Re: Inverse marking (was: Kijeb text uploaded)

On Tue, 18 Apr 2006 18:34:12 +0200, Carsten Becker <carbeck@...>
wrote:

>From: "Eldin Raigmore" <eldin_raigmore@...>
>Sent: Monday, April 17, 2006 7:42 PM
>
>> These languages are a subset of the alignment-type called
>> "hierarchical
>> alignment". In such languages, the "word"-order of the
>> clause and the
>> agreement marking on the verb always puts that participant
>> which is highest
>> in the hierarchy first, regardless of whether it is the
>> agent or the
>> patient.  Thus some kind of "voice" marking on the verb is
>> necessary to
>> indicate whether this agreed-with participant is the agent
>> or the patient.
>>
>> (The hierarchy in question is usually one of agent-potency
>> (that is,
>> potentiality to be an agent), as opposed to
>> topic-worthiness, according to
>> M.H.Klaiman.)
>
>Sounds a little like what I imagined to do with Ukele once I
>put more work into it, the same goes for Tarsyanian. Both
>languages have split-systems: Tarsyanian has got an agentive
>(= split-S) alignment, but verbs are supposed to have
>grammaticalized participant roles, at least the most common
>ones. You need voice to adjust things, since you have a mix
>between nom/acc and abs/erg. Ukele is similar in that it has
>a class system similar to Bantu languages which is based on
>agent-potency: Only gods, environmental forces, feelings,
>abstracta (Class I), humans (Class II) and animals (Class
>III) are agentive enough to have a nom/acc morphology, all
>others (Classes IV-VII, i.e. plants, food, everyday
>objects/tools, other inanimate things) have an abs/erg
>morphology. This all only goes for verbal agreement, though,
>since nouns do not have overt case marking, i.e. the case
>endings are null-morphemes. For all agentives goes
>furthermore the topic-worthiness in that 1p > 2p > 3p. So
>again, you need the passive voice to adjust the sentence,
>although I haven't yet figured out how. I think I'll need
>both, a passive and an antipassive voice.
>
>Yours,
>Carsten
This is both very interesting for its own sake, and, quite natlang-like in
its split between the acc/nom and the erb/abs parts of the system.  (BTW
you are aware, aren't you, that Split-S is a different thing from Split-
Ergative, and they occur independently of each other?)

However, Split-S systems and Split-Ergative systems are not the same as
Hierarchical systems, even though the "hierarchy" is intimately involved in
deciding exactly where the "split" in the Split-Ergative system will be.

(In a Split-Ergative system, participants in some top segment of the
hierarchy are treated Accusative/Nominatively, while participants in some
(possibly overlapping) bottom segment of the hierarchy are treated
Ergative/Absolutively.)

(In a Split-S (Active/Stative) system, the single participant of an
Intransitive clause may be marked like an Agent (ergative?), or may be
marked like a Patient (accusative?), depending. For instance, it may be
marked "Ergative" for "Active Verbs" and "Accusative" for "Stative Verbs";
or it may depend on something else -- what it depends on is language-
specific.  If the same participant can be marked either way (depending) for
the same verb, it is a Fluid-S system; some Fluid-S systems have _three_
possible "cases" or "voices" for intransitive clauses.)

In a Hierarchical system, the verb always agrees with whichever participant
is highest in the Hierarchy, _regardless_ of the case-role played by that
participant.

"I hit it" and "It hit me" will _both_ have 1st-person agreement on the
verb.

They'll be something like:

Hit-1-DIR I it
"I hit it"

Hit-1-INV I it
"It hit me"


(BTW Hierarchical languages are probably not APV nor PAV, nor VAP nor VPA,
nor AVP nor PVA in "word-order type"; instead of mentioning Agents before
Patients or vice-versa, they always mention participants in the order of
the hierarchy, (or, I imagine for some languages, always in the opposite
order).  My examples here assume a verb-initial language in which the
highest-ranked participant is always mentioned first.)

Similarly "You hit it" and "It hit you" will _both_ have 2nd-person
agreement.

