The diachronic typology of differential argument marking

566 Pages·2018·4.41 MB·English

by  Ilja A. Seržant

The diachronic
typology of
differential
argument
marking
Edited by
Ilja A. Seržant
Alena Witzlack-Makarevich
language
Studies in Diversity Linguistics 19
science
press
StudiesinDiversityLinguistics
Editor:MartinHaspelmath
Inthisseries:
1. Handschuh,Corinna.Atypologyofmarked-Slanguages.
2. Rießler,Michael.Adjectiveattribution.
3. Klamer,Marian(ed.).TheAlor-Pantarlanguages:Historyandtypology.
4. Berghäll,Liisa.AgrammarofMauwake(PapuaNewGuinea).
5. Wilbur,Joshua.AgrammarofPiteSaami.
6. Dahl,Östen.GrammaticalizationintheNorth:NounphrasemorphosyntaxinScandinavian
vernaculars.
7. Schackow,Diana.AgrammarofYakkha.
8. Liljegren,Henrik.AgrammarofPalula.
9. Shimelman,Aviva.AgrammarofYauyosQuechua.
10. Rudin,Catherine&BryanJamesGordon(eds.).AdvancesinthestudyofSiouanlanguages
andlinguistics.
11. Kluge,Angela.AgrammarofPapuanMalay.
12. Kieviet,Paulus.AgrammarofRapaNui.
13. Michaud,Alexis.ToneinYongningNa:Lexicaltonesandmorphotonology.
14. Enfield,N.J(ed.).Dependenciesinlanguage:Onthecausalontologyoflinguisticsystems.
15. Gutman,Ariel.AttributiveconstructionsinNorth-EasternNeo-Aramaic.
16. Bisang,Walter&AndrejMalchukov(eds.).Unityanddiversityingrammaticalization
scenarios.
17. Stenzel,Kristine&PatriziaPaggio(eds.).Onthisandotherworlds:VoicesfromAmazonia.
18. Paggio,PatriziaandAlbertGatt(eds.).ThelanguagesofMalta.
19. IljaA.Seržant&AlenaWitzlack-Makarevich(eds.).Thediachronictypologyofdifferential
argumentmarking.
ISSN:2363-5568
The diachronic
typology of
differential
argument
marking
Edited by
Ilja A. Seržant
Alena Witzlack-Makarevich
language
science
press
IljaA.Seržant &AlenaWitzlack-Makarevich(eds.).2018.Thediachronictypologyof
differentialargumentmarking(StudiesinDiversityLinguistics19).Berlin:Language
SciencePress.
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ISSN:2363-5568
DOI:10.5281/zenodo.1219168
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Contents
Preface iii
1 Differentialargumentmarking:Patternsofvariation
AlenaWitzlack-Makarevich&IljaA.Seržant 1
2 DifferentialobjectmarkinginChichewa
LauraJ.Downing 41
3 TheevolutionofdifferentialobjectmarkinginAlor-Pantarlanguages
MarianKlamer&FrantišekKratochvíl 69
4 SpanishindexingDOM,topicality,andthecasehierarchy
ChantalMelis 97
5 FromsuffixtoprefixtointerpositionviaDifferentialObjectMarkingin
Egyptian-Coptic
EitanGrossman 129
6 VerbalsemanticsanddifferentialobjectmarkinginLycopolitanCoptic
ÅkeEngsheden 153
7 Adiachronicperspectiveondifferentialobjectmarkinginpre-modern
Japanese:OldJapaneseandEarlyMiddleJapanese
BjarkeFrellesvig,StephenHorn&YukoYanagida 183
8 Nominalandverbalparametersinthediachronyofdifferentialobject
markinginSpanish
MarcoGarcíaGarcía 209
9 EmergenceofoptionalaccusativecasemarkinginKhoelanguages
WilliamB.McGregor 243
10 TheriseofdifferentialobjectmarkinginHindiandrelatedlanguages
AnnieMontaut 281
Contents
11 ThediachronicdevelopmentofDifferentialObjectMarkinginSpanish
ditransitiveconstructions
KlausvonHeusinger 315
12 StructuralcaseandobjectiveconjugationinNorthernSamoyedic
MelaniWratil 345
13 DifferentialAandSmarkinginSumi(Naga):Synchronicanddiachronic
considerations
AmosTeo 381
14 DifferentialsubjectmarkinganditsdemiseinthehistoryofJapanese
YukoYanagida 401
15 ThepartitiveA:OnusesoftheFinnishpartitivesubjectintransitiveclauses
TuomasHuumo 423
16 Somelikeittransitive:RemarksonverbsoflikingandthelikeintheSaami
languages
SeppoKittilä&JussiYlikoski 455
17 Theemergenceofdifferentialcasemarking
SanderLestrade 481
18 Reassessingscaleeffectsondifferentialcasemarking:Methodological,
conceptualandtheoreticalissuesinthequestforauniversal
KarstenSchmidtke-Bode&NataliaLevshina 509
Indexes 539
ii
Preface
Most of the 18 papers in this volume were presented at the workshop The Diachronic
TypologyofDifferentialArgumentMarking,heldattheUniversityofKonstanz,April5–
6,2014.
