[Lingtyp] Languages with accusative/ergative alternation

[Woodbury, Anthony C]

Dear Martin and everyone,

Yes, this is common for many verbs in many if not all Yupik-Inuit languages—as long as you recognize the case typically termed ‘Modalis’ or ‘Instrumental’ as having an accusative function, as is done in some Canadian traditions. For Central Alaskan Yupik, Osahito Miyaoka (2012:903-4) calls these 'zero-derived antipassives,' giving as an example (I quote directly):

Angute-m(A)    nayiq(P)         ner-aa
man-REL.sg     seal.ABS.sg.  eat-IND.3sg.3sg
’The man is eating /has (just) eaten the seal’

Angun (S)       nayir-mek(P)   ner’-uq.
man-REL.sg   seal-ABM.sg     eat-IND.3sg’
’The man is/has (just) eaten a/the seal’

A bit of explaining: In the first sentence, the REL(ative) is the name traditionally used for the case with ergative function; and the verb is indexing both the Relative and Absolutive arguments, which in the logic of Y-I languages, makes it transitive.

In the second sentence—first of all—angun ‘man’ is actually in the ABSOLUTIVE case, not the RELATIVE (which would be angutem); it’s a typo.  And the verb is indexing only the Absolutive case argment, which is the eater/actor, the man, and in the logic of Y-I languages is considered intransitive because of this single indexing of an Absolutive.  Meanwhile the patient is labeled ‘ABM’ for Ablative-Modalis (due to syncretism in Yup’ik of Ablative and Modalis). But it is reasonable to consider the Ablative-Modalis here as having accusative case behavior, as asserted in a lot of Canadian literature.

Osahito then rightly point out that in the second case, ’the patient is backgrounded’ but still may or may not be considered as definite. He goes on to show that even a proper name can function as the patient in either of the two constructions, which adds caution to the supposition that antipassives—if that’s what this is—necessarily “demote” the patient to some sort of generic status.

Tony Woodbury




From: Martin Haspelmath <martin_haspelmath at eva.mpg.de<mailto:martin_haspelmath at eva.mpg.de>>
Subject: [Lingtyp] languages with accusative/ergative alternation
Date: June 30, 2024 at 7:41:54 AM CDT
To: LINGTYP LINGTYP <LINGTYP at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG<mailto:LINGTYP at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG>>


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://www.eva.mpg.de/linguistic-and-cultural-evolution/staff/martin-haspelmath/



--
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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