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<span style="color:black;" lang="en-GB">Dear all,</span></p>
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<span style="color:black;" lang="en-GB"><br>
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<span style="color:black;" lang="en-GB">Just a side-note, but is answering these two fundamental questions (what counts as a function and what counts as marking) not exactly what we have (and need!) theories of grammar for?</span></p>
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<span style="color:black;" lang="en-GB"><br>
</span></p>
<p style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif, serif, "EmojiFont"; margin: 0px;">
<span style="color:black;" lang="en-GB">Best,</span></p>
<p style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif, serif, "EmojiFont"; margin: 0px;">
<span style="color:black;" lang="en-GB">Stef<br>
</span></p>
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<span style="color:black;" lang="en-GB"><br>
</span></p>
<p style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif, serif, "EmojiFont"; margin: 0px;">
<span style="color:black;" lang="en-GB">--</span></p>
<p style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif, serif, "EmojiFont"; margin: 0px;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial Unicode MS, sans-serif, serif, "EmojiFont";" lang="en-US">Dr Stef Spronck</span><span style="color:black;" lang="en-GB"></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif, serif, "EmojiFont"; margin: 0px;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 8pt; font-family: Arial Unicode MS, sans-serif, serif, "EmojiFont";" lang="en-US">Postdoctoral researcher at the University of Helsinki (HU Humanities Programme; Indigenous languages)</span><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial Unicode MS, sans-serif, serif, "EmojiFont";" lang="en-GB"></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif, serif, "EmojiFont"; margin: 0px;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 8pt; font-family: Arial Unicode MS, sans-serif, serif, "EmojiFont";" lang="en-US">Research affiliate at </span><span lang="en-GB"><a href="http://www.dynamicsoflanguage.edu.au/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-auth="NotApplicable" id="LPlnk314675" class="OWAAutoLink" previewremoved="true"><span style="color: blue; font-size: 8pt; font-family: Arial Unicode MS, sans-serif, serif, "EmojiFont";" lang="en-US">CoEDL</span></a></span><span style="color: black; font-size: 8pt; font-family: Arial Unicode MS, sans-serif, serif, "EmojiFont";" lang="en-US">,
The Australian National University and </span><span lang="en-GB"><a href="https://www.arts.kuleuven.be/ling/func" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-auth="NotApplicable" id="LPlnk221921" class="OWAAutoLink" previewremoved="true"><span style="color: blue; font-size: 8pt; font-family: Arial Unicode MS, sans-serif, serif, "EmojiFont";" lang="en-US">FunC</span></a></span><span style="color: black; font-size: 8pt; font-family: Arial Unicode MS, sans-serif, serif, "EmojiFont";" lang="en-US">,
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</span><span style="color: black; font-size: 8pt; font-family: Arial Unicode MS, sans-serif, serif, "EmojiFont";" lang="en-US">section editor (Typology/Pragmatics) at </span><span lang="en-GB"><a href="https://www.degruyter.com/view/j/opli" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-auth="NotApplicable" id="LPlnk157647" class="OWAAutoLink" previewremoved="true"><i><span style="color: blue; font-size: 8pt; font-family: Arial Unicode MS, sans-serif, serif, "EmojiFont";" lang="en-US">Open
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<div id="divRplyFwdMsg" dir="ltr"><font face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size:11pt" color="#000000"><b>From:</b> Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces@listserv.linguistlist.org> on behalf of Peter Austin <pa2@soas.ac.uk><br>
<b>Sent:</b> 03 August 2019 11:55:08<br>
<b>To:</b> Martin Haspelmath <haspelmath@shh.mpg.de><br>
<b>Cc:</b> <LINGTYP@LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG> <LINGTYP@listserv.linguistlist.org><br>
<b>Subject:</b> Re: [Lingtyp] Topic and focus markers with other functions</font>
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<div dir="auto">Martin
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<div dir="auto">Over 45 years ago Michael Silverstein proposed conceptualizing 'function' (specifically cases in his 1974 paper) in the mathematical sense, i.e. as a relation between sets that associates members of one set to exactly one member of the second
set. Functions can have arguments and be n-place. He proposed something like:</div>
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<div dir="auto">f(x,y,z,w) = c </div>
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<div dir="auto">where c is the set of case markers and roughly</div>
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<div dir="auto">x is predicate-argument type</div>
<div dir="auto">y is animacy type</div>
<div dir="auto">z is clause type</div>
<div dir="auto">y is cross-clausal coreference type </div>
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<div dir="auto">Under certain conditions the function can be normalised, and variables reduced to a single value.</div>
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<div dir="auto">Thus, in Jiwarli (Western Australia) the case marker -rla occurs when</div>
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<div dir="auto">x = transitive object</div>
<div dir="auto">(y is normalised)</div>
<div dir="auto">z = dependent purpose clause</div>
<div dir="auto">w = main clause subject coreferential with dependent clause subject</div>
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</div>
<div dir="auto">So in Eva's example f is two place (x,y) as above and clause type and conference are irrelevant.</div>
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<div dir="auto">Adopting this approach means we don't need to ask "does ergative mark grammatical function or does it mark animacy?".</div>
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<div dir="auto">Peter</div>
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<div dir="ltr" class="x_gmail_attr">On Sat, 3 Aug 2019, 06:45 Martin Haspelmath, <<a href="mailto:haspelmath@shh.mpg.de">haspelmath@shh.mpg.de</a>> wrote:<br>