Thevolumeeditorsthankthosewhosegeneroussupportmadetheconferenceandthis
volumepossible:theUniversityofKonstanz,EUFP7MarieCurieZukunftskollegIncom-
ingFellowshipProgramme(grant291784),oftheEuropeanResearchCouncil(ERCAd-
vanced Grant 670985, Grammatical Universals), Katharina Sommer, Luise Dorenbusch,
aswellastheteamofLanguageSciencePress.
Specialthanksgotothemanyreviewerswhohelpedustoimprovethepapersinthis
volume:SebastianBank,ChrisCollins,BertCornille,AntonioFabregas,GaryHolton,Jo-
hannesKabatek,MatthiasMüller,DianeNelson,ThomasPellard,JohnPeterson,Martine
Roberts, Jenneke van der Wal, Maria Vilkuna, Beáta Wagner-Nagy, Søren Wichmann,
ManualWidmer.

Chapter 1
Differential argument marking: Patterns
of variation
Alena Witzlack-Makarevich
UniversityofKiel
Ilja A. Seržant
LeipzigUniversity
In this introductory article we provide an overview of the range of the phenomena that
canbereferredtoasdifferentialargumentmarking(DAM).Webeginwithanoverviewof
theexistingterminologyandgiveabroaddefinitionoftheDAMtocoverthephenomena
discussedinthepresentvolumeandintheliteratureunderthisheading.Wethenconsider
various types of the phenomenon which have figured prominently in studies of DAM in
various traditions. First, we differentiate between arguments of the same predicate form
andargumentsofdifferentpredicateforms.WithinthefirsttypewediscussDAMsystems
triggeredbyinherentlexicalargumentpropertiesandtheonestriggeredbynon-inherent,
discourse-basedargumentproperties,aswellassomeminortypes.Itisthisfirsttypethat
traditionallyconstitutesthecoreofthephenomenonandfallsunderournarrowdefinition
ofDAM.ThesecondtypeofDAMisconditionedbythelargersyntacticenvironment,such
asclauseproperties(e.g.mainvs.embedded)orpropertiesofthepredicate(e.g.itsTAM
characteristics). Then, we also discuss the restrictions that may constrain the occurrence
ofDAMcross-linguistically,othertypicalfeaturesofDAMsystemspertainingtothemor-
phologicalrealization(symmetricvs.asymmetric)ortothedegreeofoptionalityofDAM.
Finally,weprovideabriefoverviewoverfunctionalexplanationsofDAM.
1 Introduction
In this introductory article we provide an overview of the range of phenomena that
canbereferredtoasdifferentialargumentmarking(DAM).1 Webeginthisintroduction
with a survey of the existing terminology (this section). We then proceed to consider
individual aspects of the phenomenon which have figured prominently in studies of
DAMinvarioustraditions(§2and§3).
1Bothauthorscontributedequallytothewritingofthispaper.
