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Morphosyntactic alignment
*** Shopping-Tip: Morphosyntactic alignment
{{linguistic typology topics}}
In
linguistics, '''morphosyntactic alignment''' is the system used to distinguish between the
verb argument arguments of
transitive verbs and
intransitive verbs. The distinction can be made
morphology (linguistics) morphologically, with
morphemes that mark
grammatical case, or
syntax syntactically, by word order) or both.
Semantics and grammatical relations
Transitive verbs usually have two arguments, a
subject (grammar) subject and
object (grammar) object. Intransitive verbs have a single argument, the subject.
In this regard, most languages group two of the arguments and leave the other apart in terms of distinction. That is, of the three possible arguments, two are treated the same, and the other is treated differently.
Theta roles play a part in grouping the arguments, such as the
agent (grammar) agent, which carries out an action, the
patient (grammar) patient, which is acted upon, and an ''experiencer'', which experiences a state.
# '''
Nominative-accusative languages''' group the experiencer and the agent, with the patient separate. That is, the subject of a transitive verb and the subject of an intransitive verb are treated alike, while the object of a transitive verb is treated differently. In a language with morphological case marking, the experiencer and agent are both marked with the
nominative case or sometimes unmarked, while the patient is marked with the
accusative case. (There may be more than one case for a single category; for example,
Baltic-Finnic languages use both the
accusative case and the
partitive case to mark the object.) Languages without case marking identify the arguments through word order (for example, in
Subject Verb Object languages the nominative argument precedes the verb while the accusative argument follows).
# '''
Ergative-absolutive languages''' group the experiencer and the patient. The agent is marked with the
ergative case, while the experiencer and patient are marked with the
absolutive case or often left unmarked.
# '''
Active-stative languages''' group the experiencer either with the agent or with the patient, according to certain criteria that may be either fixed arbitrarily for each verb or chosen by the speaker on a semantic basis. These criteria are usually related to the degree of volition or control of the verbal action by the experiencer (note that agents of transitive verbs are always marked the same).
Some languages make no distinction whatsoever between agent, experiencer and patient, leaving the hearer to rely entirely on context and common sense to figure them out. Some others, such as
tripartite languages use a separate case or syntax for each argument, which may conventionally be called the
nominative case, the
intransitive case, and the
ergative case. Certain
Iranian languages, such as
Rushani, distinguish only transitivity, using a
transitive case and an intransitive case.
Furthermore, a single language may use both systems in different contexts. This is seen in Ob-Ugric languages (
Khanty language Khanty and
Mansi language Mansi), which normally are nominative-accusative languages, but have had an innovation of ergativity. In an ergative construction, the human (or other sentient) is placed into the object category, and the
Locative case locative (used as an
Instrumental case instrumental) is used for agents. This may be used with some specific verbs, for example "to give": the anglicisation would be "I(subject) gave you(object), using a fish(instrument)" for the equivalent of the sentence "I gave a fish to you". In addition, these may be passivized in a way resembling English. For example, in
Mansi language Mansi, "a dog (agent) bit you (object)" could be reformatted as "you(object) were bitten, by a dog(instrument)".
Ergative vs. accusative
Ergative languages are in contrast to ''nominative-accusative'' languages (such as English), which treat the object of transitive verbs distinctly from the subject of both transitive and intransitive verbs.
These different arguments can be symbolized as follows:
* '''O''' = object of transitive verb
(also symbolized as '''P''')
* '''S
intrans''' = subject of intransitive verb
(also symbolized as '''S''')
* '''S
trans''' = subject of transitive verb
(also symbolized as '''A''')
The relationship between ergative and accusative systems can be schematically represented as the following:
{| class="wikitable" cellpadding="5"
|
! Ergative-absolutive
! Nominative-accusative
|-
| '''O'''
|
same
|
different
|-
| '''S
intrans'''
|
same
|
same
|-
| '''S
trans'''
|
different
|
same
|}
The following
Basque language Basque examples demonstrate ergative-absolutive case marking system:
:{| cellpadding="6" style="line-height: 1em;"
|+ '''Ergative Language'''
| '''Sentence:'''
| colspan="2" | ''Gizona etorri da.''
|
| colspan="3" | ''Gizonak mutila ikusi du.''
