Related papers
A fresh look at grammatical relations in Indo-Aryan
Balthasar Bickel
Lingua, 110:343-373, 2000
View PDFchevron_right
Arka, I Wayan 2014. Locative-Related Roles and the Argument-Adjunct Distinction in Balinese. Linguistic Discovery 12.2:56-84
I Wayan Arka
This paper uses the realisation of locative-related roles in Balinese to show that there is no clear-cut distinction between arguments and adjuncts, supporting the gradient nature of grammatical functions (cf. Croft 2001;. It argues that argumenthood is not wholly a property of a lexical head predicate and that a purely lexically based projectionist approach to syntactic argument structures cannot be maintained. It also explores the effect that the interplay between relevant properties of locatives has on their recruitability as arguments, and a novel argument-index analysis is proposed as a means to distinguish adjuncts from arguments. The analysis makes use of both general and languagespecific morphosyntactic and morphosemantic tests.
View PDFchevron_right
Conditions on pronominal marking in the Alor-Pantar languages
Antoinette Schapper, Marian Klamer, Greville G. Corbett, Sebastian Fedden, Dunstan Brown, Laura Robinson
We examine the varying role of conditions on grammatical relation marking (namely animacy and volitionality) by looking at different languages of one family, using both existing descriptions and working with specially prepared video stimuli. This enables us to see the degree of variation permitted within closely related languages. We look at four Alor-Pantar languages (Teiwa, Adang, Kamang, and Abui), Papuan languages of eastern Indonesia. The conditions on argument marking are manifested in different ways. Those languages with syntactic alignment index objects with a prefix, those which have semantic alignment index objects and some subjects with a prefix. In 42 video clips we systematically varied animacy and volitionality values for participants in one and two-participant events. These clips were used in fieldwork to elicit descriptions of the events. The data show that animacy of the object is an important factor which favours indexation of the object on the verb in all four languages to varying degrees. Volitionality, on the other hand, is a factor in the semantically aligned languages only. While the presence of a prefix on the verb is semantically motivated in many instances, marking is not directly determined by verbal or participant semantics, and lexical factors must also play a role.
View PDFchevron_right
The case of the direct object in Turkish: Semantics, syntax and morphology
Jaklin Kornfilt
2005
Jaklin 2005. The case of the direct object in Turkish: Semantics, syntax and morphology. Turkic Languages 9, 3-44.
View PDFchevron_right
Review of: A.Y. Aikhenvald, R.M.W. Dixon & Masayuki Onishi (eds), Non-canonical marking of subjects and objects (Typological studies in language; 46). Amsterdam: Benjamins, 2001
Leonid Kulikov
2004
View PDFchevron_right
Argument structure in morphology and syntax: An introduction
Olga Borik
Lingua, 2014
Argument structure in morphology and syntax: An introduction 1. Where do arguments come from?