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<div class="x_m_1079500635850568934moz-cite-prefix">Eva's post raises the interesting general question whether markers that occur under two necessary conditions should be said to mark both of these simultaneously:<br>
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– Do Quechua markers like -mi or -si "mark" only evidentiality, or do they also "mark" focus (because they always occur on the focused constituent and thus serve to identify it)?<br>
<br>
– Do ("optional") ergative markers in Jaminjung "mark" the nominal only for ergative role, or do they also "mark" focus (because they are generally restricted to focused nominals and thus serve to identify the nominals as fucused)?<br>
<br>
– Do case flags in "split" systems, like the preposition a+ in Spanish (which is generally restricted to animate nominals), "mark" only the syntactic role, or do they also "mark" animacy?<br>
<br>
– Do plural markers that occur only when the nominal is definite or animate only mark "plural", or do they also "mark" definiteness or animacy? (This often happens in creole languages, see
<a class="x_m_1079500635850568934moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://apics-online.info/parameters/22.chapter.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">
https://apics-online.info/parameters/22.chapter.html</a>)<br>
<br>
Linguists often say that these markers have one "function", and the other factor that plays a role in their occurrence is a "condition", but I often find these difficult to distinguish. Couldn't one say (conversely) that the Jaminjung nominal focus marker is
restricted in its distribution in that it only occurs when the nominal is a (transitive) agent?<br>
<br>
(In other words, couldn't one say that in cases of this sort, the marker has two functions simultaneously? – Sorry, this is leading away from Fritz Newmeyer's original post.)<br>
<br>
Martin<br>
<br>
On 02.08.19 22:10, Eva Schultze-Berndt wrote:<br>
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<div>Quite apart from the problems of defining focus (on which I'm less sceptical than the sources Eitan cites), in some of the categories that have been cited the literature as focus markers the question arises whether they really *mark* focus, or are rather
(i) attracted to a focused constituent, or (ii) focus plays a role in their distribution.</div>
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<div>Regarding (i), I'm not a Quechuanist, but have had discussions with colleagues who are, and it is by no means clear that everyone considers evidentials in these languages as also marking focus, rather than as attaching to the focused constituent.</div>
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<div>Regarding (ii), I have worked on "optional" ergativity, and would not consider ergative marking associated with focus as "marking" focus. In any of the types of "classical" split ergative system, with a split, say, between humans and non-humans, or non-past
and past, we would not consider the ergative case as a marker of the categories of "non-human" or "past" – either because there is a clear segmental marking already (past), or because there is no marking of the category at all outside agents (non-human). So
if ergative case only occurs on focused agents (at least probabilistically – such systems often don't seem to be entirely categorical), recognisable as focused through prosody and context,<span style="font-size:14pt"> why would we consider the ergative as
a focus marker?</span></div>
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<div><span style="font-size:14pt">Eva</span></div>
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<div style="font-size:13px; font-family:Tahoma"><span class="x_m_1079500635850568934Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium">-------------------------------------------------------
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<div style="font-size:13px; font-family:Tahoma"><span class="x_m_1079500635850568934Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium">Eva Schultze-Berndt</span></div>
<div style="font-size:13px; font-family:Tahoma"><span class="x_m_1079500635850568934Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium">Professor of Linguistics</span></div>
<div style="font-size:13px; font-family:Tahoma"><span class="x_m_1079500635850568934Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium">Linguistics and English Language</span></div>
<div style="font-size:13px; font-family:Tahoma"><span class="x_m_1079500635850568934Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium">School of Arts, Languages and Cultures</span></div>
<div style="font-size:13px; font-family:Tahoma"><span class="x_m_1079500635850568934Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium">The University of Manchester</span></div>
<div style="font-size:13px; font-family:Tahoma"><span class="x_m_1079500635850568934Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium">Oxford Road</span></div>
<div style="font-size:13px; font-family:Tahoma"><span class="x_m_1079500635850568934Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium">M13 9PL</span></div>
<div style="font-size:13px; font-family:Tahoma"><span class="x_m_1079500635850568934Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium">Manchester, UK</span></div>
<div style="font-size:13px; font-family:Tahoma"><span class="x_m_1079500635850568934Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium">E-mail:
<a class="x_m_1079500635850568934moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:eva.schultze-berndt@manchester.ac.uk" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">
eva.schultze-berndt@manchester.ac.uk</a></span></div>
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<pre class="x_m_1079500635850568934moz-signature" cols="72">--
Martin Haspelmath (<a class="x_m_1079500635850568934moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:haspelmath@shh.mpg.de" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">haspelmath@shh.mpg.de</a>)
Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History
Kahlaische Strasse 10
D-07745 Jena
&
Leipzig University
Institut fuer Anglistik
IPF 141199
D-04081 Leipzig </pre>
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