Buch, Englisch, 412 Seiten, Format (B × H): 161 mm x 240 mm, Gewicht: 778 g
Buch, Englisch, 412 Seiten, Format (B × H): 161 mm x 240 mm, Gewicht: 778 g
ISBN: 978-0-19-025658-6
Verlag: ACADEMIC
Nominative-accusative and ergative are two common alignment types found across languages. In the former type, the subject of an intransitive verb and the subject of a transitive verb are expressed the same way, and differently from the object of a transitive. In ergative languages, the subject of an intransitive and the object of a transitive appear in the same form, the absolutive, and the transitive subject has a special, ergative, form. Ergative languages often follow very different patterns, thus evading a uniform description and analysis. A simple explanation for that has to do with the idea that ergative languages, much as their nominative-accusative counterparts, do not form a uniform class. In this book, Maria Polinsky argues that ergative languages instantiate two main types, the one where the ergative subject is a prepositional phrase (PP-ergatives) and the one with a noun-phrase ergative. Each type is internally consistent and is characterized by a set of well-defined properties.
The book begins with an analysis of syntactic ergativity, which as Polinsky argues, is a manifestation of the PP-ergative type. Polinsky discusses diagnostic properties that define PPs in general and then goes to show that a subset of ergative expressions fit the profile of PPs. Several alternative analyses have been proposed to account for syntactic ergativity; the book presents and outlines these analyses and offers further considerations in support of the PP-ergativity approach. The book then discusses the second type, DP-ergative languages, and traces the diachronic connection between the two types.
The book includes two chapters illustrating paradigm PP-ergative and DP-ergative languages: Tongan and Tsez. The data used in these descriptions come from Polinsky's original fieldwork hence presenting new empirical facts from both languages.
Autoren/Hrsg.
Fachgebiete
Weitere Infos & Material
- Preface
- Abbreviations
- Part I: Two types of ergatives
- 1 Introduction
- 1.1 Setting the stage
- 1.2 Syntactic ergativity
- 1.2.1 The phenomenon
- 1.2.2 The range of the phenomenon
- 1.2.3 The relevance of syntactic ergativity
- 1.3. The importance of starting small
- 1.3.1 Syntactic ergativity broadly defined
- 1.3.2 Not all A-bar movement phenomena are created equal
- 1.3.3 Some methodological odds and ends
- Appendix: Compensatory strategies under syntactic ergativity
- 2 Proposal
- 2.1 Crucial empirical observations
- 2.1.1 Diachronic pathways to ergativity
- 2.1.2 Oblique subjects
- 2.2 The proposal: Two classes of ergative languages
- 2.3 From PP specifier to syntactic ergativity
- 2.3.1 The relationship between the verbal functional head and ergative P
- 2.3.2 Ergative P and P-stranding
- 2.3.3 Ergative P and pied-piping
- 2.3.4 From a PP subject to syntactic ergativity
- 2.4 Basic clausal structures in the two types of ergative languages
- 2.4.1 PP-ergative and DP-ergative languages: transitive clauses
- 2.4.2 PP-ergative and DP-ergative languages: unergative clauses
- 2.4.3 PP specifiers everywhere? Preventing overgeneration
- 2.4.4 Compatibility between the ergative and the passive
- 2.5 Summary
- 3 Prepositional phrases: Establishing the diagnostics
- 3.1 PPs have distinct extraction and subextraction properties
- 3.2 Restrictions on PPs as pivots of clefts
- 3.3 PPs have resumptive proforms and may have special modifiers
- 3.4 PPs are less accessible to agreement probes than DPs are
- 3.5 PPs and binding
- 3.6 PPs and A-movement
- 3.7 PPs and control
- 3.8 Summary
- 4 Ergative as a PP: Take One
- 4.1 Ergative expressions can be PPs
- 4.2 Subextraction out of the ergative expression
- 4.3 Ergative cannot extract leaving a gap
- 4.4 Ergative and agreement