View PDFchevron_right
Locative-Related Roles and the Argument-Adjunct Distinction in Balinese
I Wayan Arka
Linguistic Discovery, 2014
This paper uses the realisation of locative-related roles in Balinese to show that there is no clear-cut distinction between arguments and adjuncts, supporting the gradient nature of grammatical functions (cf. Croft 2001; Langacker 1987; Aarts 2007). It argues that argumenthood is not wholly a property of a lexical head predicate and that a purely lexically based projectionist approach to syntactic argument structures cannot be maintained. It also explores the effect that the interplay between relevant properties of locatives has on their recruitability as arguments, and a novel argument-index analysis is proposed as a means to distinguish adjuncts from arguments. The analysis makes use of both general and languagespecific morphosyntactic and morphosemantic tests. Investigation of locative-related roles reveals that certain properties determine their status in the argument-adjunct continuum: thematic, individuated and animate locatives are more argument-like than non-thematic, inanimate and general deictic locatives (in line with Kittilä 2007, 2008; Peterson 2007). Interplay between these properties is shown to affect argument recruitment in Balinese, based on the value of the argument index for a given locative-related role. More generally, there also is evidence that languages vary in whether they allow true adjuncts to be recruited as arguments at all. 3 AV.buy rice UV.give=3 Nyoman '(S)he bought rice (for Nyoman).' 60 The Argument-Adjunct Distinction in Balinese Linguistic Discovery 12.2:56-84 (3b) Ia meli-ang Nyoman nasi. (Ben. appl.) 3 AV.buy-APPL Nyoman rice '(S)he bought Nyoman rice' (4a) Ia manteg panak-ne teken buku ento. 3 AV.throw child-3POSS with book that '(S)he pelted his/her child with the book' (4b) Ia manteg-ang buku ento sig panak-ne. (Instr. appl.) 3 AV.throw-APPL book that at child-3POSS '(S)he threw the book at his/her child' (5a) Ia demen teken Nyoman 3 happy with Nyoman '(S)he likes Nyoman' (5b) Nyoman demen-ang=a. (Stim. appl.) Nyoman UV.happy-APPL=3 '(S)he likes/loves NYOMAN' (6a) Ia meli baas (sig dagang-e ento). 'I bought a pencil from the person.' While 'the kiosk' in (29) is a thematic adjunct, relatively close to being an argument (it has an argument index of 0.15), its argument index drops to an absolute zero when it appears in a double locative construction in the presence of a more specific locative, as in (31).
View PDFchevron_right
Nominal Argument Structure and the Stage-/Individual-Level Contrast in Hindi/Urdu
Sebastian Sulger
This paper focuses on a very specific aspect of a construction in Hindi-Urdu involving the verb ho 'be'. The construction was previously described as displaying a pattern of differential case marking (DCM) in the literature, expressing specific semantic effects. These effects were previously compared to the contrast known as the stage-/individual-level contrast. The paper will show, however, that this view does not take into account various syntactic and semantic facts about this construction, and argues for a more differentiated view: what has been regarded as a single construction to be differentiated only by the case marking, should rather be treated as two separate constructions with differences in the nominal argument structure, case marking and semantics. † Thanks to the audience of the LFG12 conference for comments and suggestions, as well as to my informants: Qaiser Abbas, Tafseer Ahmed, Rajesh Bhatt, Miriam Butt, Ghulam Raza. Special thanks to Rajesh Bhatt and Miriam Butt for many comments on earlier versions of this paper. 1 The abbreviations in the glosses are as follows: 1/2/3 -1st/2nd/3rd person, Acc -accusative,
View PDFchevron_right
Cross-referencing of non-subject arguments in Pama-Nyungan languages
Mitchell Browne, Thomas Ennever
Australian Journal of Linguistics, 2023
About one third of Pama-Nyungan languages of Australia employ pronominal crossreferencing, yet systematic typological patterns of non-subject argument registration remain unexamined. We analyze this variation from two perspectives by surveying 22 Pama-Nyungan languages. Firstly, we survey which kinds of case-marked arguments can be crossreferenced by these pronominal systems. From this perspective, we find that a number of nominal expressions marked with so-called 'local' cases (e.g. locative, allative, ablative, etc.) can be cross-referenced when instantiating certain argument relations. Secondly, we find striking cross-linguistic predictability in how such relations-which we descriptively group as 'locational'-are morphologically integrated into the pronominal paradigms. We show that the variation can be captured by two major parameters: firstly, whether locational crossreferencing utilises the same form as another non-subject series, or whether locational crossreferencing is serviced by a unique series formally built off another non-subject series. In this latter case there is further variation as to which other non-subject series provides the base for the dedicated locational series. These parameters result in six surface pattern types, and we show that each of the patterns is instantiated in languages of the survey.
View PDFchevron_right
Differential Object Marking : Theoretical and Empirical issues: special issue of Linguistics
Gerson Klumpp
Linguistics, 2014
View PDFchevron_right