<div dir="auto">Martin<div dir="auto"><br></div><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><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">f(x,y,z,w) = c </div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">where c is the set of case markers and roughly</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><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><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Under certain conditions the function can be normalised, and variables reduced to a single value.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Thus, in Jiwarli (Western Australia) the case marker -rla occurs when</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><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><div dir="auto"><br></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><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Adopting this approach means we don't need to ask "does ergative mark grammatical function or does it mark animacy?".</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Peter</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto"> </div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto"> </div><div dir="auto"><br></div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="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></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
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<div class="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>
<br>
– 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="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>
<div><br>
</div>
<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>
<div><br>
</div>
<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>
<div><span style="font-size:14pt"><br>
</span></div>
<div><span style="font-size:14pt">Eva</span></div>
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<div style="font-size:13px;font-family:Tahoma"><span class="m_1079500635850568934Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium">Eva
Schultze-Berndt</span></div>
<div style="font-size:13px;font-family:Tahoma"><span class="m_1079500635850568934Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium">Professor of
Linguistics</span></div>
<div style="font-size:13px;font-family:Tahoma"><span class="m_1079500635850568934Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium">Linguistics
and English Language</span></div>
<div style="font-size:13px;font-family:Tahoma"><span class="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="m_1079500635850568934Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium">The
University of Manchester</span></div>
<div style="font-size:13px;font-family:Tahoma"><span class="m_1079500635850568934Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium">Oxford Road</span></div>
<div style="font-size:13px;font-family:Tahoma"><span class="m_1079500635850568934Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium">M13 9PL</span></div>
<div style="font-size:13px;font-family:Tahoma"><span class="m_1079500635850568934Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium">Manchester,
UK</span></div>
<div style="font-size:13px;font-family:Tahoma"><span class="m_1079500635850568934Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium">E-mail:
<a class="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="m_1079500635850568934moz-signature" cols="72">--
Martin Haspelmath (<a class="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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