Deconstructing Ergativity: Two Types of Ergative Languages and Their Features

Description: Building upon theoretical innovations and extensive empirical findings, this book explains variation in the syntactic behavior of ergative arguments across languages. It offers a new analysis of ergativity by recognizing two distinct types, PP-ergative- and DP-ergative-languages. Each type is characterized by a set of correlated features which result in structural consistency. 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. Preface; Abbreviations; Part I: Two types of ergatives; 1 Introduction; 1.1 Setting the stage; 1.2 Syntactic ergativity; 1.2.1 The phenomenon; 1.2.2 The range of the phenomenon; 1.2.3 The relevance of syntactic ergativity; 1.3. The importance of starting small; 1.3.1 Syntactic ergativity broadly defined; 1.3.2 Not all A-bar movement phenomena are created equal; 1.3.3 Some methodological odds and ends; Appendix: Compensatory strategies under syntactic ergativity; 2 Proposal; 2.1 Crucial empirical observations; 2.1.1 Diachronic pathways to ergativity; 2.1.2 Oblique subjects; 2.2 The proposal: Two classes of ergative languages; 2.3 From PP specifier to syntactic ergativity; 2.3.1 The relationship between the verbal functional head and ergative P; 2.3.2 Ergative P and P-stranding; 2.3.3 Ergative P and pied-piping; 2.3.4 From a PP subject to syntactic ergativity; 2.4 Basic clausal structures in the two types of ergative languages; 2.4.1 PP-ergative and DP-ergative languages: transitive clauses; 2.4.2 PP-ergative and DP-ergative languages: unergative clauses; 2.4.3 PP specifiers everywhere? Preventing overgeneration; 2.4.4 Compatibility between the ergative and the passive; 2.5 Summary; 3 Prepositional phrases: Establishing the diagnostics; 3.1 PPs have distinct extraction and subextraction properties; 3.2 Restrictions on PPs as pivots of clefts; 3.3 PPs have resumptive proforms and may have special modifiers; 3.4 PPs are less accessible to agreement probes than DPs are; 3.5 PPs and binding; 3.6 PPs and A-movement; 3.7 PPs and control; 3.8 Summary; 4 Ergative as a PP: Take One; 4.1 Ergative expressions can be PPs; 4.2 Subextraction out of the ergative expression; 4.3 Ergative cannot extract leaving a gap; 4.4 Ergative and agreement; 4.5 Ergative and depictives; 4.6 Ergative and quantifier float; 4.7 Taking stock; 4.7.1 Silent P head; 4.7.2 Overt P head; 4.7.3 The nature of the operator; 5 Ergative as a PP: Take Two; 5.1 Binding: Reflexives and reciprocals; 5.2 Raising; 5.2.1 No true raising; 5.2.2 Ergative is not preserved under raising-at least in Tongan; 5.3 control; 5.3 Summary; 6 Cross-linguistic landscape: Correlates of PP-ergativity; 6.1. Word order correlates; 6.2 Expletive subjects; 6.3 Non-canonical (quirky) subjects; 7 The other ergative: A true DP; 7.1 Extraction of the ergative with a gap; 7.2 Subextraction from the ergative and the absolutive; 7.3 Agreement; 7.4 Binding; 7.5 Control and raising; 7.6 Word order; 7.7 Summary; 8 The relationship between the PP-ergative type and the DP-ergative type: Phylogeny and ontogeny; 8.1 Diachronic relationship between the PP-ergative type and the DP-ergative type; 8.2 Caught in transition: Niuean; 8.3 Caught in transition: Adyghe; 8.4 PP-ergatives and DP-ergatives in language acquisition; 9 Alternative accounts of variation across ergative languages; 9.1 Comp-trace vs. P-trace; 9.2 Criterial freezing; 9.3 Phase boundaries and high/low absolutive languages; 9.4 Non-syntactic explanations for variation across ergative languages; 9.5 Summary; Part II: Paradigm languages; 10 A paradigm PP-Ergative language: Tongan; 10.1 Tongan basics; 10.1.1 General remarks; 10.1.2 Predicates; 10.1.3 Case marking; 10.1.4 Word order: Preliminary remarks; 10.1.5 Questions; 10.2 Subject and possessive marking: Clitics; 10.2.1 Subject clitics; 10.2.1.1 Basic facts about clitics; 10.2.1.2 Accounting for Tongan clitics; 10.2.1.3 Clitic doubling; 10.2.2 Possessive clitics and possessive markers; 10.3 Deriving Tongan clause structure; 10.3.1 Word order: Deriving V1; 10.3.2 Word order: The right periphery; 10.3.2.1 The definitive accent; 10.3.2.2 VOS is not due to scrambling; 10.3.2.3 VOS as rightward topicalization; 10.3.3 Basic clause structures; 10.3.3.1 Intransitives: Unaccusatives; 10.3.3.2 Intransitives: Unergatives; 10.3.3.3 Transitive clauses; 10.3.4 Tongan ergativity and split ergativity; 10.4 A-bar movement; 10.4.1 Relative clauses; 10.4.2 Wh-questions; 10.4.3 Focus: Exceptive constructions; 10.4.4 Ko-Topicalization; 10.4.5 Interim summary; 10.5 Raising and control; 10.5.1 The status of ke-clauses; 10.5.2 Raising; 10.5.2.1 Raising-like verbs and their structures; 10.5.2.2 What moves in ke-clauses and where?; 10.5.2.3 What is the nature of the operator in ke-clauses?; 10.5.2.4 The transparency of finite ke-clauses; 10.5.3 The verb lava; 10.5.3.1 Monoclausal structure with lava: Restructuring; 10.5.3.2 Biclausal structures with lava; 10.5.4 Control; 10.5.4.1 Basic facts; 10.5.4.2 No obligatory control; 10.5.4.3 The internal syntax of control ke-clauses; 10.5.5 Interim summary; 10.6 Binding; 10.6.1 Anaphoric binding; 10.6.2 Reciprocals? Just pluractionality; 10.6.3 Other binding contexts; 10.7 Summary; 11 A paradigm DP-Ergative language: Tsez; 11.1 Tsez basics; 11.1.1 Preliminaries; 11.1.2 Unergatives and unaccusatives; 11.1.3 Clauses with two or more arguments; 11.2 Discontinuous noun phrases; 11.3 Non-finite forms; 11.3.1 Infinitival and masdar clauses; 11.3.2 Event nominalizations; 11.4 A-bar movement; 11.5 Raising and control; 11.5.1 Raising; 11.5.2 Complement control; 11.5.2.1 Forward control; 11.5.2.2 Backward control; 11.5.3 Infinitival relative clauses; 11.6 Binding; 11.6.1 Anaphoric binding; 11.6.2 Depictives; 11.7 Interim summary; 11.8 Deriving Tsez clauses; 11.8.1 Two possible analyses; 11.8.1.1 A single vP; 11.8.1.2 Layered functional heads in the verb phrase; 11.8.2 Single heads or layered structure: Which analysis is superior?; 11.9 Summary; 12 Taking stock; References; index

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