo-Aryan language family has played a paramount role in recent theories of Ergativity and of alignment typology and change, this volume is highly relevant to experts working on these languages and to scholars interested in grammatical relations and it will figure in all future debates in these fields
This paper is an investigation of morphological and syntactic ergativity in Cavineña (Tacanan, Bolivia). Cavineña has a straightforward and consistent ergative/absolutive case-marking system, but unlike other Tacanan languages, Cavineña also has a system of pronominal enclitics in second position in the clause. This system displays a number of intricacies which led previous studies to analyze Cavineña as a person-based split-ergative language. However, it is shown here that the so-called “ergative split” has a morphophonological basis rather than a morphosyntactic one. The second part of the paper searches for ergativity at the level of complex sentences by looking at coreference restrictions between a main clause and a number of dependent clause types. However, none of the coreference constraints investigated work ergatively, but rather according to an S/A pivot or without being sensitive to the grammatical function of the arguments.
The papers in this volume can be grouped into two broad, overlapping classes: those dealing primarily with case and those dealing primarily with grammatical relations. With regard to case, topics include descriptions of the case systems of two Caucasian languages, the problems of determining how many cases Russian has and whether Hungarian has a case system at all, the issue of case-combining, the retention of the dative in Swedish dialects, and genitive objects in the languages of Europe. With regard to grammatical relations, topics include the order of obliques in OV and VO languages, the effects of the referential hierarchy on the distribution of grammatical relations, the problem of whether the passive requires a subject category, the relation between subjecthood and definiteness, and the issue of how the loss of case and aspectual systems triggers the use of compensatory mechanisms in heritage Russian.
The five Tacanan languages (Amazonian Bolivia and Peru), Araona, Cavineña, Ese Ejja, Reyesano and Tacana, have a conspicuously similar verbal suffix -ta (or -ka in one dialect of Ese Ejja). Depending on the language and the transitivity of the verb stem it attaches to, this suffix is alternatively used to refer to a third person plural S argument or a third person singular or plural A argument, or to mark a passive derivation. In this paper, I argue that the suffixes are all historically related, and that they all come from a single source, a third person plural suffix * -ta. I also suggest that this marker could have originated in a third person plural independent pronoun that I reconstruct as **tuna.
In this paper, we undertake the first systematic exploration of pan-Cariban ablaut, a pattern of stem-initial vowel alternation in the paradigm of possessed nouns, inflected verbs, and inflected postpositions. We identify several related, but distinct, ablaut patterns and reconstruct them to sources in two Proto-Carib morphemes, *i- ‘3’ and *j- ‘Relational Prefix’. This then leads us to ervise prior reconstructions of certain personmarking prefixes in Proto-Carib, as well as many vowel-initial lexical items, a few *j- initial lexical items, and two Proto-Carib derivational morphemes. A number of these reconstructions appear to support prior claims of distant genetic relationship between the Cariban and Tupian families.
The Algonquian prominence hierarchy, usually characterized as 2 > 1 > 3, is often cited as a counterexample to claims that 1st person outranks 2nd universally. Data from five Algonquian languages show that rankings 1 > 2, 2 > 1, and 1 Combining double low line 2 are actually found, depending on the affix position and language, leading to the conclusion that the hierarchy should be SAP > 3. We also find two distinct models of hierarchy: a scalar model upon which a transition between paradigms or categories of affixes is made at various points by different languages, and a relational model which requires an evaluation of the relative ranking of two arguments on a scale, with the conclusion leading to a choice between markers within a single paradigm.
The aim of the present paper is to discuss for the first time the peculiar system of person marking in Reyesano, an Amazonian language from northern Bolivia, and to contribute to the general typology of argument marking. Person marking in Reyesano is quite unusual. First, it is discontinuous, involving a prefix slot for the indexation of first and second persons and a suffix slot for the indexation of third persons. Second, the use of the person markers in the slots is conditioned by the complex interaction of distinct factors, involving the grammatical function of the participants (S, A and O), their ranking on a person hierarchy (2>1>3) and finally, their number (singular vs. plural).
This book shows how to combine grammaticalization theory with the comparative method to reconstruct the grammar of Proto-Languages. To showcase the methodology, seven morphosyntactically distinct verbal systems in the Cariban family--three ergative, three nominative, and one inverse--are reconstructed. Spike Gildea presents detailed data in his reconstruction of Proto-Carib verbal and nominal morphologies. The inverse verbal system reconstructs to Proto-Carib; the other six are innovative, and reconstruct to Proto-Carib nonfinite source-constructions.
This book proposes a notion of inverse that differs from two widespread positions found in descriptive and typological studies (one of them restrictive and structure-oriented, the other broad and function-centered). This third stance put forward here takes both grammar and pragmatic functions into account, but it also relates the opposition between direct and inverse verbs and clauses to an opposition between deictic values, thereby achieving two advantageous goals: it meaningfully circumvents one of the usual analytic dilemmas, namely whether a given construction is passive or inverse, and it refines our understanding of the cross-linguistic typology of inversion. This framework is applied to the description of the morphosyntax of eleven Amerindian languages (Algonquian: Plains Cree, Miami-Illinois, Ojibwa; Kutenai; Sahaptian: Sahaptin, Nez Perce; Kiowa-Tanoan: Arizona Tewa, PicurÃs, Southern Tiwa, Kiowa; Mapudungun).