Hit-2-DIR you it
"You hit it"

Hit-2-INV you it
"It hit you"


Type II.F. clauses (both participants 3rd-person, one animate and one
inanimate) _can_ be disambiguated the same way;

Hit-3-DIR he it
"He hit it"

Hit-3-INV he it
"It hit him"

Or types II.B., II.C., and II.F. might be disambiguated through obviation.
(Only obviation is available to disambiguate types II.B. and II.C. (whose
participants do not differ in animacy); but obviation may, or may not, be
available to disambiguate type II.F., probably depending on the language.)

II.B. ("He hit him") or II.C. ("It hit it")

II.B. Hit-3-DIR he-PROX he-OBV
II.C. Hit-3-DIR it-PROX it-OBV
"The former hit the latter"

II.B. Hit-3-INV he-PROX he-OBV
II.C. Hit-3-INV it-PROX it-OBV
"The latter hit the former"


Type II.A. clauses (the two Speech-Act-Participants are the two Clause-
Participants) are not all treated the same way by every Hierarchical-
Alignment language.  Also, some such languages "have problems" with such
predications.

Some languages make the 1st person higher in the hierarchy than the 2nd
person, so that
"I hit you" comes out as "Hit-1-DIR I you"
and
"You hit me" comes out as "Hit-1-INV I you".

But some languages make the 2nd person higher in the hierarchy than the 1st
person, so that
"I hit you" comes out as "Hit-2-INV you I"
and
"You hit me" comes out as "Hit-2-DIR you I".

Yet other languages are ambiguous about it; the verb receives neither first-
person nor second-person agreement, but a special "first-and-second"
agreement marker;
"Hit-1&2 I you" or "Hit-1&2 you I"
means either "I hit you" or "you hit me", and must be disambiguated by
context or some other means not actually uttered in _this_ clause itself.

And I imagine there are other techniques as well; including, perhaps, using
some other alignment system (e.g. accusative or ergative) just exactly in
cases where both speech-act-participants have roles -- but not the same
role -- in the clause.

----

The similarity between Direct Voice and Active Voice, and between Inverse
Voice and Passive Voice, is this;

In an Inverse Voice system, the Direct Voice indicates that the participant
highest in the hierarchy is the Agent;
while in a Derived Voice system, the Active Voice indicates that the
participant in the Subject grammatical relation is the Agent.

In an Inverse Voice system, the Inverse Voice indicates that the
participant highest in the hierarchy is the Patient;
while in a Derived Voice system, the Passive Voice indicates that the
participant in the Subject grammatical relation is the Patient.

It is not clear to me whether it is reasonable to assume that "the
participant highest in the hierarchy" is "the Subject".

----

BTW
I made (at least) two mistakes in my previous post on this thread (quoted
below).

1. There are 11, not 10, possible clause types; add:

"II.G. At least one clause-participant is a speech-act-participant, and at
least one clause-participant is an animate third person, and at least one
clause-participant is an inanimate third person."

2. It is "type II.B.", not "type II.C.", for which obviation is most
necessary.

----

Also note;

There won't be any type I.D. clauses in languages that don't
have "impersonal verbs";
and,
There won't be any type II.G. clauses in languages that don't
have "trivalent verbs".

----

|Grammarians of these languages basically divide clauses into ten types;
|I. One (or fewer) participant.
|I.A. The participant is a speech-act-participant (speaker or addressee)
|I.B. The clause-participant is an animate "third person".
|I.C. The clause-participant is an inanimate "third person".
|I.D. There aren't any participants in the clause.
|
|II. Two (or more) participants.
|II.A. Every participant is a speech-act-participant (speaker or addressee)
|II.B. Every clause participant is an animate "third person".
|II.C. Every clause participant is an inanimate "third person".
|
|II.D. At least one clause-participant is a speech-act-participant, and at
|least one clause-participant is an animate "third person".
|
|II.E. At least one clause-participant is a speech-act-participant, and at
|least one clause-participant is an inanimate "third person".
|
|II.F. At least one clause-participant is an animate "third person", and at
|least one clause-participant is an inanimate "third person".
|
|---
|
|It is type II.C. in which obviation is especially important.
|

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