Description:
We will provide a whirlwind tour of Ergativity, the putative phenomenon in which:
The subject of an intransitive and the object of a transitive are identically marked
(to the exclusion of the agent of a transitive)
Such marking can take place either through case marking or verbal agreement.
The behavior of intransitive subjects may turn out to be a surface morphological fact, or it may reflect "deeper" syntactic properties. We will spend some time looking at relativization and antipassives, which have been used as diagnostics for more "syntaxy" distinctions between transitive and intransitive subjects.
Guess what else: sometimes Ergativity only happens in a particular domain of the grammar, for example, in the environment Perfective Aspect. Such languages are called split ergative because they show the ergative marking pattern in one half of the grammar, and the more familiar nominative-accusative marking pattern in the other half. Moreover, sometimes languages show the ergative marking pattern only for 1st and 2nd person arguments. This constitutes a Person split in ergativity.
The class discussions will navigate two questions:
1. Where does `marking' of this sort come from (grammatical function, theta role, or structural position)?
How does it vary and why?
2. Can theories of ergative marking make any predictions outside of the very phenomena they purport to explain? In other words, does your theory of how the subject gets ergative case tell me how it should behave for binding, control, licensing of secondary predicates, or quantifier scope?
In essence, aside from being an intermediate seminar that provides "everything you needed to know about ergativity but never had time to read" we hope to provide a more thorough lesson: that when there are an unbounded number of transformational and non-transformational representations and principles that can "get the case/agreement data right", we need to look at external facts to arbitrate. That said, our goal is to train good future ergativists (we want you!) to do things right for a change. First step: erase "absolutive" from your vocabulary!
Schedule:
Day 1: Overview: Grammatical Function and Structural Position
Day 2: Ergativity Diagnostics (Dyirbal, Hindi) and Antipassives (Warrungu, Chuckchi, Kirundi)
Day 3: Exemplifying Aspectual Splits (Hindi)
Day 4: Exemplifying Person Splits (Lummi, Georgian, Yimas)
Day 5: Ergativity and Nominalizations? (Johns, Alexiadou)
A co-conspirator in Denying the existence of Absolutive Case:
Julie Legate (2003): Split Absolutive in Warlpiri (176 kB)
Intransitive and transitive subjects are marked alike, but an external requirement (the Yimas EPP) masks this fact:
Colin Phillips (1995): Ergative subjects in Yimas (48 kB)
Ergative case is like an inherent Case for agents, that happens to interact with the rest of the case system, illustrated in Nez Perce
Ellen Woolford (1997): Four way case systems: ergative, nominative, objective and accusative (1.7 mB)
Ergative case is assigned in a lower domain than Nominative: Using external tests of quantifier scope in Hindi
Nevins and Anand 2003: The locus of ergative case: evidence from scope (275 kB)
An exemplar of the typologists' view (optional reading):
Dixon's 1979 Language article "Ergativity" (2.7 mB)