Query: Adverbs and the AEC

[Jan Terje Faarlund]

At 12:23 08.12.99 +0100, Wolfgang Schulze wrote:
>Dear Typologists,
>
>it is a well-known fact that there is a strong correlation between
>accusative case marking and adverbial behavior in so-called accusative
>structures (I remember that some times ago there was a discussion on
>accusatively marked space/time concepts on this list). Obviously, this
>has to do with at least a) the marked role that the 'objective' (O)
>plays in an accusative strategy (S=A;O in terms of the
>Accusative-Ergative Continuum (AEC)) and b) the fact that accusative
>case marking is often co-paradigmatized with locatives (mainly
>allatives) [there are additional explanations that come from Cognitive
>Typology, but I'll skip this here for sake of brevity]. My question now
>is, whether there is an analogic correlation in ergative behavior
>(S=O;A). If we claim that the marked part of the S=O;A structure is 'A'
>in an ergative behavior, we would expect to find (derived) adverbs that
>show an ergative case marking (if present). In some cases this seems to
>be true especially with adverbs of manor (< instrumental).

Instrumental adverbials in the ergative case seems to be wide-spread. In
Zoque (meso-America), ergative is one way of marking instrumental
adverbials (another way is by means of a separate instrumental case), while
certain kinds of time adverbials are in the absolutive:

Te'kuda de pütyumu ka'tzo'tzyahu'un yu'is,
therefore the man-PL die-begin-PL-PERF hunger-ERG
'Therefore the men began to die from hunger'

Here the ergative form in 'IS is used with the intransitive verb KA' 'die'.
If the same noun in the ergative is used with the transitive YAHKA' 'cause
to die', it is interpreted as the agent: 'Hunger killed them'

The absolutive case is the bare form, which is seen in the plural PÜT-YUMU
above. This bare form is also used in time adverbials:

kyotyahpa te' ame'tzotzku'y metza nka'eyumu
3/3-choose-PL-DUR the year-begin-NOMINALIZER two boy-PL
'They select at the beginning of the year two boys'

AME'+TZOTZ+KUY (year+begin+nominalizing suffix') is a noun without a case
ending.


********************************************
Professor Jan Terje Faarlund
Universitetet i Oslo
Institutt for nordistikk og litteraturvitskap
Postboks 1013 Blindern
N-0315 Oslo (Norway)

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