ergativity: argument structure and grammatical relations

296 Pages·2016·1.13 MB·English

ERGATIVITY: ARGUMENT STRUCTURE
AND GRAMMATICAL RELATIONS
a dissertation
submitted to the department of linguistics
and the committee on graduate studies
of stanford university
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of
doctor of philosophy
Christopher D. Manning
December 1994
(cid:13)c Copyright 1995 by Christopher D. Manning
All Rights Reserved
ii
I certify that I have read this dissertation and that in my
opinion it is fully adequate, in scope and in quality, as a
dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.
Joan Bresnan
(Principal Adviser)
I certify that I have read this dissertation and that in my
opinion it is fully adequate, in scope and in quality, as a
dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.
Ivan A. Sag
I certify that I have read this dissertation and that in my
opinion it is fully adequate, in scope and in quality, as a
dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.
Peter Sells
I certify that I have read this dissertation and that in my
opinion it is fully adequate, in scope and in quality, as a
dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.
Mary Dalrymple
Approved for the University Committee on Graduate
Studies:
iii
Abstract
This dissertation considers the proper treatment of syntactic ergativity, arguing for
a framework that decouples prominence at the levels of grammatical relations and
argument structure. The result is two notions of subject: grammatical subject and
argument structure subject (as in Schachter (1977) and Guilfoyle, Hung and Travis
(1992)), and a uniform analysis of syntactically ergative and Philippine languages.
Both these language groups allow an inverse mapping in the prominence of the two
highesttermsbetweenargumentstructureand grammaticalrelations. Alevelofargu-
ment structure, although appearing in much recent work, is shown to be particularly
well motivated by the examination of ergative languages. A study of Inuit, Tagalog,
Dyirbal, and other languages shows that constraints on imperative addressee and
controllee selection, antecedent of anaphors, and the controller of certain adverbial
clauses are universally sensitive to argument structure. Thus these phenomena are
always accusative or neutral, and we can explain why passive agents and causees
can generally bind re(cid:13)exives. However, constraints on relativization, topicalization,
focussing or questioning, speci(cid:12)city or wide scope, coreferentialomission in coordina-
tion, etc., are shown to be universally sensitive to grammatical relations. Examining
just these phenomena, which are sensitiveto grammaticalrelations, we see that many
languages are indeed syntacticallyergative, and so this option must be countenanced
by linguistic theory.
iv
Acknowledgments
My choice for a dissertation topic can be traced to an interest in ergativity that was
sparked during my time as an undergraduate at the Australian National University.
More recently, Bob Dixon suggested to me that I should write a thesis on how well
(or badly?) modern syntactic theories fare in treating ergative languages. However,
I haven't altogether done that { although much of this thesis bears on that issue {
mainly because it would have been di(cid:14)cult to start writing on such a topic without
having (cid:12)rst sorted out my own views on the typology of ergative languages. Having
started with Australia, let me complete my thanks for that part of the world. I've
appreciated having Avery Andrews as an email correspondent and occasional coau-
thor. I've also been lucky enough to meet various other Australian linguists while at
Stanford { mainlyANU graduates of an earlier time { and so I am in the unexpected
position of knowing more Australian linguists now than when I began at Stanford.
If the choice of topic still harks back to my Australian education, the treatment
of it bears muchto myStanford education. I had a wonderful four years at Stanford.
I also remember the climate fondly as winter begins to descend in Pittsburgh. The
people on my dissertation committee were among those that contributed most to
my time at Stanford. Joan Bresnan was welcoming right from when we (cid:12)rst met,
provided brilliant and inspiring lectures, organised workshops and discussion groups
at Stanford, and did everything she could to assist me in writing this dissertation
in less than ideal circumstances. I think perhaps my biggest debt to Ivan Sag is for
helping meto becomepart of the larger linguistics community,but I learned a lot else
fromIvan overthe years, includingmuchabout how to do and presentresearch. Peter
Sells is legendary among Stanford students for the quantity and quality of help he
gives to students, both individually and in lectures, and I appreciate what I received
v
even more now that I can see how busy life is on the other side of the fence. Thanks
also to the many others at Stanford from whom I took courses and seminars.
The (cid:12)nal member of my committee was Mary Dalrymple, who I thank not only
for her many comments on the content and organization of this thesis, but also for
her advice,help, and friendship throughout mytimeat Stanford. Most of mycontact
with Mary was not actually at Stanford but at Xerox PARC. I was very fortunate
to receive a Xerox internship for the summer of 1992, and then to have a continuing
association with Xerox PARC. Not all that muchof what I learned at PARC appears
in this thesis, but it has been exceedingly useful in other places, not least in my new
job. I learned about many things from Ron Kaplan, including LFG, theoretical com-
putational linguistics, and the history of computing. He also always dealt e(cid:14)ciently
with (cid:12)nding ways to pay me, despite my irregular schedule. Others that contributed
to the quality of my time at PARC include Jeanette Figueroa, Marti Hearst, Julian
Kupiec, John Maxwell, Hinrich Schu(cid:127)tze, and Hadar Shem-Tov.
Nearlyall the examplesin this dissertation comefrom publishedsources, and thus
this dissertation would not have been possible at all without the dedicated (cid:12)eldwork
of others. A dozen or more examples are taken from the work of each of Maria
Bittner, Bob Dixon, Michael Fortescue, Martin Haspelmath, Paul Schachter, and
Jerry Sadock, and so they deserve special thanks, although I am also grateful to the
many other people on whose work I have drawn.
Thanks also to all the other people who helped me to write this dissertation.
