Alignment and Ergativity in New Indo-Aryan Languages

333 Pages·2013·1.22 MB·English

by  Saartje Verbeke

Saartje Verbeke
Alignment and Ergativity in New Indo-Aryan Languages
Empirical Approaches
to Language Typology
Editors
Georg Bossong
Bernard Comrie
Kristine Hildebrandt
Yaron Matras
Volume 51
Saartje Verbeke
Alignment
and Ergativity
in New Indo-Aryan
Languages
ISBN 978-3-11-029253-4
e-ISBN 978-3-11-029267-1
ISSN 0933-761X
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A CIP catalog record for this book has been applied for at the Library of Congress.
Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek
The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche
Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available in the Internet
at http://dnb.dnb.de.
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Contents
Acknowledgments   ix
List of Abbreviations   x
Introduction   1
1 Theoretical preliminaries   8
1.1 Ergativity from a functional and typological perspective   8
1.1.1 Ergativity: the standard functional-typological definition   9
1.1.2 Core arguments and grammatical relations   13
1.1.2.1 The subject issue   14
1.1.2.2 Grammatical relations   21
1.1.2.3 Case   28
1.1.2.4 Verb agreement   32
1.1.3 Alignment splits based on referential hierarchies   34
1.1.3.1 Silverstein’s hierarchy   35
1.1.3.2 Differential object marking: the markedness discussion   36
1.1.3.3 Differential subject marking   39
1.1.4 Tense/Aspect/Mood and head- vs. dependent-marking   41
1.1.4.1 Tense/Aspect/Mood split   41
1.1.4.2 Case marking and verb agreement   42
1.2 Direct and indirect motivations of ergativity   44
1.2.1 Ergativity in discourse-functional and cognitive linguistics   46
1.2.1.1 Du Bois: “The discourse base of ergativity”   46
1.2.1.2 Cognitive accounts   48
1.2.2 Historical motivations   54
1.2.3 Case and transitivity   56
1.2.3.1 An alternative view of ergativity   56
1.2.3.2 Transitivity: from Sapir to Hopper and Thompson   60
1.3 Conclusions   63
2 Indo-Aryan   65
2.1 Geographical distribution of the Indo-Aryan languages   65
2.2 Alignment in Hindi   68
2.3 Origin of the ergative pattern in Indo-Aryan   75
2.3.1 Historical overview   75
2.3.1.1 Old Indo-Aryan   75
2.3.1.2 Middle Indo-Aryan   78
2.3.1.3 New Indo-Aryan: Early Hindi   80
2.3.2 Passive reanalysis   80
vi       Contents
2.3.3 Ergative remains ergative?   83
2.4 Some key concepts of the Indo-Aryan languages   89
2.4.1 Masica’s layer system   89
2.4.2 The verb system in Indo-Aryan   91
2.4.2.1 The participial base of the verb system in Indo-Aryan   91
2.4.2.2 Light verbs and lexical compound predicates   92
2.4.2.3 Perfect, perfective, and past   94
2.4.2.4 Passives   96
2.4.2.5 Causatives   97
2.4.3 Experiencer constructions   98
2.4.4 Unergatives   108
3 Eastern Indo-Aryan: Asamiya   111
3.1 Asamiya: description   113
3.1.1 Case marking in Asamiya   113
3.1.2 Case marking of the subject   115
3.1.3 Differential object marking and the dual marking of IO   119
3.1.3.1 O-marking   119
3.1.3.2 Dual marking of IO   121
3.1.3.3 Experiencer constructions   124
3.1.4 Verb agreement in Asamiya   126
3.2 The transitive verb   127
3.2.1 The transitive verb in Eastern Indo-Aryan   128
3.2.1.1 The transitive verb in the Bihari languages   131
3.2.1.2 Honorific agreement in Maithili   134
3.2.1.3 Honorific agreement in Magahi   137
3.2.2 The transitive verb in an Eastern Hindi variety   139
3.3 Ergative marking in Eastern Indo-Aryan   142
