[parislinguists] Séminaire CRLAO mercredi 25 mars 2015 Spike Gildea «Rethinking the Typology of Split Ergativity» The Patchwork Quilt of Synchronic and Diachronic Syntax

[S N aaellens@yahoo.com [parislinguists]]

ousêtes cordialement invités à une communicationdans le cadre du Séminaire du CRLAO sur les« Recherches actuelles en linguistique»présentée par Spike GildeaUniversity of Oregon – Collegium de Lyon «Rethinking the Typology of Split Ergativity»The Patchwork Quilt of Synchronic and Diachronic Syntax  le mercredi 25 mars 2015de 16h à 18h INaLCOSalle des Plaques2, rue de Lille75007 Paris AbstractWhena language has some ergative alignment pattern, it is usually found in only asubset of grammatical contexts, creating what has been called split ergativity.In one common pattern, tense-aspect-based split ergativity, ergative alignmentoccurs only in past tense or perfective aspect clauses, while some otheralignment occurs elsewhere (Dixon 1994). Theoreticians have tried to explainthese splits as a grammatical expression of abstract notions like viewpoint,transitivity, inherent agentivity, and ontological salience. In recentresearch, we have discovered that multiple languages from the Cariban and Jêfamilies (spoken in northern and central South America) present the oppositepattern, in which ergative alignment occurs only in nonpast and imperfectiveclauses.  Trivially, such factscontradict the putative universal about split ergativity; less trivially, theycall into question the proposed explanations for that universal. This talkproposes to explain both the universal and counter-universal patterns withreference to the concrete details of historical processes that create individualclause types with their distinct alignments (cf. Gildea 2012). Themetaphor of “split” ergativity (or any other form of “split” alignment)encourages us to misconceptualize the phenomenon as a kind of “surface”division of some “deeper”, somehow fundamentally unified phenomenon. However,the evolution of such alignments suggests a completely different metaphor, thatof a patchwork quilt: different constructions (with their different alignment)are like new patches added to the existing quilt of main clause grammar. Thismetaphor derives from the evolution of “splits”, but it also helps to frame thesynchronic analysis of such alignments in a more useful way. This sort ofexplanation illustrates the potential of diachronic typology, both to help usunderstand the prevalence of typological universals (without lamenting thediscovery of counter-examples) and to bring a new perspective to explanationsof these universals (and their counter-examples).  Dixon, RM W.  1994.  Ergativity.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Gildea, Spike.  2012. Linguistic Studies in the CaribanFamily. Handbook of South American Languages, ed. by Lyle Campbell andVeronica Grondona, 441-494.  Berlin:Mouton de Gruyter.____________________________________________________Les séminaires du CRLAO sont organisés par Hilary Chappell(CRLAO-EHESS) commenceront le 14 janvier 2015 et sedérouleront les mercredis du 16h à 18h jusqu’en fin juin. Pour toute information complémentaire, veuillez contacterHilary Chappell sur hmchappell at gmail.com ou au CRLAO, 131 bd StMichel,  M. Hugues Feler au 0153 10 53 71.
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