|-
| '''Words:'''
| gizona
'''-∅'''
| etorri da
|
| gizona
'''-k'''
| mutila
'''-∅'''
| ikusi du
|-
| '''Gloss:'''
| the.man
'''-ABS'''
| has arrived
|
| the.man
'''-ERG'''
| boy
'''-ABS'''
| saw
|-
| '''Function:'''
|
'''Sintrans'''
| VERB
intrans
|
|
'''Strans'''
|
'''O'''
| VERB
trans
|-
| '''Translation:'''
| colspan="2" | 'The man has arrived.'
|
| colspan="2" | 'The man saw the boy.'
|}
In Basque, ''gizona'' is "the man" and ''mutil'' is "boy". ''Gizona'' has a different case marking depending on whether it is the subject of a transitive or intransitive verb. The first form is in the absolutive case, marked here by a
null morpheme (''-∅'') and the second form is in the ergative case, marked by a ''-k'' suffix. The subject of the intransitive sentence and the object of the transitive sentence both have the same absolutive case, while ergative case appears only on the transitive subject.
To contrast with a nominative-accusative language,
Japanese language Japanese marks nouns with a different case marking:
:{| cellpadding="6" style="line-height: 1em;"
|+ '''Accusative Language'''
| '''Sentence:'''
| colspan="2" | ''Otoko ga tsuita.''
|
| colspan="3" | ''Otoko ga kodomo wo mita.''
|-
| '''Words:'''
| otoko
'''ga'''
| tsuita
|
| otoko
'''ga'''
| kodomo
'''wo'''
| mita
|-
| '''Gloss:'''
| man
'''NOM'''
| arrived
|
| man
'''NOM'''
| child
'''ACC'''
| saw
|-
| '''Function:'''
|
'''Sintrans'''
| VERB
intrans
|
|
'''Strans'''
|
'''O'''
| VERB
trans
|-
| '''Translation:'''
| colspan="2" | 'The man arrived.'
|
| colspan="2" | 'The man saw the child.'
|}
In this language, the subject ''otoko'' of intransitive and transitive sentences is marked with the same
nominative case ''ga''. However, the object of transitive sentence ''kodomo'' is marked with the
accusative case ''wo''.
Milewski's typology
Less widely known yet worth mention is a similar classification proposed in the 1960's by the Polish linguist '''Tadeusz Milewski'''. In this classification active and tripartite languages were omitted because they were little known at that time.
Milewski proposed a division of languages into 6 groups, based upon consideration of 4 main syntactic relationships; these were:
(1) the relationship of
the experiencer to the verb,
(2) the relationship of
the agent to the verb,
(3) the relationship of
the patient to the verb, and
(4) the relationship of
the nominal attribute or '''''
predicate''''' to the noun.
These criteria are interesting from a typological point of view because in many languages there is no difference between the sentence and the nominal phrase.
Milewski's typology can be employed when analyzing languages with case marking but can also be used with those which use a fixed word order or a specific form of
incorporation (linguistics) incorporation. For simplicity, the table below classifies casual languages in which the nominal attribute is marked with the
genitive case.
{| border="1" width="50%" align="center"
! class !! 1 !! 2 !! 3 !! 4 !! 5 !! 6
|-
| Experiencer to verb || a || a || a || a || a || a
|-
| Agent to verb || a || b || a || b || a || b
|-
| Patient to verb || b || a || b || a || b || a
|-
| Attribute to noun || c || c || b || b || a || a
|}
The letters a, b, and c represent formal inflective markers specific to each language. For instance, "a" always represents the formal marker by which the experiencer is signified, called either the "nominative" or the "absolutive" depending upon whether this morpheme marks the agent of the action (as in nominative-accusative languages) or the patient (as in ergative-absolutive languages).
As the table shows:
# In languages of the 1st class, the
experiencer and the
agent are marked with the '''nominative''' case (the "a" marker) while the patient is marked with the '''accusative''' case (the "b" marker).
This class is the most widely spread. Most nominative-accusative languages belong here.
# Languages of the 2nd class inflect differently. The
experiencer is marked with the same morpheme as the
patient while the agent is marked with a distinct morpheme. In contrast to Class 1 languages, the "a" marker represents the '''absolutive''' while the "b" marker denotes the '''ergative''' (in Class 1 languages, the "a" marker denotes the '''nominative''' and the "b" marker the '''accusative''').
