Shifting Perspectives: Case Marking Restrictions and the Syntax-Semantics-Pragmatics Interface

AbstractGaahmg has ergative traces in a predominately nominative-accusative system. Clauses with object focus demonstrate ergative case marking on postverbal noun and pronoun agents, and an ergative morpheme is also bound to verbs. Other evidence for ergativity is that the ergative morpheme is morphologically and syntactically distinct from the passive morpheme. Ergative morphemes and constructions in Gaahmg are similar to those of other Nilo-Saharan languages, including Luwo, Päri, and Shilluk. The Gaahmg antipassive also resembles that of other Nilo-Saharan languages. Yet, unlike other languages with ergativity and antipassives, Gaahmg readily combines the antipassive with ergative, passive, and causative morphemes in the same verb form. The Gaahmg antipassive occurs in nominative-accusative structures, as well as in object-focus clauses with ergative-absolutive structures. Further, the antipassive co-occurs with the passive, as if both the nominative-accusative and ergative-absolutive structures are simultaneously present in the same clause, and the language is currently shifting from one structure to the other.

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Isomorphism and language-specific devices in comprehension of Korean suffixal passive construction by Mandarin-speaking learners of Korean

Applied Linguistics Review ◽

10.1515/applirev-2020-0036 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 0 (0) ◽

Author(s):

Gyu-Ho Shin ◽

Sun Hee Park

Keyword(s):

Native Speakers ◽

Reaction Times ◽

The Other ◽

L2 Acquisition ◽

Verbal Morphology ◽

Passive Voice ◽

Passive Construction ◽

Case Marking

Abstract Across languages, a passive construction is known to manifest a misalignment between the typical order of event composition (agent-before-theme) and the actual order of arguments in the constructions (theme-before-agent), dubbed non-isomorphic mapping. This study investigates comprehension of a suffixal passive construction in Korean by Mandarin-speaking learners of Korean, focusing on isomorphism and language-specific devices in the passive. We measured learners’ judgment of the acceptability of canonical and scrambled suffixal passives as well as their reaction times (relative to a canonical active transitive). Our analysis generated three major findings. First, learners uniformly preferred the canonical passive to the scrambled passive. Second, as proficiency increased, the judgment gap between the canonical active transitive and the canonical suffixal passive narrowed, but the gap between the canonical active transitive and the scrambled suffixal passive did not. Third, learners (and even native speakers) spent more time in judging the acceptability of the canonical suffixal passive than they did in the other two construction types. Implications of these findings are discussed with respect to the mapping nature involving a passive voice, indicated by language-specific devices (i.e., case-marking and verbal morphology dedicated to Korean passives), in L2 acquisition.

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A taxonomy of antonymy in Arabic: Egyptian and Saudi proverbs in comparison

Open Linguistics ◽

10.1515/opli-2021-0013 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 7 (1) ◽

pp. 200-222

Author(s):

Hamada Hassanein ◽

Mohammad Mahzari

Keyword(s):

Main Clause ◽

The Other ◽

Subordinate Clause ◽

Future Research ◽

Case Marking ◽

News Discourse ◽

Discourse Functions ◽

Syntactic Frames

Abstract This study has set out to identify, quantify, typify, and exemplify the discourse functions of canonical antonymy in Arabic paremiography by comparing two manually collected datasets from Egyptian and Saudi (Najdi) dialects. Building upon Jones’s (2002) most extensive and often-cited classification of the discourse functions of antonyms as they co-occur within syntactic frames in news discourse, the study has substantially revised this classification and developed a provisional and dynamic typology thereof. Two major textual functions are found to be quantitatively significant and qualitatively preponderant: ancillarity (wherein an A-pair of canonical antonyms project their antonymicity onto a more important B-pair) and coordination (wherein one antonym holds an inclusive or exhaustive relation to another antonym). Three new functions have been developed and added to the retrieved classification: subordination (wherein one antonym occurs in a subordinate clause while the other occurs in a main clause), case-marking (wherein two opposite cases are served by two antonyms), and replacement (wherein one antonym is substituted with another). Semicanonical and noncanonical guises of antonymy are left and recommended for future research.

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Is Basque morphologically ergative?

Studies in Language ◽

10.1075/sl.33.4.01ald ◽

2009 ◽

Vol 33 (4) ◽

pp. 783-831 ◽

Cited By ~ 6

Author(s):

Gontzal Aldai

Keyword(s):

Complex Issue ◽

Semantic System ◽

Case Marking

Although Basque’s case-marking pattern has conventionally been regarded as ergative, I argue in this article that it is not straightforward to determine whether this pattern is actually ergative or rather semantically-based. Several factors make this one a complex issue. Perhaps the most important factor among these, and one which has gone largely unnoticed in the literature, is the fact that there are clear dialectal differences regarding the behavior of lexically-simple unergative verbs. Another complication comes from establishing the specific contrast underlying the putative semantic split among Basque intransitives. With these questions in mind, I propose that the case-marking system of Western Basque should be considered semantically aligned instead of ergative. This system is based on a contrast patientive / non-patientive. Conversely, Eastern and Central Basque may be considered to have an ergative case-marking system, but one which differs in some respects from that of the most typical ergative languages and which is not too different from a semantic system.

