Helen de Hoop

Case marking patterns in the languages of the world

based on joint work with Andrej Malchukov

Research group Optimal Communication: www.ru.nl/optimalcommunication/

ESSLLI, Hamburg 2008

Two papers

de Hoop & Malchukov (2007) On fluid differential case marking: A bidirectional OT approach, Lingua 117, 1636-1656.

de Hoop & Malchukov (2008) Case marking strategies, to appear in Linguistic Inquiry.

Three violable case constraints

I. Identify: Encode internal argument properties

A specific instantiation of Identify that will be used during this lecture:

• Identify (A/erg): Ergative case identifies high-prominent subjects (A ↔ ERG).

Identify• sang.nyin nga-s las.ka ‘di byed.kyi.yin

tomorrow I-ERG work this do‘I shall do this work tomorrow (of my own free will)’

• sang.nyin nga las.ka ‘di byed.kyi.yintomorrow I work this do‘I shall do this work tomorrow (whether I like it or not)’

Tibetan: volitional subject ergative case

Three violable case constraints

II. Distinguishability: The two arguments of a transitive clause should be distinguishable.

Cf. a.o., Peter de Swart (2007)

Distinguishability

• kappal tiramaalakal-e bheediccu

ship waves-ACC split

“The ship broke through the waves.”

• tiramaalakal kappaline bheediccu

waves ship-ACC split

“The waves split the ship.”

Malayalam: avoid ambiguity accusative case

Three violable case constraints

III. PAIP: Avoid (case) marking of the unmarked argument.

Cf. Malchukov 2006. Similar constraints are Tsunoda’s (1981) “Unmarked Case

Constraint” and Bobaljik’s (1993) “Obligatory Case Parameter”.

PAIP• On krutil rulj.

he rotate wheel-ACC‘He rotated the wheel (consciously).’

• On krutil ruljom.he rotate wheel-INSTR‘He rotated the wheel unconsciously.’

Russian:the effect of PAIP

Case and voice

Legendre et al. (1993): prominence distinctions trigger voice/case alternations

INPUT transitive construction: AP

INPUT passive: aP

INPUT antipassive: Ap (= Comrie’s “natural transitive”)

Antipassive

Jaaku-p arnaq tuqut-p-aaJacob-ERG woman kill-IND-3sERG/3sNOM

‘Jacob killed the woman.’

Jaaku arna-mik tuqut-si-v-uqJacob woman-INSTR kill-AP-IND-3sNOM

‘Jacob killed a woman.’

Passive formation

Is the passive a language universal?

No!

There are many languages in which passive formation is not attested.

Languages without passives:Dyirbal, Lezgian, Tongan, Samoan, Hungarian, etc.

Case and voice

• Legendre et al. do not account for the fact that passives are found mostly in nominative-accusative languages (while antipassives are found mostly in ergative languages).

Passive formation

Conflict between two constraints:

• Mark prominence distinction in A (faithfulness to the input)• PAIP (do not mess around with the unmarked argument)

A voice alternation (passive formation) can be the optimal outcome of this conflict.

Passive formationPassive formation: the effect of PAIP

• A passive applies when the subject is indefinite, non-specific or not important in the discourse (demoted agent).

• In some languages passive forms are used to indicate non-volitionality of the subject (cf. Masica 1991 on Sinhala and Dhivehi).

• By using the passive construction, the object is promoted to the function of subject and hence becomes the unmarked argument (in the nominative case), thus satisfying PAIP.

Differential subject marking

• In ergative languages, on the other hand, a non-volitional subject may lead to a differential subject marking pattern. In ergative languages marking a prominence distinction in A can affect the form of the subject exclusively (DSM): satisfaction of PAIP.

Differential subject marking

Lezgian (Haspelmath 1993)

Zamira-di get’e xa-na

Zamira-ERG pot break-AOR

‘Zamira broke the pot’

Zamira-diwaj get’e xa-na

Zamira-ADEL pot break-AOR

‘Zamira broke the pot accidentally/involuntarily’

Passive & DSM

• Passive: low-prominent subject (a) (accusative languages)

• DSM: high/low-prom subject (A/a) (ergative languages)

Antipassive & DOM

• Antipassive: low-prominent object (p)

(ergative languages)

• DOM: high/low-prom object (P/p)

(accusative languages)

Case and voice alternations

INPUT Nom-acc Erg-abs

A/a Active/passive DSM

P/p DOM Active/antipassive

Two functions of case-marking

The identifying and disambiguating functions of case-marking can go hand in hand.