Most ergative-absolutive languages belong here.
# Languages of the 3rd class could belong to nominative-accusative languages, i.e. the nominative marks both the
agent and the
experiencer (the "a" marker). Class 3 languages do not, however, contain distinct markers/cases for the
patient and
nominal attributes, which together share the same marker, which denotes '''genitive''' (the "b" marker).
Examples of languages of the 3rd class are
Indonesian language Indonesian and
Hopi language Hopi.
It is interesting that marking the patient with the genitive is quite frequent in Slavic languages even if the accusative is usually applied in them just like in other European languages.
# Languages of the 4th class could be considered ergative-absolutive languages insofar as they make no distinction between the
experiencer and the
patient, marking both with the '''absolutive''' (the "a" marker). Yet languages of this class are contrary to typical ergative-absolutive languages insofar as they mark both
agent and
nominal attribute as '''genitive''' (
ergative-genitive case ergative-genitive, the "b" marker).
Examples of Class 4 languages are the
Inuktitut language Inuktitut,
Salishan languages, and
Maya language Mayan languages.
# Languages of the 5th class use the '''genitive''' not only for the
nominal attribute but also for the
agent and the
experiencer (the "a" marker). The other case, called the '''accusative''', marks only the
patient (the "b" marker).
The only language of this class mentioned by Milewski is Nass (Niska, Nisga'a) of the
Tsimshian Tsimshianic family.
# Languages of the 6th class use the '''genitive''' not only for the
nominal attribute but also for the
experiencer and the
patient (the "a" marker"). The other case, the '''ergative''', is used for the
agent (the "b" marker).
This group is not too numerous: Tsimshian,
Tunica (language) Tunica and
Guaraní language Guarani belong here.
External links
-
Dave's Language Creation Notebook: Ergativity
-
Case Marking and Ergativity - an article on
Jiwarli language Jiwarli with a clear explanation of nominative-accusative, ergative-absolutive and tripartite systems
Bibliography
* Anderson, Stephen. (1976). On the notion of subject in ergative languages. In C. Li. (Ed.), ''Subject and topic'' (pp. 1-24). New York: Academic Press.
* Anderson, Stephen R. (1985). Inflectional morphology. In T. Shopen (Ed.), ''Language typology and syntactic description: Grammatical categories and the lexicon'' (Vol. 3, pp. 150-201). Cambridge: University of Cambridge Press.
* Comrie, Bernard. (1978). Ergativity. In W. P. Lehmann (Ed.), ''Syntactic typology: Studies in the phenomenology of language'' (pp. 329-394). Austin: University of Texas Press.
* Dixon, R. M. W. (1979). Ergativity. ''Language'', ''55'' (1), 59-138. (Revised as Dixon 1994).
* Dixon, R. M. W. (Ed.) (1987). ''Studies in ergativity''. Amsterdam: North-Holland.
* Dixon, R. M. W. (1994). ''Ergativity''. Cambridge University Press.
* Foley, William; & Van Valin, Robert. (1984). ''Functional syntax and universal grammar''. Cambridge University Press.
* Kroeger, Paul. (1993). ''Phrase structure and grammatical relations in Tagalog''. Stanford: CSLI.
* Mallinson, Graham; & Blake, Barry J. (1981). Agent and patient marking. ''Language typology: Cross-linguistic studies in syntax'' (Chap. 2, pp. 39-120). North-Holland linguistic series. Amsterdam: North-Holland Publishing Company.
* Plank, Frans. (Ed.). (1979). ''Ergativity: Towards a theory of grammatical relations''. London: Academic Press.
* Schachter, Paul. (1976). The subject in Philippine languages: Actor, topic, actor-topic, or none of the above. In C. Li. (Ed.), ''Subject and topic'' (pp. 491-518). New York: Academic Press.
* Schachter, Paul. (1977). Reference-related and role-related properties of subjects. In P. Cole & J. Sadock (Eds.), ''Syntax and semantics: Grammatical relations'' (Vol. 8, pp. 279-306). New York: Academic Press.
es:Alineamiento morfosintáctico
pl:Stosunki morfosyntaktyczne
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