In Movima (unclassified, lowland Bolivia), the arguments of a transitive clause are encoded according to the position of their referents in an indexability hierarchy. The argument whose referent is lower in this hierarchy is encoded in the same way as the sole argument of an intransitive clause. This argument, furthermore, is syntactically privileged: it can be relativized and topicalized, while for the argument with the higher-ranking referent to undergo one of these processes, a detransitivizing voice operation is used. Semantic role assignment is carried out by direct and inverse marking on the predicate. Movima represents a hitherto undescribed case of hierarchical alignment, in which an indexability hierarchy has direct impact on syntax and the less salient noun phrase has the privileged syntactic status.
In this major new work Alice Harris and Lyle Campbell set out to establish a general framework for the investigation of linguistic change. Systematic cross-linguistic comparison of syntactic change across a wide variety of languages is used to construct hypotheses about the universals and limits of language change more generally. In particular, the authors seek to move closer towards describing the range of causes of syntactic change to develop an understanding of the mechanisms of syntactic change, and to provide an understanding of why some languages undergo certain changes and not others. The authors draw on languages as diverse as Pipil and French, Georgian and Estonian, and the data presented is one of the book's great strengths. Rigor and precision are combined here with a great breadth of scholarship to produce a unique resource for the study of linguistic change, which will be of use to scholars and students alike.
L'A. examine la parente genetique du molala, qui etait autrefois parle dans les montagnes des Cascades en Oregon, aux Etats-Unis, et qui a disparu depuis 1958, c'est-a-dire depuis la mort de Fred Yelkes, le dernier locuteur connu. L'A. presente ici des donnees phonologiques, morphologiques et lexicales prouvant que le molala est relie au klamath et au sahaptin et discute egalement des possibles relations entre le molala et le cayuse et entre le penutia du Plateau et le penutia de Californie
Nominative/absolutive case and verb agreement are, in many languages, indicators of a category which is here called VIEWPOINT: the perspective from which the speaker describes the event. The order of NP constituents in a sentence encodes ATTENTION FLOW, which is the order in which the speaker expects the hearer to attend to them. Split ergative case-marking patterns are shown to reflect conflicts between the most natural viewpoint and attention-flow assignments. It is argued that the characterization and grammatical marking of an event as first-hand or inferred knowledge for a speaker, and as intentional or inadvertent for an actor, can be described in terms of whether the entire event or only its terminal phase is directly accessible to the conscious mind of the speaker and the actor, respectively; and that these categories can also be described in terms of attention flow and viewpoint.
Probabilistic models of corpus data can be used to predict higher-level grammatical choices and to quantify changes in such choices across different speaker groups in geographic or social space and in histori- cal time. The present study uses probabilistic models in a novel way, to measure and compare the syntactic predictive capacities of speak- ers of different varieties of the same language. The present study shows that speakers knowledge of probabilistic grammatical choices can vary across different varieties of the same language and can be de- tected psycholinguistically in the individual. Given evidence of prob- abilistic changes in the English dative alternation across varieties of English, we examined responses to the verb-argument dependencies in the English dative alternation by six different groups of American and Australian subjects in three parallel psycholinguistic experiments ∗ We thank Gabriel Recchia, Nick Romero, and Richard Futrell for assistance with data collec- tion. We gratefully acknowledge support from the Applied Cognitive Neuroscience Research Centre at Griffith University, Australia, and from Stanford University's Vice-Provost for Undergraduate Ed- ucation. Thanks also to Victor Kuperman and Anette Rosenbach for helpful comments at several stages. This material is based in part upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant Number IIS-0624345 to Stanford University for the research project "The Dynamics of Prob- abilistic Grammar" (PI Joan Bresnan). Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.
In Movima (unclassified, lowland Bolivia), the arguments of a transitive clause are basically encoded according to the position of their referents in a salience hierarchy, which includes deictic, semantic, and pragmatic levels. The participant roles of the arguments (actor or undergoer) are indicated by direct and inverse marking on the predicate. The argument whose referent is lower in the hierarchy is encoded in the same way as the single argument of intransitive clauses, and it also has a privileged syntactic status. This results in an unusual split-ergative alignment pattern: the direct construction, which is pragmatically unmarked, patterns ergatively, and the inverse construction patterns accusatively. I propose that the system can be accounted for by the syntactic similarity of nouns and verbs and the identical encoding of the possessor and the salient argument of a transitive clause. Both transitive and intransitive clauses may, therefore, have arisen from an intransitive equational construction with either a monovalent/nonpossessed or a bivalent/possessed predicate nominal.
The present paper presents in some detail evidence from selected Algonquian languages (Cree, Ojibwa, Micmac, Blackfoot and Arapaho) that strengthens the case against a putative "Algonquian person hierarchy" and shows that, at least at some levels of description, there are multiple nominal hierarchies to be taken into account. In addition, I sketch a tentative way to resolve the problem of multiple hierarchies in Plains Cree, a language that is often at the center of attention in studies dealing with hierarchical alignment and/or personal hierarchies.
The first comprehensive grammatical description of Movima, a seriously endangered, unclassified indigenous language of Amazonian Bolivia. It comprises phonology, morphology, and syntax.
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