Borrowing non-canonical inverse between Kabardian and Abaza

Abaza, a polysynthetic ergative Northwest Caucasian language, shares with its neighbour and distant relative Kabardian a typologically peculiar use of the deictic directional prefixes monitoring the relative ranking of the subject and indirect object on the person hierarchy. In both languages, the cislocative (‘hither’) prefixes are used if the indirect object outranks the subject on the person hierarchy, and the translocative (‘thither’) prefixes are used in combinations of first person subjects with second person singular indirect objects. This pattern, reminiscent of the more familiar inverse marking and hence called ‘quasi-inverse’, is observed with ditransitive and bivalent intransitive verbs and is almost fully redundant, since all participants are unequivocally indexed on verbs by pronominal prefixes. I argue that this isogloss, shared by West Circassian (a close relative to Kabardian) but not with Abkhaz, the sister-language of Abaza, is a result of pattern replication under intense language contact, which has led to an increase of both paradigmatic and syntagmatic complexity of Abaza verbal morphology.

Non-canonical inverse in Circassian languages

This paper discusses a typologically peculiar inverse-like construction found in the polysynthetic ergative Circassian languages of the Northwest-Caucasian family. These languages possess a cislocative verbal prefix, which, in addition to marking the spatial meaning of speaker-orientation, systematically occurs in polyvalent verbs when the object outranks the subject on the person hierarchy. The inverse-like use of the cislocative in Circassian differs from the “canonical” direct-inverse system in that, first, it is fully redundant since the person-role linking is achieved by means of the person markers themselves and, second, it does not occur in the basic transitive construction, featuring instead in configurations involving an indirect object both in ditransitive and bivalent intransitive verbs. It is argued that the typologically outstanding properties of the Circassian inverse-like marking can be naturally explained by its diachronic origin.

Agreement with the post-verbal DP in Polish dual copula clauses

The chapter examines agreement in Polish dual copula clauses, hosting both the verbal and the pronominal copula. The focus is on predicational and specificational dual copula clauses, in which the verbal copula agrees in φ‎-features with the post-verbal item, not with the pre-verbal one, when both nominal expressions are 3rd person. T in Polish dual copula clauses is taken to be a multiple probe, which has its φ‎-features valued by one of the goals it undergoes Agree with, while T’s EPP-feature is eliminated by the other goal. Divorcing the satisfaction of the EPP-feature of T from its φ‎-feature valuation accounts for the agreement with the post-verbal DP in both types of clauses analysed. The person hierarchy, in which 3rd person is subordinate to 1st and 2nd person, explains why in dual copula clauses with the 1st or 2nd person pronoun, the 1st or 2nd person pronoun always determines verbal agreement.

Alignment across Tsimshianic

The Tsimshianic languages are entirely morphologically ergative in the agreement system. While there is a split in Tsimshianic, conditioned by both clause type and a person hierarchy, the other side of the split is not the expected nominative-accusative alignment. Rather, other logical groupings of semantic roles are found that are still ergative. This chapter presents a description of the agreement patterns across Tsimshianic, with the aim of explaining these expansions of ergativity, by undertaking a comparative analysis of the individual languages in the Tsimshianic family. This is analysis is extended to the connectives, which are complex, determiner-like morphemes that appear to be sensitive to the semantic role of the NP. This leads to four distinct alignments (nominative, ergative, neutral, and contrastive). An understanding of the alignments in the agreement system can shed light on this complexity, and a comparative analysis eliminates the multiple alignments in the connective system, thus revealing a fairly standard set of determiners.

Deriving the scale of finiteness from parasitic syncretism

The aim of this paper is to establish the hierarchy of “finiteness” in Polish based on “morphological” considerations relating to syncretism and alternations, which were taken to be the interface between the lexicon and syntax. The paper focuses on parasitic stem syncretism within the paradigm of eight verb forms in Polish. The eight forms exhibit numerous stem syncretism patterns where one stem forms a “parasitic” base for the formation of another verb. The major point is to argue for a scale of degrees of finiteness rather than any categorical two-way distinction between finite and non-finite forms. The paper suggests various new topics for further research, e. g. how person hierarchy relates to the finiteness hierarchy.

Inflectional morphology restructuring in ache - discussing grammatical change and language contact in tupí-guaraní subgroup - 1

This paper deals with mechanisms of grammatical change in Ache, focusing on inflection. Ache contains restricted functional morphology when compared to most Tupí-Guaraní languages. Although erosion of inflection is attested in linear historical developments within this genetic context; the degree of inflectional erosion observed in Ache is exceptional. Ache lacks all TG prefixes, consequently, processes linked to person-number agreement, such as person hierarchy effects, are unattested. Ache enclitics for tense-aspect-mood marking (TAM) appear to be more similar to other TG languages. However, given closer examination, also for TAM considerable restructuring is revealed. Besides describing erosion and retention patterns of inflection, it is exemplified how Ache copes with the overall functional restructuring by generating innovative syntactic patterns and novel lexical items. Inspired by subclasses of inflection given in Roberts and Bresnan (2008), it becomes evident that inherent inflection (i.e. TAM) is far more stable in Ache than so-called contextual inflection (i.e. person, case); a characteristic result of contact induced grammar change. Thus, this study of inflectional restructuring contributes strong evidence for the long-standing hypothesis that Ache is a TG contact language (Dietrich, 1990; Rodrigues, 2000; Rößler, 2008).

When "You" and "I" mess around with the hierarchy: a comparative study of Tupi-Guarani hierarchical indexing systems

This paper deals with the person indexing system of Tupi-Guarani languages. Past literature has claimed that the relative position of the arguments of a transitive verb on a supposed person hierarchy 1 > 2 > 3 determines what argument is marked on the verb and how. It is also commonly believed that the morphosyntax of individual Tupi-Guarani languages is very comparable. This paper surveys in detail the encoding of arguments on transitive verbs in 28 Tupi-Guarani languages. It shows that the prior assumptions about indexing in Tupi-Guarani languages either do not hold strongly, or need to be stated in more nuanced ways. The study also shows that these languages are not as similar morphosyntactically as is often assumed. Importantly, they display a great variation in the domain of local configurations (i.e., when the two speech act participants interact), the arguments of which are often encoded in a non-transparent manner. This leads us to reject the 1 > 2 hierarchy as operative in governing indexing in all languages of the group.

Deictic motion verbs in Pashto: to whom shall we come?

This paper investigates the uses of the deictic motion verbs in Pashto. First, the paper focuses on the Pashto verbs COME and GO. The Pashto COME verb is unique in that it requires a directional person marker. These person markers are used in specific situations, which are outlined in this paper. Furthermore, the verbal person marker and the dative argument of the motion verb can differ in person. Such person “mismatches” are explained in terms of ascendance on the Person Hierarchy and of a semantic understanding of person. Second, this paper shows that the phenomenon of directional person markers extends to all Pashto motion verbs. Finally, the paper briefly discusses how Pashto COME and GO do not align with cross-linguistic analyses of COME and GO verbs in other languages. This misalignment is credited to the unique three-way deictic split of COME.