- 4.5 Ergative and depictives
- 4.6 Ergative and quantifier float
- 4.7 Taking stock
- 4.7.1 Silent P head
- 4.7.2 Overt P head
- 4.7.3 The nature of the operator
- 5 Ergative as a PP: Take Two
- 5.1 Binding: Reflexives and reciprocals
- 5.2 Raising
- 5.2.1 No true raising
- 5.2.2 Ergative is not preserved under raising-at least in Tongan
- 5.3 control
- 5.3 Summary
- 6 Cross-linguistic landscape: Correlates of PP-ergativity
- 6.1. Word order correlates
- 6.2 Expletive subjects
- 6.3 Non-canonical (quirky) subjects
- 7 The other ergative: A true DP
- 7.1 Extraction of the ergative with a gap
- 7.2 Subextraction from the ergative and the absolutive
- 7.3 Agreement
- 7.4 Binding
- 7.5 Control and raising
- 7.6 Word order
- 7.7 Summary
- 8 The relationship between the PP-ergative type and the DP-ergative type: Phylogeny and ontogeny
- 8.1 Diachronic relationship between the PP-ergative type and the DP-ergative type
- 8.2 Caught in transition: Niuean
- 8.3 Caught in transition: Adyghe
- 8.4 PP-ergatives and DP-ergatives in language acquisition
- 9 Alternative accounts of variation across ergative languages
- 9.1 Comp-trace vs. P-trace
- 9.2 Criterial freezing
- 9.3 Phase boundaries and high/low absolutive languages
- 9.4 Non-syntactic explanations for variation across ergative languages
- 9.5 Summary
- Part II: Paradigm languages
- 10 A paradigm PP-Ergative language: Tongan
- 10.1 Tongan basics
- 10.1.1 General remarks
- 10.1.2 Predicates
- 10.1.3 Case marking
- 10.1.4 Word order: Preliminary remarks
- 10.1.5 Questions
- 10.2 Subject and possessive marking: Clitics
- 10.2.1 Subject clitics
- 10.2.1.1 Basic facts about clitics
- 10.2.1.2 Accounting for Tongan clitics
- 10.2.1.3 Clitic doubling
- 10.2.2 Possessive clitics and possessive markers
- 10.3 Deriving Tongan clause structure
- 10.3.1 Word order: Deriving V1
- 10.3.2 Word order: The right periphery
- 10.3.2.1 The definitive accent
- 10.3.2.2 VOS is not due to scrambling
- 10.3.2.3 VOS as rightward topicalization
- 10.3.3 Basic clause structures
- 10.3.3.1 Intransitives: Unaccusatives
- 10.3.3.2 Intransitives: Unergatives
- 10.3.3.3 Transitive clauses
- 10.3.4 Tongan ergativity and split ergativity
- 10.4 A-bar movement
- 10.4.1 Relative clauses
- 10.4.2 Wh-questions
- 10.4.3 Focus: Exceptive constructions
- 10.4.4 Ko-Topicalization
- 10.4.5 Interim summary
- 10.5 Raising and control
- 10.5.1 The status of ke-clauses
- 10.5.2 "Raising "
- 10.5.2.1 Raising-like verbs and their structures
- 10.5.2.2 What moves in ke-clauses and where?
- 10.5.2.3 What is the nature of the operator in ke-clauses?
- 10.5.2.4 The transparency of finite ke-clauses
- 10.5.3 The verb lava
- 10.5.3.1 Monoclausal structure with lava: Restructuring
- 10.5.3.2 Biclausal structures with lava
- 10.5.4 Control
- 10.5.4.1 Basic facts
- 10.5.4.2 No obligatory control
- 10.5.4.3 The internal syntax of control ke-clauses
- 10.5.5 Interim summary
- 10.6 Binding
- 10.6.1 Anaphoric binding
- 10.6.2 Reciprocals? Just pluractionality
- 10.6.3 Other binding contexts
- 10.7 Summary
- 11 A paradigm DP-Ergative language: Tsez
- 11.1 Tsez basics
- 11.1.1 Preliminaries
- 11.1.2 Unergatives and unaccusatives
- 11.1.3 Clauses with two or more arguments
- 11.2 Discontinuous noun phrases
- 11.3 Non-finite forms
- 11.3.1 Infinitival and masdar clauses
- 11.3.2 Event nominalizations
- 11.4 A-bar movement
- 11.5 Raising and control
- 11.5.1 Raising
- 11.5.2 Complement control
- 11.5.2.1 Forward control
- 11.5.2.2 Backward control
- 11.5.3 Infinitival relative clauses
- 11.6 Binding
- 11.6.1 Anaphoric binding
- 11.6.2 Depictives
- 11.7 Interim summary
- 11.8 Deriving Tsez clauses
- 11.8.1 Two possible analyses
- 11.8.1.1 A single vP
- 11.8.1.2 Layered functional heads in the verb phrase
- 11.8.2 Single heads or layered structure: Which analysis is superior?
- 11.9 Summary
- 12 Taking stock
- References
- index
