PIE and ergativity

Fri Jun 11 17:22:43 UTC 1999

"Alexander S. Nikolaev" schrieb:

> Anyway, as far as Silverstein's hierarchy is concerned, i'd like to
> put here the following idea:
> As there really are some grounds to reconstruct genitivus-ergativus,
> which was already mentioned in the discussion, one could throw a
> glance at the typological data; the issue will be, that languages,
> which possess a case, *combining* the two functions, namely ergative
> and oblique, differ substantially from the languages, which are
> characterized by independent ergative case. The former are, to say
> roughly, less "ergative" and are very often diachronically on the way
> of "accusativization" (or, vice versa, fuller "ergativization").

I cannot fully understand this point: First, we should note that case
marking (if ever present in a given language system) is only ONE
(possible) feature that can become relevent regarding the location of a
language system on the AEC (accusative-ergative continuum). Hence, it is
difficult to infer a general behavior of a language system regarding the
AEC from just this feature. Second, if we include other aspects of
morphological, syntactic, and pragmatic ergativity/accusativity
(horribile dictu), the data demonstrate that a system with a
syncretistic ergative case marker (irrelevant of how this syncretism
pronounces itself) can be located either more on the middle of the AEC
or on its very "edge". E.g., some East cauacsian languages have case
syncretism but a strong ergative agreement pattern, whereas Kartvelian
(South Caucasian) languages mostly show an "independent" case marker
(stemming from the deictic paradigm), but have a strong accusative AGR
pattern (iwth some excceptions).

> They take an intermediate position in the
> continuum "ergative -- accusative"; and very often they are
> characterized by the tense-split, and the ergative system in such
> languages is confined to preterit tense(s). Such are Eskimo, Lach,
> Burushaski, Kurdish (which, i know, is not a very good example, since
> it developed a secondary ergative-like structure, but from a synchronic
> point of view it will do). [There is, besides, a scanty piece of
> evidence for tense-split in PIE].

Note that case syncretism in EC (East Caucasian) for instance does not
correspopnd to an TAM split. Moreover, to claim that Burushaski's
ergativity in restricted to preterit tense(s) seems not to be confirmed
by ALL data available [ergativity in Burushaski is a very complicated
matter beccause of its polypersonal agreement system, ERG-like stem
suppletion in verbs and many other features]. The hypothesis that ERG is
confined to preterit tense(s) in Eskimo is questionable, too [see the
agreement system, some today's present tense structures clearly stem
from old antipassives which presuppose ergativity, etc.]. I don't know
which language you refer to by "Lach", but if you mean Lak (EC), than
again the claim simply is wrong [Lak, as its presumed "sister" Dargwa,
has a very sophisticated system of aspect/tense paradigms which are
dominated by such factors as 'assertiveness', 'centrality' of speech act
participant, residues of antipassives, doubled foregrounding strategies
('bi-absolutives') etc.].

>         And in such semi-ergative or semi-accusative languages
> Silverstein's hierarchy just doesn't work, being
> a property of "full-ergative" languages (I apologize for my "terms",
> which are not terminological at all, and, of course, i bear all the
> responsibility for them).

Perhaps you have missunderstood the actual instantiation of the
Silverstein Hierarchy (SH). Today, SH is regarded as a a general
behavior of lingustic paradigms with respect to the relationship of
degree of animacy/empathy/centrality(speech act participants), degree of
'natural' agentivity, and (in)transitivity. SH accounts for both ACC and
ERG strategies (there are for instance cases of languages that use ERG
strategies for the most central/animate/empathetic participants (SAP
pronouns) whereas the rest of the paradigm goes accusative [some kind of
'left shift' of the SH]).

>                 Thus one can assume that it didn't
> work in PIE either, and so the reasons which led Villar and Rumsey to
> reject ergativity for PIE on the basis of this universal are not
> important anymore, and hence one is entitled to believe that
> inanimates just took the ergative marker less often, than animates. I
> foresee the possible objection "but *all* the nouns with no respect
> to gender are marked with genitive marker *os/*es/*s!" This i'm
> inclined to explain as a consequence of tense-split structure of PIE:
> this case in *os/*es/*s was common for all the nouns in present tense
> and had the meaning of genitive; and the same marker performed the
> functions of ergative case in preterit, and only animates could take
> it, hence the examples of genitive of agent in historical IE dialects.

I must admit that such a functional paradigm sounds VERY strange to me.
The problem ist taht you operate on a pure functional level without
having any formal indication that such a split of the {*es/*os/*s}
morphology was actually active. Moreover, I do not understand how a PIE
speaker would/could have discriminated both functions. In fact, case
syncretism generally means that the morpheme in question establishs a
functional cluster that is disambiguished (among others) by the
semantics of a given NP, its position with respect to the
kernel/periphery of a clause, its semantic/syntactic/pragmatic role with
respect to a verbal frame etc. But such oppositions are not established
by TAM (except you propose that a PIE speaker "felt" that a *s- etc.
marked NP with present tenses was more genitive-like than with preterit
tenses. But this is more than ad hoc!). Moreover, the history of a
genitivus-ergativus (restricted per definitionem to transitive (!)
structures) is often related to some kind of (alienable and/or
inalienable) possessive coupling of a verbal structure with its presumed
agent. Hence, it is the genitive which plays the primary functional
role, from which a 'ergative' case is derived (grammaticalized).
Consequently, there wouldn't be any functional difference in the two
paradigmatic structures you propose, and, by consequence, no need to
establish them at all. In order to substantiate your claim it would be
good to have a valid typological parallel the history of which can be
described with certainty. I don't know of such a system (or I did not
understand yours correctly). [For an ACC interpretation of PIE case
marking see my last postings, esp. that dated "Fri, 04 Jun 1999 16:59:11
+0200". Unfortunately, people from the IE list hardly did comment upon
it (positively or negatively). Is it because a general ACC
interpretation of PIE morphosyntax violates the overall feeling that
there MUST be something ergative-like in the PIE air?].

>         This intermediate stage of PIE, which, i believe, can be
> reconstrructed within the framework of internal reconstruction method
> and is *not* based on pure speculations, could of course be preceded
> by another stage, when PIE was characterized by other structure, e.g.
> active. The residues of the latter can be seen in the two-series
> verbal system.

Note that among typologists there is a general tendency (not to say a
general agreement) that 'active' typology does NOT represent a seperate
(third) type opposed to ACC and ERG in the tradition of Sapir etc.
Rather, active typology is a name for a diversity of split phenomena
that occur ON the AEC (S-split, A-split, O-split, IO-split etc.).
Whatever the PIE morphosytax of simple clauses may have been: we have to
describe it on the basis of the AEC. We don't have other (logical)
options (see Schulze 1998
[http://www.lrz-muenchen.de/~wschulze/pkk_1abs.htm], chapter IV for an
elaboration of this claim). But we should be ready to look at the 'dark
side of ergativity', too, which means that we should be ready to dismiss
our standard (favorite) way of interpreting morphosyntactic phenomena
via ergativity, IF the data simply contradict. And that's what they
do!

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