[Lingtyp] Alignment Typology and problems with Ainu

[Christian Lehmann]

One might add that since these cross-reference indexes are affixes, they 
are strongly grammaticalized, which implies, on a scale from motivated 
to arbitrary, close to the arbitrary pole.

Christian

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Am 26.05.2023 um 07:20 schrieb Randy J. LaPolla:
> Dear James,
> That there are different patterns found in different constructions is 
> not a problem, and not rare. Even English does not have a consistent 
> alignment pattern in all constructions. This has been known since the 
> work of Van Valin and Foley going back to the late 1970’s. This is a 
> major argument for treating grammatical categories as 
> construction-based rather than global categories in the language. Of 
> course grammaticalization of the morphemes is also construction based 
> (event based), and so that is another factor. Just analyse the 
> language inductively, without assuming any necessary uniformity across 
> constructions. Language is not a single tight logical system, it is 
> human behaviour, and as diverse and messy as the rest of our 
> behaviour. Enjoy the messiness!
>
> All the best,
> Randy
> ——
> Professor Randy J. LaPolla（罗仁地), PhD FAHA
> Center for Language Sciences
> Institute for Advanced Studies in Humanities and Social Sciences
> Beijing Normal University at Zhuhai
> A302, Muduo Building, #18 Jinfeng Road, Zhuhai City, Guangdong, China
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>> On 26 May 2023, at 8:16 AM, James Wheate <jwhe6921 at uni.sydney.edu.au> 
>> wrote:
>>
>> Hello everyone!
>> My name is James Wheate and I am currently an undergraduate student 
>> at the University of Sydney.
>> I write to you all today as I am facing major problems with a 
>> language (Ainu) that I am looking at for one of my classes on 
>> Linguistic typology.
>> The problem in question is, Ainu is attested to having 3 separate 
>> alignment systems  (Bugaeva, 2015) that are determined by pronouns. 
>> Alignment in Ainu is shown through verbal affixing alone, with the 
>> following distribution:
>> 1PL, 4SG/’Indefinite person’ are marked using tripartite alignment:
>> _1PL:_
>> S                  ci-
>> A                 -as
>> O                 un-
>> _4SG:_
>> S                  a-
>> A                 -an
>> O                  i-
>> 1SG is marked with nom/acc alignment:
>> S/A            ku-
>> O               -en
>> Lastly,  2SG, 2PL, and 3SG have ‘neutral’ alignment (so none at all, 
>> more so just indexing) in the following way:
>> _2SG:_
>> S/A/O         e-
>> _2PL:_
>> S/A/O         eci-
>> _3SG:_
>> S/A/O ∅-
>> As far as my understanding goes, not only is the distribution in Ainu 
>> very uncommon, but the motivations for these groups and systems to 
>> arise seem unclear.
>>
>> With these systems it allows me to assume there is a hierarchy as 
>> follows:
>>
>> 1PL/4SG -> 1SG -> 2SG/2PL/3SG
>>
>> As far as I am aware this would be extremely rare and hard to explain.
>> Has anyone else encountered anything similar in other languages? Is 
>> there perhaps a diachronic explanation that leads to this 
>> morphological complexity?
>> As an undergraduate I am at my wits end!
>> Thank you all very much and as the years progress, I hope I can 
>> become more active and knowledgeable on this thread!
>> Regards,
>> James Wheate.
>>
>>
>>
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Prof. em. Dr. Christian Lehmann
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99092 Erfurt
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