3.4 Conclusion   144
4 Northern Indo-Aryan: Nepali   146
4.1 Nepali: description   147
4.1.1 Case marking in Nepali   147
4.1.2 Case marking of the core arguments   148
4.1.3 Verb agreement in Nepali   152
4.2 Reanalysis and extension of the postposition le   156
4.2.1 Previous accounts   159
4.2.1.1 Focalization   159
4.2.1.2 Syntactic restrictions   161
Contents       vii
4.2.1.3 Disambiguation hypothesis   161
4.2.1.4 Stage- vs. individual-level predicates   163
4.2.2 Perfective aspect expressed by le   165
4.3 Language contact   170
4.4 Conclusion: alignment in Nepali   173
5 Western Indo-Aryan: Kashmiri   175
5.1 Kashmiri: description   176
5.1.1 Case marking in Kashmiri   176
5.1.2 Verb agreement in Kashmiri   180
5.1.2.1 The verb system   180
5.1.2.2 Imperfective constructions   182
5.1.2.3 Ergative case marking in the perfective   185
5.2 Pronominal suffixes in Western Indo-Aryan   188
5.2.1 Bound pronouns or agreement markers?   188
5.2.2 Pronominal suffixes in Kashmiri   191
5.2.3 Pronominal suffixes in Poguli   199
5.2.4 Pronominal suffixes in Sindhi   201
5.2.5 Pronominal suffixes in Siraiki   204
5.3 Second person importance:
hierarchical relations and Marathi   206
5.4 Conclusion   208
6 Central Indo-Aryan: Rajasthani   212
6.1 Description of Marwari   213
6.1.1 Case marking   213
6.1.2 Verb system and agreement in Marwari   214
6.2 Differential marking   218
6.2.1 Marwari subject marking: a historical perspective   218
6.2.2 Differential marking in Harauti   223
6.2.3 Object marking in Marwari and Gujarati   230
6.2.4 The marking of subjects and experiencers
in Gujarati and Punjabi   234
6.2.5 Differential marking: summary   239
6.3 Central Indo-Aryan and Hindi: variation on a micro-scale   240
6.3.1 Hindi and Braj: O-marking and agreement   240
6.3.2 Bundeli and Bagheli   244
6.3.3 Varieties of Hindi: conclusion   246
6.4 Central Indo-Aryan: Conclusion   246
viii       Contents
7 Conclusion   248
7.1 The definition of ergativity: summary   248
7.2 Splits   251
7.2.1 The influence of referential hierarchies   252
7.2.1.1 Referentiality of O   252
7.2.1.2 Referentiality of A   254
7.2.2 Tense/Aspect/Mood splits   256
7.2.3 Classifying the Indo-Aryan languages   259
7.2.4 Case marking versus verb agreement   260
7.3 Core arguments and grammatical relations   261
7.4 The motivation of the ergative pattern in Indo-Aryan   263
7.5 Final observations   266
8 Appendix   268
8.1 Appendix 1   268
8.2 Appendix 2   274
9 References   296
Index of subjects   316
Index of languages   320
Acknowledgments
This book is a revision of my 2011 doctoral dissertation, defended at Ghent Uni-
versity and made possible by a grant from the Research Foundation Flanders
(FWO). I would like to thank my thesis supervisor Klaas Willems and Peter Hook.
I am also thankful for the insightful comments given by Eva De Clercq, Annie
Montaut, Omkar N. Koul, Seppo Kittilä and Yaron Matras.
This book would not have been possible without the help of my native speak-
ers: Rudhira Mitra, Jayeeta Mazumder, Alpha Maheshwari, Sarit Ray, Pratik
Udeshi, Rohit Goyal, Jeanne Vaz, Prof. Ramesh Chandra Sharma, Durgesh,
Khemchand and Suman Sharma, Ria De, Meenaxi Barkati-Ruscheweyh, Dr. Jyoti-
prakash Tamuli, Vishma Raj Thapaiya, Chand Mati Pokharel, Saraswati Chaud-
hary and Satish.
Most importantly, for their love and support, I wish to thank my parents,
friends and family. And my handsome husband, Bram Vincent.