Edna Paneatak MacLean willingly discussed In~upiaq with me, despite the fact that
we had to go slowly because of my poor knowledge of the language. Brett Kessler
corrected and helped me gloss the Sanskrit examples. Gu(cid:127)ven Gu(cid:127)zeldere okayed some
Turkish examples. Mar(cid:19)(cid:16)a-Eugenia Nin~o was on hand when needed to provideSpanish
judgments and Tagalog references. Maria Bittner, Miriam Butt, Martin Haspelmath
andJerrySadockdiscussedvariousaspectsoftheirandmyworkwithmebyelectronic
and regular mail.
Noteveryonehelpedspeci(cid:12)callywiththethesis. Moregeneralthanks totheothers
inmyyear: Lynn Cherny,Hye-wonChoi, Yookyung Kim,HinrichSchu(cid:127)tze,and Hadar
Shem-Tov. May they have the best of luckwith their dissertations. Particular thanks
vi
to Hye-won, for being my (cid:12)rst friend at Stanford and for submitting this dissertation
for me. Even more particular thanks to Jane, for her love and help. This thesis is
longer than Jane's, so Imusthavedisturbed hermorethan she disturbed me. Thanks
also to our friends, in particular, Jill, Jennifer, and Pollo. In Gina and MichelleI was
fortunate to have some of the nicest administrative sta(cid:11) around. And (cid:12)nally to my
family, not all of whom will be able to read this.
vii
Transcriptions, Abbreviations, and Conventions
This section describes conventionsand abbreviations that I have used. I have tried to
makethis dissertation useful as a referencedocument. There is an index of languages
and topics (although I should stress that it is incomplete). The bibliography also
acts as an index of citations { at the end of each entry is a list that gives the page
numbers where the work is cited. At the (cid:12)rst mention of each language (strictly the
(cid:12)rst mention from Section 1.1 on outside of footnotes), I list in brackets its family
a(cid:14)liation and where it is spoken.
Almostalltheexamplesinthisthesisaredrawnfrompreviouslypublishedsources.
The source of each example is given in the Appendix, Sources of Examples. Refer-
ences are to the example number of the cited work, where available (in the form
(ch.ex) when examples are numbered separately within each chapter), otherwise to
the page number. Most examples appear using the transcription conventions of my
source. Some attempts have been made to make transcriptions and the glossing of
grammatical formatives more consistent, as outlined below.
All Dyirbal examples are transcribed using a form of the practical orthography
now in widespread use by Australianists (including Dixon (1991, 1994)). The corre-
spondences with the system employed by Dixon (1972) are: ny = N, j = d(cid:17), r =
and rr = r. However, the name Dyirbal is not written in the practical orthography
(where it would become Jirrbal).
The transcription of Inuit examples is not completely consistent. Some West
Greenlandicexamplesare in the o(cid:14)cialorthography whileothers are in a purephone-
mic variant thereof (the new orthography continues to distinguish i/e, u/o and v/f,
although these di(cid:11)erences are not phonemic). Examples from other varieties of Inuit
are transcribed as in their source.
viii
Most Lezgian examples use the transliteration system of Haspelmath (1993), but
0
some examples from Mel(cid:20)cuk (1988) follow his transcription conventions.
Mayan examples appear in the practical orthography of Terence Kaufmann (the
most unusual feature of which is that `7' is used for glottal stops).
Tagalog examples are shown using the style and glossing of Kroeger (1993) (in
particular case markers are attached to the following word with an equals sign (=)
which indicates cliticization).
The following abbreviations are employed in the glosses:
1, 2, 3 (cid:12)rst, second, third excl Exclusive
person
equ Equalis case
4 fourth person (Inuit
erg Ergative case
anaphoric form)
freq Frequentative
i, ii, iii, iv noun class markers
fut Future
A Absolutive agreement
gen Genitive case
abl Ablative case
ger Gerundive
abs Absolutive case
immed Immediately following
acc Accusative case
event
antip Antipassive
impv Imperative
asp Aspect
incept Inceptive
aux Auxiliary
ind Indicative mood
av Active Voice
inf In(cid:12)nitive
caus Causative
instr Instrumental case
cmpltv Completive aspect
cond Conditional interrog Interrogative
cop Copula intr Intransitive ending
dat Dative case iv Instrumental voice
def De(cid:12)nite lnk Linker
dep Dependent aspect loc Locative
dir Directional masc Masculine gender
dm Determinate mod Modalis case
dirs Directional Su(cid:14)x
msd Masdar (event
dv Dative Voice nominalization verb
E Ergative agreement form)
emph Emphatic marker neg Negative
ix
nfut Nonfuture psub Past subordinate mood
nom Nominative case ptcl Particle
nomlz Nominalizer
ques Question marker
O Object agreement
rec Recent past tense
ogen Oblique Genitive
rel Relativizer, Relative
extension
Case
ov objective voice
S Subject agreement
part Participle
sg Singular number
pass Passive
subj Subject (agreement
part Participle
with)
pat Patient
term Terminalis case
perf Perfective
pl Plural number th `There' series
demonstratives
pm Proper name marker
purp Purposive tm determinate Topic
Marker
pres Present tense
pret Preterite tns Tense
past Past tense tr Transitive ending
In glossing the agreement of Eskimo transitive verbs, agreement with the A argu-
ment is always listed (cid:12)rst in the gloss, and agreement with the O argument is listed
second (even when this doesn't correspond with the historical order of morphemes,
for which see Section 2.2.5).
The following abbreviations are used for grammatical frameworks:
ALS Autolexical Syntax (Sadock 1991)
GB Government-Binding Theory (Chomsky 1981, Chomsky 1986)
GPSG Generalized Phrase Structure Grammar (Gazdar et al. 1985)
HPSG Head-driven Phrase Structure Grammar (Pollard and Sag 1994)
LFG Lexical Functional Grammar (Bresnan 1982a)
RG Relational Grammar (Perlmutter 1983)
x