Deconstructing Ergativity: Two Types of Ergative Languages and Their Features (Oxford Studies in Comparative Syntax) - Softcover

Polinsky, Maria

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0190256591 ISBN 13: 9780190256593

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2016

Synopsis

Nominative-accusative and ergative are two common alignment types found across languages. In the former type, the subject of an intransitive verb and the subject of a transitive verb are expressed the same way, and differently from the object of a transitive. In ergative languages, the subject of an intransitive and the object of a transitive appear in the same form, the absolutive, and the transitive subject has a special, ergative, form. Ergative languages often follow very different patterns, thus evading a uniform description and analysis. A simple explanation for that has to do with the idea that ergative languages, much as their nominative-accusative counterparts, do not form a uniform class. In this book, Maria Polinsky argues that ergative languages instantiate two main types, the one where the ergative subject is a prepositional phrase (PP-ergatives) and the one with a noun-phrase ergative. Each type is internally consistent and is characterized by a set of well-defined properties.

The book begins with an analysis of syntactic ergativity, which as Polinsky argues, is a manifestation of the PP-ergative type. Polinsky discusses diagnostic properties that define PPs in general and then goes to show that a subset of ergative expressions fit the profile of PPs. Several alternative analyses have been proposed to account for syntactic ergativity; the book presents and outlines these analyses and offers further considerations in support of the PP-ergativity approach. The book then discusses the second type, DP-ergative languages, and traces the diachronic connection between the two types.

The book includes two chapters illustrating paradigm PP-ergative and DP-ergative languages: Tongan and Tsez. The data used in these descriptions come from Polinsky's original fieldwork hence presenting new empirical facts from both languages.

About this title

About the Author

Maria Polinsky is Professor of Linguistics at the University of Maryland, College Park. She investigates the syntax of natural languages, with a particular emphasis on language universals and the range of variation in sentence structure. She has produced detailed syntactic analyses of a number of lesser-studied languages and has a long-standing interest in the ways different grammatical models can be used to analyze syntactic phenomena.

Review

"Polinsky provides a new and systematic approach to describing ergative languages that offers attractively simple categories, clearly defined and empirically testable conditions, and data from a set of relevant languages to back up the suggestions made. The dichotomy between PP-ergative and DP-ergative languages proposed is essentially theory-neutral and makes a number of interesting observations awaiting further testing. As such, this monograph will be of interest to anyone working on ergative languages, particularly on syntactical ergativity, and to typologists in general. Certain parts (esp. Chapter 8) may also be of interest to historical linguists. The analytical methods used and proposals made concerning specific languages may further be relevant for linguists working in transformational syntax or on Polynesian and Caucasian languages."--Linguist List

Edition details

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 0190256591
• ISBN 13: 9780190256593
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 410