[Lingtyp] languages with accusative/ergative alternation

Mon Jul 1 06:00:17 UTC 2024

Thanks for the comments on my query!

I was thinking of a contrast between (i) ALTERNATIONS and (ii) SPLITS, 
where an alternation is a pair of related patterns with overlapping 
distributions, while a split is a set of patterns that complement each 
other. Thus, the TAM splits in languages like Pitta-Pitta (Peter Austin) 
and Kopar (Bill Foley) do not count here.

Misha Daniel is right that it is not clear how to even identify 
"accusative/ergative alternations", and for this reason I had asked 
about languages which have been "described as exhibiting" such an 
alternation.

It seems to me that one needs to specify that by definition, a 
transitive pattern is a dominant one (occurring in more than two thirds 
of the cases), so that if there are two competing patterns none of which 
is dominant, one cannot identify a transitive pattern – and as a result, 
there is no way to identify "accusative" or "ergative". A well-known 
case of a language with no dominant agent-patient pattern (and hence no 
transitivity) is Tagalog.

(This is different for ditransitive constructions, which need not be 
dominant in this sense, because the comparison is with monotransitive P, 
aas Misha notes.)

Jürgen Bohnemeyer's example from Hindi-Urdu seems more like an 
alternation between two ergative patterns (one in which the ergative is 
"instrumental"), but it also illustrates the difficulty of matching 
language-particular phenomena with comparative concepts if the latter 
are not very clearly defined.

Best,

Martin

On 30.06.24 16:07, Michael Daniel wrote:
> Martin,
>
> I am not sure how to operationalize the notions of accusative and 
> ergative in this context. Assuming one uses the standard procedure of 
> comparing the bivalent pattern to the intransitive one, I guess some 
> unmarked antipassive constructions would qualify. Thus, in 
> Mehweb Dargwa, East Caucasian, which lacks regular antipassive 
> derivation, the verb 'carry' has two alternative valencies:
>
> Agent-Erg carries Theme-Nom (ergative pattern /on the basis of 
> comparison/ with X goes)
> Agent-Nom carries Theme-Erg (accusative pattern /on the bases of 
> comparison/ with X goes)
>
> But, /on the basis of comparison/ with other transitive verbs, the 
> second pattern is intransitive, so this would not qualify as 
> accusative in the usual sense. Yet, I do not clearly see what would be 
> possible other grounds to identify an ergative / accusative 
> alternation, even in the presence of a TAM or animacy based split, 
> because in your requirement these variables should be controlled for.
>
> This is different from the situation of secundative / indirective 
> alternation, which is possible to identify in a language because they 
> are identified on alignment-independent grounds (comparison to the 
> encoding of P). Maybe I am missing something, but I do not see how 
> this is done in the case of the putative ergative / accusative uncoded 
> alternation.
>
> Misha
>
> вс, 30 июн. 2024 г. в 14:48, Peter Austin via Lingtyp 
> <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>:
>
>     Assuming you do not mean TAM-based split ergativity, e.g. Pitta-Pitta.
>
>     Best
>     Peter
>
>
>     ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>     *From:* Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org> on
>     behalf of Martin Haspelmath via Lingtyp
>     <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
>     *Sent:* Sunday, June 30, 2024 1:41:54 PM
>     *To:* LINGTYP LINGTYP <LINGTYP at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG>
>     *Subject:* [Lingtyp] languages with accusative/ergative alternation
>     Dear typologists,
>
>     Does anyone know of a language that has been described as
>     exhibiting an
>     accusative/ergative alternation, i.e. where verbs with meanings like
>     'break' or 'chase' can occur in two constructions such as (1) and (2)
>     (which are schematic examples, not English)?
>
>     (1) the dog-NOM chased the cat-ACC
>
>     (2) the dog-ERG chased the cat-NOM
>
>     Such an alternation would be analogous to indirective/secundative
>     alternations, as in the schematic examples (3) and (4).
>
>     (3) they provided food-ACC us-DAT ('they provided food to us')
>
>     (4) they provided us-ACC food-INS ('they provided us with food')
>
>     While indirective/secundative alternations have been described
>     repeatedly, accusative/ergative alternations are little-known, and
>     seem
>     to be quite rare. Is this impression correct?
>
>     Thanks,
>
>     Martin
>
>     -- 
>     Martin Haspelmath
>     Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
>     Deutscher Platz 6
>     D-04103 Leipzig
>     https://eur01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.eva.mpg.de%2Flinguistic-and-cultural-evolution%2Fstaff%2Fmartin-haspelmath%2F&data=05%7C02%7Cpa2%40mysoas.onmicrosoft.com%7Cfbd0d937e0024454098608dc99021b32%7C674dd0a1ae6242c7a39f69ee199537a8%7C0%7C0%7C638553481531300351%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=Fk%2BOgeldXwuKKViruD6L3V%2BAXojpaM2NZAuKlpWpHdk%3D&reserved=0
>     <https://www.eva.mpg.de/linguistic-and-cultural-evolution/staff/martin-haspelmath/>
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-- 
Martin Haspelmath
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
Deutscher Platz 6
D-04103 Leipzig
https://www.eva.mpg.de/linguistic-and-cultural-evolution/staff/martin-haspelmath/
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