AlenaWitzlack-Makarevich& Ilja A. Seržant. Differentialargument marking: Pat-
terns of variation. In Ilja A. Seržant & Alena Witzlack-Makarevich (eds.), The di-
achronictypologyofdifferentialargumentmarking, 1–40. Berlin: LanguageScience
Press. DOI:10.5281/zenodo.1228243
AlenaWitzlack-Makarevich&IljaA.Seržant
Thetermdifferentialmarking–ortobehistoricallyprecise,differentialobjectmarking
(abbreviatedasDOM)–wasfirstusedbyBossong(1982;1985)inhisinvestigationsofthe
phenomenoninSardinianandNewIranianlanguages.Somewhatolderthanthisterm
isthetermsplit (asinsplitergativity)usedinthelineofresearchfocusingprimarilyon
thedifferentialmarkingoftheagentargument.IthasbeeninusesinceSilverstein(1976)
andwaspopularizedbyDixon(1979;1994).
Recentyearshavebeenmarkedbyagrowinginterestindifferentialmarking,andasa
resultnumerousrelatedtermshavebeencoinedtorefertoindividualrolesmarkeddiffer-
entiallyandparticularpatternsofdifferentialmarking.Forexample,deHoop&deSwart
(2008b)werethefirsttosystematicallydiscussdifferentialsubjectmarking(DSM).Here,
thesyntactictermsubjectwasunderstoodratherbroadlyincludingdifferentkindsofless
canonical,subject-likearguments.Later,notionscoveringmorespecificargumentroles
were introduced: Fauconnier (2011) studies differential agent marking, whereas Haspel-
math (2007) and Kittilä (2008) explore differential recipient marking or differentialgoal
marking,aswellasdifferentialthememarking.Anothernotionthatissubsumedunder
DAM is optional ergative marking (cf. among others McGregor 1992; 1998; 2006; 2010;
Meakins2009;Gaby2010).Astheseandotherauthorsshow,inadditiontothesemantic
function of encoding agents, ergative case is sometimes also employed to mark focal,
unexpectedorcontrastiveagentarguments.Finally,Sinnemäki(2014)–observingthat
thetermDOMsometimesimpliesanassumptionastowhichfactorstriggerdifferential
marking– introduced theterm restricted case marking (ofthe object) tocoverall cases
of differential marking no matter what the respective factors are. Finally, in the tradi-
tions of the DAM research in individual language families and languages, many more
language-,role-ormarking-specificlabelshavebeenused,forinstance,prepositionalac-
cusative inRomancelinguistics(e.g.TorregoSalcedo1999)orbi-absolutiveconstruction
intheNakh-Daghestanianlanguages(e.g.Forker2012).
The list of terms provided above makes it clear that research on differential mark-
ing has focused primarily on arguments. However, differential argument marking can
be viewed as a subtype of a larger phenomenon which manifests itself in a complex
interactionbetween the meaningand function of aparticular marking pattern, onthe
one hand, and some properties of the constituents involved – both arguments and ad-
juncts–,ontheother.Forinstance,thePersianmarker-rāisnotonlyusedwithdirect
object NPs but can follow nearly all kinds of constituents except for subject NPs: one
finds it marking time-adverbial NPs, objects of prepositions, etc. (cf. various examples
inDabir-Moghaddam1992;foradifferentexampleseethediscussionofdifferentialtime
adverbialmarkinginBalticinSeržant2016:141–154).Besides,casemarkingneedsnotbe
fully paradigmatic and different cases/adpositions impose different selectional restric-
tionsonthetypeofnominalstheycanmark.Theserestrictionsmaypotentiallycreate
paradigmaticgapsanddifferentialmarkingwithbothargumentsandadjuncts.Themain
condition for this is the semantic compatibility between the meaning of a particular
case/adpositionandthenominal(Comrie1986;Aristar1997;Creissels&Mounole2011).
Forexample,Aristar(1997)showsthatlocationalcases/adpositionsareoftenlessorzero
markedwithplacenamesbutrequireadedicatedsuffixwithothernounswhichareless
2