accusative and ergative languages

Tue Jul 20 10:15:16 UTC 1999

Dear Pat and IEists,

before turning to some points addressed by Pat, let me first say
something more general: Having read most of the contributions to this
list on the subject 'accusativity- ergativity' I got /and still have)
the impression that some of these contributions exhibit a considerable
ammount of redundancy regarding the arguments already addressed. This
may be due to the fact that semtimes new 'sub-threads' are opened or
special data discussed that provoke arguments already discussed in
another context. This fact renders the contributions sometimes rather
idiosyncratic and makes it difficult to react on ALL of them in a
non-redundant way. Sometimes, important arguments are hidden in such
'sub-threads' and hence do not receive the attendance they deserve. In
order to render our discussion a bit more straight-forward I would
propose that all contributors distribute a short (general) statement
about what they think is crucial in our discussion. Perhaps it is
helpfull if people (among others) refer to the following questions:

1. What is YOUR over-all definition of 'accusativity'?
2. What is YOU over-all definition of 'ergativity'?
3. Do YOU think of ACC vs. ERG as a parallelly weighted, polar
opposition? Or do YOU propose that one of the poles is more 'natural'
than the other? If yes: What is YOUR notion of 'naturalness', and how do
YOU substantiate your claim?
4. What is the distinction between 'morphological' and 'syntactic'
accusativity/ergativity according to YOUR paradigm?
5. Which role does 'markedness' play in YOUR arguments?
6. How do YOU define 'subject'?
7. What is - in YOUR mind - the correlation between case marking and
agreement with respect to ACC/ERG?
8. How do YOU classify a language with respect to ACC/ERG in case a) AGR
not present, b) CASE is not present, c) neither AGR nor CASE are
present?
9. Wich role des word order play with respect to a) core arguments, b)
peripheric (backgrounded) arguments in diathesis?
10. Describe YOUR scenario(s) of how a) ERG paradigms emerge, b) ACC
paradigms can emerge (cf. 3)!
11. What are - in YOUR opinion - the most crucial aspects of ACC/ERG: a)
semantic (conceptual), b) syntactic (sentence organization), c)
pragmatic (discourse organization, information flow etc.)?
12. Do YOU claim that one (or more) of the parameters mentioned in (11)
are specifically relevant for either ACC or ERG (e.g., ERG _> semantic,
ACC -> pragmatic etc.)?
13. Which role do split systems play in your arguments (Split-S,
Fluid-S, Split-O, Fluid-O)?
14. How do you define ACC/ERG in polypersonal / poly-congruent languages
without case marking? (cf. (7))?
15. Which are the languages that YOU use in your arguments? Do you use
a) reference books, b) texts, c) informants?
16. Do YOU use a special theoretical frame work in order to substantiate
your claims? If yes, which one?

*********************

Now, let me finally turn to some claims by Pat:

"Patrick C. Ryan" schrieb:

Wolfgang wrote:

>> Hence, there are NO "ergative (or "accusative") languages" or
>> only, if you use this term in a very informal sense.

> Pat writes:

> In the sense you are using these, they seem to be of little value in
> describing anything.