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Communicative efficiency and differential case marking: a reverse-engineering approach

Linguistics Vanguard ◽

10.1515/lingvan-2019-0087 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 7 (s3) ◽

Author(s):

Natalia Levshina

Keyword(s):

Reverse Engineering ◽

Conditional Probabilities ◽

Case Marking ◽

Poisson Models ◽

Linguistic Patterns ◽

Cue Reliability ◽

Communicative Efficiency ◽

Cue Availability ◽

Probabilistic Measures ◽

Better Than

Abstract The use of differential case marking of A and P has been explained in terms of efficiency (economy) and markedness. The present study tests predictions based on these accounts, using conditional probabilities of a particular feature given the syntactic role (cue availability), and conditional probabilities of a particular syntactic role given the feature in question (cue reliability). Cue availability serves as a measure of markedness, whereas cue reliability is central for the efficiency account. Similar to reverse engineering, we determine which of the probabilistic measures could have been responsible for the recurrent cross-linguistic patterns described in the literature. The probabilities are estimated from spontaneous informal dialogues in English and Russian (Indo-European), Lao (Tai-Kadai), N||ng (Tuu) and Ruuli (Bantu). The analyses, which involve a series of mixed-effects Poisson models, clearly demonstrate that cue reliability matches the observed cross-linguistic patterns better than cue availability. Thus, the results support the efficiency account of differential marking.

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Honorifics: A sociocultural verb agreement cue in Japanese sentence processing

Applied Psycholinguistics ◽

10.1017/s0142716410000111 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 31 (3) ◽

pp. 551-569 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

YUKI YOSHIMURA ◽

BRIAN MACWHINNEY

Keyword(s):

Second Language ◽

Language Learners ◽

Sentence Processing ◽

Word Order ◽

Second Language Learners ◽

Native Speakers ◽

Role Assignment ◽

Verb Agreement ◽

Case Marking ◽

New Type

ABSTRACTCase marking is the major cue to sentence interpretation in Japanese, whereas animacy and word order are much weaker. However, when subjects and their cases markers are omitted, Japanese honorific and humble verbs can provide information that compensates for the missing case role markers. This study examined the usage of honorific and humble verbs as cues to case role assignment by Japanese native speakers and second-language learners of Japanese. The results for native speakers replicated earlier findings regarding the predominant strength of case marking. However, when case marking was missing, native speakers relied more on honorific marking than word order. In these sentences, the processing that relied on the honorific cue was delayed by about 100 ms in comparison to processing that relied on the case-marking cue. Learners made extensive use of the honorific agreement cue, but their use of the cue was much less accurate than that of native speakers. In particular, they failed to systematically invoke the agreement cue when case marking was missing. Overall, the findings support the predictions of the model and extend its coverage to a new type of culturally determined cue.

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Predicate union and the syntax of Japanese passives

Journal of Linguistics ◽

10.1017/s0022226796006287 ◽

1997 ◽

Vol 33 (1) ◽

pp. 1-37 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

STANLEY DUBINSKY

Keyword(s):

Argument Structure ◽

Case Marking ◽

Unaccusative Verbs

This paper presents a relational account of the Japanese constructions that are commonly referred to as ‘passives’. They are shown to all be multipredicate, monoclausal constructions, with the differences between them primarily attributable to optionality in the lexical argument structure of the ‘passive’ predicate. The proposed analysis explains the differences between passives and causatives, despite their sometimes identical case-marking. Further, evidence from the interaction of unaccusative verbs and passive is shown to lead to a formal revision of the 1-Advancement Exclusiveness law. Finally, the differences between Japanese and Korean with respect to passives is reduced to a simple lexical difference between the two languages.

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“Which mouse kissed the frog?” Effects of age of onset, length of exposure, and knowledge of case marking on the comprehension of wh-questions in German-speaking simultaneous and early sequential bilingual children

Journal of Child Language ◽

10.1017/s0305000916000015 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 43 (3) ◽

pp. 635-661 ◽

Cited By ~ 12

Author(s):

ANNE DOROTHEE ROESCH ◽

VASILIKI CHONDROGIANNI

Keyword(s):

Age Of Onset ◽

Bilingual Children ◽

Language Abilities ◽

Error Patterns ◽

Case Marking ◽

Different Types ◽

Wh Questions ◽

German Speaking

AbstractStudies examining age of onset (AoO) effects in childhood bilingualism have provided mixed results as to whether early sequential bilingual children (eL2) differ from simultaneous bilingual children (2L1) and L2 children on the acquisition of morphosyntax. Differences between the three groups have been attributed to other factors such as length of exposure (LoE), language abilities, and the phenomenon to be acquired. The present study investigates whether four- to five-year-old German-speaking eL2 children differ from 2L1 children on the acquisition of wh-questions, and whether these differences can be explained by AoO, LoE, and/or knowledge of case marking. The 2L1 children outperformed the eL2 children in terms of accuracy; however, both bilingual groups exhibited similar error patterns. This suggests that 2L1 and eL2 bilingual children are sensitive to the same morphosyntactic cues, when comprehending wh-questions. Finally, children's performance on the different types of wh-questions was explained by a combination of knowledge of case marking, LoE, and AoO.

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