[Lingtyp] Lingtyp Digest, Vol 128, Issue 7

[Chris Donlay]

 Vladimir,
I have two suggestions for you.... LaPolla (1993) describes this typeof situation in Mandarin Chinese. As far as I can see, it applies to most ifnot all of the (topic-prominent) Sinitic languages as well. I’ve found the samesituation in Khatso (Donlay 2017), a Tibeto-Burman/Yi language. There is aneutral APV word order, but it’s very flexible and zero anaphora is common. Anoptional agent marker is used when the pragmatics isn’t clear enough. In fact,many of the grammatical particles in this language, including the agent marker,are multifunctional. As a result, morphosyntax alone is often not enough to clarifymeaning -- pragmatics is needed to fully understand what’s said in given moment.
LaPolla, Randy. 1993. Argumentsagainst ‘subject’ and ‘direct object’ as viable concepts in Chinese. Bulletinof the Institute of History and Philology 63:759–813. 


Donlay, Chris. 2017. The role ofdisambiguation in pragmatic agentivity: Evidence from Khatso. Linguistics ofthe Tibeto-Burman Area, 40:202-242.

Cheers,
Chris DonlaySan Jose State UniversityUSA

    On Thursday, May 8, 2025 at 05:00:40 AM PDT, lingtyp-request at listserv.linguistlist.org <lingtyp-request at listserv.linguistlist.org> wrote:  
 
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Today's Topics:

  1. Non-marking for argument roles (Vladimir Panov)
  2. Re: Non-marking for argument roles (Vladimir Panov)


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Message: 1
Date: Thu, 8 May 2025 10:28:45 +0300
From: Vladimir Panov <panovmeister at gmail.com>
To: LINGTYP at listserv.linguistlist.org
Subject: [Lingtyp] Non-marking for argument roles
Message-ID:
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Dear linguists,

I have the following question. Are you aware of any doculects/languages
upon which there is a consensus that semantic roles like S, A, P, R are not
obligatorily encoded, neither morphologically, nor through word order or
adpositions? That is, languages in which the assignment of semantic roles,
if any, is entirely matter of context/pragmatics. The famous Riau
Indonesian comes to my mind. Any other suggestions? Maybe there are
publications dedicated specifically to this problem?

Best,
Vladimir Panov, Vilnius University
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Message: 2
Date: Thu, 8 May 2025 10:50:14 +0300
From: Vladimir Panov <panovmeister at gmail.com>
To: LINGTYP at listserv.linguistlist.org
Subject: Re: [Lingtyp] Non-marking for argument roles
Message-ID:
    <CALeR4d4caWvripfHn+m6F=Xd0VEoiDm83UtzND=bnPv=mCHMxA at mail.gmail.com>
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In order to specify my question a little bit: By saying NO MARKING I mean
exactly this: NO MARKING AT ALL. E.g. if there is marking not on noun
phrases but on the verb or by clitics elsewhere in the clause, then there
definitely is marking of arguments. So typical "polysynthetic" languages
don't count.

V.

??, 8 ??? 2025??. ? 10:28, Vladimir Panov <panovmeister at gmail.com>:

> Dear linguists,
>
> I have the following question. Are you aware of any doculects/languages
> upon which there is a consensus that semantic roles like S, A, P, R are not
> obligatorily encoded, neither morphologically, nor through word order or
> adpositions? That is, languages in which the assignment of semantic roles,
> if any, is entirely matter of context/pragmatics. The famous Riau
> Indonesian comes to my mind. Any other suggestions? Maybe there are
> publications dedicated specifically to this problem?
>
> Best,
> Vladimir Panov, Vilnius University
>
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