Pronouns and ergativity

[Wolfgang Schulze]

Dear all,

I'm currently working on a larger project on what I call "Categorial
Typology" with respect to East Causian languages (ELCs). The output will
be (I hope) a series of seven volumes entitled "Person, Klasse,
Kongruenz - Fragmente einer Kategorialtypologie des einfachen Satzes in
den ostkaukasischen Sprachen" ("PKK", to appear at Lincom (Munich)). The
theoretical framework of PKK (called "Grammar of Scenes and Scenarios"
("GSS") is documented in the first volume ("Die Grundlagen", due
1998,II)), the following volumes treat the morphsyntax of ECLs with
respect to specific categorial components derived from this framework
(see my homepage for more, in case you are interested in thing like this
(http://www.lrz-muenchen.de/~wschulze/pkk1.htm)).
Now, the second volume (PKK II, to appear 1998,III) deals with aspects
of expressing "person" in ECLs. In order to substantiate some
typological generalizations concerning personal pronouns and ergative
case marking, I still collect data on ergativily marked pronouns in
languages other than ECLs. What concerns me most are the following
questions (concerning non-ECLs!):

a) Are certain "persons" exempted from the ABS/ERG-dichotomy, in case
the language in question has such a dichotomy in its pronominal system?
E.g., in ECLs we can observe the follwing "splits", among others):

ABS/ERG              yes                  no
                  1, 2, 4e, 5             4e
                  1, 2                    4i, 4e, 5
                  4i, 4e, 5               1, 2
                  1                       the rest
                  1, 4i                   the rest
                  2                       the rest

b) Is there a specific pronominal ergative marker different from the
nominal one, and (in case: yes) how what is the distribution of this
marker (markers) with respect to a)?
c) In case nominal ergative markers appear, are there any restriction
with respect to "person"?
d) In case the language has personal agreement:
da) Is pronominal ergativity matched by the pronominal clitics (cf. the
famous case of Tsaova-Tush (Holisky 1987)?
db) Is the degree of categorial differentiation found in the pronominal
paradigm reflected in the corresponding agreement system? If not: Is the
agreement system over/underdifferentiated, and how?
e) Does the language in question have an ergativily marked reflexive
pronoun?
f) Do you know of any system of noun classification that is sensible for
SAPs?

It would be very nice if you could provide me with some information
concerning these questions (in case you have them, and in case you find
the time to describe them), even if I had already stored the data. May
be that something relevant escaped my eyes. Any reference (e.g. see this
or that language...) would be very helpful, so don't bother to wirte
things out in case you don't feel to do so.

Thank you very much for your cooparartion,

Wolfgang


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= Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Schulze                       =
= Institut für Allgemeine und Indogermanische      =
= Sprachwissenschaft + Universität München         =
= Geschwister-Scholl-Platz 1                       =
= D-80539 München                                  =
= Tel.: +89-21802486 (secr.)                       =
=       +89-21802485                               =
= http://www.lrz-muenchen.de/~wschulze/            =
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