[Lingtyp] languages with accusative/ergative alternation
Martin Haspelmath
martin_haspelmath at eva.mpg.de
Tue Jul 2 05:33:58 UTC 2024
On 01.07.24 19:00, Matthew Dryer wrote:
> Martin,
>
> I don’t understand why you say “by definition, a transitive pattern is
> a dominant one (occurring in more than two thirds of the cases)”. Why
> can there not be two transitive patterns, neither of which is dominant?
>
> Matthew
>
I'm not entirely sure (which is why I posted the query), but it seems to
me that the definition of "transitive" requires that there be a single
transitive pattern. In English, for example, (i) is dominant over (ii),
so we do not say that both are transitive, and that "at" is an
accusative preposition. Instead, we say that "at" is an oblique marker.
(i) They shot the bear.
(ii) They shot at the bear.
Lazard (2002) explains how the notion of transitivity can be grounded in
the notion of "the major biactant construction" of a language. He does
not say explicitly that there can only be one such construction, but it
seems to be presupposed. In my (2011) paper (on S, A, P, T, R), I rely
on Lazard, and I also mostly assume that there is just one transitive
construction. I was unsure what to do with cases like Yupik (mentioned
by Tony Woodbury in this thread), so I mostly ignored them (but I
briefly mentioned Tagalog in n. 12).
Angute-m(A) nayiq(P) ner-aa
man-ERG.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.ABS.SG seal-ABM.SG eat-IND.3SG
’The man is/has (just) eaten a/the seal’
It seems to me that the way Tony labels the arguments here is not
well-motivated: Why is ergative-marked "angute-m" an A in the first
sentence, but absolutive-marked "angun" an S in the second sentence? Why
is 'seal' a P in both sentences?
It's logically possible to say that both these sentences are transitive,
each with an A and a P, but do we actually want to say that? Do we want
to say that the Yupik ABM ("ablative-modalis") is an accusative case?
I'm not sure, so I asked whether any language had been described in this
way (does Miyaoka 2012 say that?). Maybe one problem is that making a
distinction between a pattern with a dominant member (as in English (i)
and (ii)) and a pattern where there is not clearly a dominant member (as
in Yupik) boils down to frequency, and linguists are often reluctant to
make such decisions on the basis of frequency of use.
Denis Creissels cites the example of Balinese (from Udayana 2013):
Cang n-yemak baju ento.
I ACT-take shirt DEM
'I look the shirt.' (Actor Voice, accusative alignment(?))
Baju ento jemak cang.
shirt DEM PAT.take I
'I look the shirt.' (Patient Voice, ergative alignment(?))
However, there is no argument flagging here (so the "alignment" concerns
only word order), and the Actor Voice is characterized by a voice
prefix, so it's not an uncoded alternation (unlike the English
indirective/secundative alternation, and unlike the Yupik alternation
cited above).
Perhaps the issue boils down to how exactly we individuate the relevant
constructions. For example, Creissels (2024) often talks about "variants
of the transitive construction", which seems to be in line with Lazard's
(2002) presupposition that there is one "major biactant construction",
but do we want to say that the two Yupik sentences cited by Tony
Woodbury are "variants of the Yupik transitive construction"? I'm not sure.
Thanks for the discussion!
Martin
References
Creissels, Denis. 2024. /Transitivity, valency and voice/. Oxford:
Oxford University Press (to appear).
Haspelmath, Martin. 2011. On S, A, P, T, and R as comparative concepts
for alignment typology. /Linguistic Typology/ 15(3). 535–567.
Lazard, Gilbert. 2002. Transitivity revisited as an example of a more
strict approach in typological research. /Folia Linguistica/ 36(3–4).
141–190. (doi:10.1515/flin.2002.36.3-4.141
<https://doi.org/10.1515/flin.2002.36.3-4.141>)
Miyaoka, Osahito. 2012. /A grammar of Central Alaskan Yupik/. Berlin: De
Gruyter Mouton.
Udayana, I Nyoman. 2013. /Voice and reflexives in Balinese/. Austin:
University of Texas at Austin. (PhD dissertation.)
> *From: *Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org> on behalf
> of Martin Haspelmath via Lingtyp <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
> *Date: *Monday, July 1, 2024 at 2:00 AM
> *To: *LINGTYP LINGTYP <LINGTYP at listserv.linguistlist.org>
> *Subject: *Re: [Lingtyp] languages with accusative/ergative alternation
>
> 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
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>
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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/
--
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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