I can only repeat what I have said in my earlier postings: ACC and ERG
are nothing by the structural (and structured) reaction to more general
principles of language based information processing. The polycentric
architecture of language systems that encode these principles allows
that the individual centers of this polycentric cluster react
differently on these principles. Here, I cannot elaborate the underlying
frame work which is labeled "Grammar of Scenes and Sceanrios" (GSS) and
documented in Schulze 1998, chapter IV, but let me briefly say that I
propose a (more or less) universal cause-effect 'vector' (C->E) itself
metaphorized from underlying figure-ground relations (F->G) to be one of
the most dominant principles of information processing. This vector can
be weighted which leads to a continnum (here shortened) C->0(e) C->e >
C->E > c->E > 0(c)->E (capitals represent heavy domains, small letters
represent light domains). An ACC strategy would be to behave in a C->e
sense, an ERG strategy would infer c->E. Note that these vector
representations are NOT (in themselves) language specific or sensitive
for specuial (linguistic) categories! Different categories may BEHAVE
differently with respect to this continuum, regardless their own
architectural make-up. ANYTHING in a language system may be sensitive
for the AEC (accusative ergative continuum) as long as it is relevant
for encoding the cause-effect vector (and its derivations). Hence, CASE
may play a role just as AGR, word order, subject assignment,
topicalization, discourse cohesion, co/subordination, paradigmatization
of speech act participants and much more. But they may play their roles
DIFFERENTLY! The description of their roles heavily depends from the
diachrony of the paradigm in question, its formal architecture as well
as its integration in aa co-paradigmatic context ('structural coupling'
in a broader sense). From this it follows that the individual centers of
ALL language systems have to react upon the universal demands of the
C->E vector, disregarding their internal architecture. Only IF ALL
relevant centers (and they are many, I grant!) behave in one direction,
THEN we are allowed to call the language system (or better, its
Operating System) ACC or ERG. However, it is a much more difficult task
to describe intermediate states that allow ACC in some parts of the
Operating System, and ERG in some others. Here, we have to establish a
(motivated!) hierarchy first of co-paradigmtic structures (such as CASE
and AGR, CASE and word order, AGR and Personality, AGR and Noun Classes,
to name only some). In such structures, one parts sometimes is more
dominant than the other with respect to its behavior on the AEC. If we
can describe such dominant behavior we can refer to the whole structure
as either more ACC or ERG. In a second step we have to go on describing
the higher levels of this hierarchy (which itself should find an
adequate linguistic explanation based on an appropriate language
theory). Finally (and idealiter) we would arrive at a term that would
describe the functional dominance of one of the poles on the AEC with
respect to an Operating System (not a language system) in toto. Only
the, and I stress, only THEN we are allowed to use the term ergative or
accusative with respect to an Operating System (for which 'ergative' or
'accusative language' would be an informal label).

> Wolfgang wrote further:

> Pat writes:

> I am sorry that I do not agree with the validity of this distinction (actant
> vs. agent). For me, 'actant' is 'agent'. Perhaps you can explain the
> difference.

In terms of Functinal Grammars (as well as in GSS) 'actants' refer to
ALL such linguistic expressions that encode a referential entity in a
clause. Hence, in a senetcne such as 'I met John several times in
Chicago', 'I', 'John', 'times', and 'Chicago' are (abstract) actants
that play different roles in the scene. But only 'I' is a linguistic
agent, whereas John plays the role of a patient etc. Note that 'agent'
and 'patient' are labels for semantic hyperroles (or macroroles in the
sense of Foley/VanValin). I think that such a distinction is very
helpfull. It is based on strong theoretical arguments and helps to avoid
many false or at least problematic generalizations. A much more
controverse (and much more difficult question is to define the labels
'subjective' (S), 'agentive' (A), and 'objective' (O) which should not
be immediately equated to neither 'subject'/'object' nor to
'agent'/'patient'. S, A, and O are highly abstract terms that describe
more structural than semantic or syntatic properties.

> Wolfgang wrote:

>> The fact, however, is that many 'ergative' languages lack an
>> antipassive. For instance, there are nearly 30 East Caucasian languages
>> all of them using some ergative strategies in at least parts of their
>> operating systems. But only a handfull of them (five or six, to be
>> precise) have true antipassives (only one has some kind of
>> "pseudo-passive").

> Pat writes:

> Are you asserting that the majority of ergative languages do not have
> anti-passives?

I do not assert anything in the sense of 'ALL language have...'. Even
the claim 'the majority of ergative languages (sic!) have...' is rather
suspect to me. What I said is that in those 'ERG systems' I looked at
(about 200) antipassives are ratgher the exception than the norm.

> Pat writes:

> As for the far-reaching conclusions of Dixon based on discourse conhesion
> strategies, in my opinion they are flawed because these strategies are
> purely conventional.

Language systems ARE conventional! This is one of the major points of
language tradition and L1 acquisition (despite of minimalism etc.).
Discourse probably is one of the most important factors in the
emergence, organization, and dynamics of language systems. We should not
refer to the abstract notion of context-free 'sentences' that would be
responsible for for grammatical 'events'. Such a view stems from the
tradition of Classical Philosophy which is an INTERPRETATION of what
goes on language. Today, we have become used to think of language in
single sentences, to brak them up the way we do etc. But this is an
analytic tradition, not part of the ontology of language itself, which
is much more synthetic in ature than we are used to think. - A sentence
does not function but in its co-text (as well as in its con-text). All
sentence internal strategies used to be embedded in the techniques of
co(n)textualization. No wonder, that ACC and ERG also work in this
direction (though they may appear as more 'autonomous',
sentence-internal mechanisms secondarily, especially if a language
system as developed separate means to indicate discourse cohesion).

> In English, I can say: "John hit me, and he went away" or "I hit John and he
> went away". What is the discourse cohesion strategy for English?

See the standard literature on this (its counts legion!).

> Pat writes (on Lak, East Caucasian):

> I have to plead ignorance of Lak however, I find an analysis of an otherwise
> completely ergative sentence as having an ACC word-order impossible. I
> believe this opinion rests on a false analysis of word-order significance.

I tried to show that in Lak only some sentence patterns show 'complete
ergativity'. Most of them sho a mixed paradigmatic organization with
respect to moprhology (CASE, AGR). WOrd order is another VERY imporant
aspect of the AEC. Consider e.g. a language that ahs canonical

#SV
#AOV

(# = sentence boundary). Here, S behave like A with respect to #, hence
it is ACC. In #SV vs. #OAV it is S=O which indicates ERG behavior. The
problem of actance serialization is also addressed in polypersonal
systems (without CASE, e.g, Abxaz, Lakotha etc.). It IS a very important
indicator for ACC, ERG, no question. Anything else would refer to the
linguistic tradition of say 60 years ago (Bloomfieldian tradition).

> Wolfgang continued (on Lak):

>> But if you say "I am surely hitting you (plural)", you get:

>> na b-at-la-ti-s:a-ra zu
>> I:ABS I:PL-hit1-DUR-hit2-ASS-SAP:SG you:PL:ABS

>> Here we have:

>> ACC with respect to word order
>> ERG with respect to class agreement
>> ACC (or neutral) with respect to case marking)
>> ACC with respect to SAP agreement (-ra is triggered by 'I:ABS').

> Pat writes:

> So, agent marked ABS and patient marked ABS is, according to you, ACC with
> respect to case marking? Sorry, not convincing at all! And I think the SAP
> difference can be explained as indicating seriality of the patients involved
> as recipients of the action by *one* agent.

I said ACC (or neutral!) with respect to case marking! That means that A
lacks ERG marking (which is OK with Silverstein). Semantically, it means
that S is encoded like A (which is ACC). That fact that O is NOT in an
accusative-like case does not argue against this assumption, because
CASE is here structrually coupled with ADGR which allows us to classify
AGR as ACC *here*. The SAP difference in Lak cannot be explained in the
sense Pat proposes, Lak totally lacks such strategies.

> Wolfgang wrote further:

>> Now, please tell me: Is Lak an 'ergative' or an 'accusative' language?
>> [Please note that I did not include (among others) strategies of
>> discourse cohesion, reflexivization and logophization].

> Pat writes:

> By these examples, I would tell you that Lak is 'ergative'; and that
> accusativity is not demonstrable from these examples.

If you refer to the standard (morphological), but rather obsolete
interpretation of ERG you may be right (but not for SAP NPs). But,
fortunately, the ACC/ERG typology has freed itself from such a narrow
interpretation of ACC/ERG which is nothing but a very small excerpt from
the over-all typology.

> Pat wrote previously:

>>> I think it is likelier that, because of perceived greater animacy (or
>>> definiteness), pronouns have a different method of marking that can still
>>> be interpreted within an ergative context.

> Wolfgang wrote:

>> This a (very simplified) 'on-dit' that stems from the earlier version of
>> the Silverstsein hierachy. Again, we have to deal with the question,
>> whether a 'pronoun' (I guess you mean some kind of 'personal pronouns')
>> can behave 'ergatively' or 'accusatively'. The list below gives you a
>> selection of SAP case marking in East Caucasian languages with respect
>> to ABS/ERG:

>> ABS vs. ERG ABS = ERG
>> ALL ---
>> Singular Plural
>> Plural Singular
>> 1.Incl. Rest
>> 1:SG Rest
>> 2:SG Rest
>> 1:SG/PL Rest
>> --- ALL

>> This list (aspects of personal agreement NOT included!) shows that SAP
>> pronouns may behave different within the same paradigm. Any
>> generalization like that  one quoted above does not help to convey for
>> these data...

> Pat writes:

> I do not have a reference book for Lak so that my hands are somewhat tied.
> But, I have found that paradigms are often inconsistent in ways that reflect
> earlier lost phonological changes, or other lost schemata. The locative
> plural terminations of IE are certainly not, in origin, terminations of the
> locative plural. Etc.

Nothing the like! The list I gave refers to what can be described for
East Caucasian languages in toto! Most of these paradigms are
functionally motivated, I grant (schulze in PKK 2 (Schulze 1999) will
tell you the whole story).

Wolfgang

[Please note new phone number (office) :+89-2180 5343]
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