• IDENTIFY: Mark the high-prom object• DISTINGUISH: Mark the high-prom object (in order to

distinguish it from the subject)

DOM

• Raam ek bakraa bec-taa hae

Raam one goat.NOM sell is

‘Raam sells a goat’

• Raam ek bakre-ko bec-taa hae

Raam one goat-ACC sell is

‘Raam sells the goat’

Two functions of case-marking

DOM DISTINGUISH IDENTIFY

P-marking

p-marking * *

Two functions of case-marking

• IDENTIFY: Mark the high-prom subject• DISTINGUISH: Mark the low-prom subject (in order to

distinguish it from the object)

DSM in Dyirbal1st, 2nd person 3rd person

Transitive subject -ŋgu

Transitive object -na

DSM in DyirbalSUBJECT DISTINGUISHABILITY PAIP

ERG, A *

ERG, a *

, A

, a *

DSM in Manipuri

• Əy-nƏ tebƏl-dƏ theŋŋi

I-ERG table-LOC touched

“I touched the table (volitionally)”

• Əy tebƏl-dƏ theŋŋi

I table-LOC touched

“I touched the table”

Manipuri, Bhat & Ningomba 1997

DSM in ManipuriSUBJECT IDENTIFY (A/ERG) PAIP

ERG, A * *

ERG, a *

, A *

, a

Two functions of case-marking

DSM DISTINGUISH IDENTIFY

A-marking*

a-marking*

Two functions of case-marking

• DOM: the effects of both types of constraints converge• DSM: the two constraints conflict

We predict more cross-linguistic variation in DSM as compared to DOM

This prediction is borne out

Differential Subject Marking

Edited by Helen de Hoop and Peter de Swart (2008)

Springer, Dordrecht

Differential Subject Marking

• Variation

– Pronoun/ Noun

– Agentivity, animacy, volitionality

– Tense/aspect/mood

– Main/dependent

• Prominence

Differential subject marking

• Baw.a nek atuzu-ne

Mother.ERG milk.NOM pour out-PAST

‘Mother poured out the milk’

• Baw.a-f-as nek atuzu-ne

Mother-AD-ELAT milk.NOM pour out-PAST

‘Mother accidentally spilled the milk’

Agul: A ergative case; a oblique (locative) case

Ganenkov et al. (2008)

Exceptions to the general picture

• In Inuit, the verb agrees with both the subject and the object. Therefore,

• not only the (absolutive) object but also the (ergative) subject has properties of the ‘primary’ (unmarked) argument referred to by PAIP.

• Inuit disfavors DSM and uses a passive construction instead, although passive formation is otherwise typical of nominative-accusative languages.

Exceptions to the general picture

• Similarly, when the verb agrees with the object in a nominative-accusative language, the object has properties associated with the ‘primary’ unmarked argument.

• Such a language may resist DOM and turn to the use of an antipassive instead, a voice which is otherwise almost exclusively found with ergative languages.

• Cf. Nichols’ (1992) observation that not only ergative languages but also “those accusative languages in which there is agreement with the O” have antipassives.

Exceptions to the general picture

• DSM in nominative/accusative languages

– Colloquial Korean (Lee 2008)– Turkish (Kornfilt 2008)– Uto-Aztecan languages (Arkadiev 2008)

DSM in colloquial Korean

Choykun-ey wuli younghwa-lul nemwu cacwu pwa

Nowadayswe movie-ACC too often watch

‘Nowadays we watch too many movies’

The rate for case ellipsis for third person subjects (a) is significantly lower than the rate for local person subjects (A). Similar effects for animacy and definiteness.

Lee (2008)

Colloquial Korean: a NOM marker; A no case

PAIP not very active: Case-markers/case-ellipsis for subjects and objects (DSM and DOM). Distinguishability satisfied.

DSM in Turkish

• Ali kitab-ı oku-du

Ali book-ACC read-PAST

‘Ali read the book’

• Ali-nin kitab-ı oku-dug-un-u duy-du-m

Ali-GEN book-ACC read-FN-3SG-ACC heard-1SG

‘I heard that Ali read the book’

Turkish nominalizations subject gets genitive case, independent of its prominence (Kornfilt 2008); violation of PAIP?

DSM in Chemehuevi

• Two cases only: DIR (S/A) and OBL (P). But in subordinate clauses the marking of S/A switches to OBL.

• John Ann-i karıtıa-j kıaw taya-ai-n putucugaj

John Ann-OBL chair-OBL yesterday kick-PFV-NML knows

‘John knows that Ann kicked the chair yesterday’

Arkadiev (2008)

Violation of PAIP? Violation of distinguishability.

Two types of case alternations

• Cross-linguistically, a merely distinguishing function of case is rare.

• Difference between split and fluid differential case marking:

• Split: two forms are in complementary distribution. • Fluid: two forms of the same noun phrase in the same

linguistic context + two closely related meanings.

• Raam ek bakraa bec-taa hae

Raam.NOM one goat sell is

‘Raam sells a goat’

Split DSM

• Raam-ne ek bakraa bec-aa

Raam-ERG one goat sold

‘Raam sold a goat’

Fluid DOM

• Raam ek bakraa bec-taa hae

Raam one goat.NOM sell is

‘Raam sells a goat’

• Raam ek bakre-ko bec-taa hae

Raam one goat-ACC sell is

‘Raam sells the goat’

Fluid DSM

• Raam-ne chiikh-aa.

Raam-ERG screamed

‘Raam screamed (purposefully).’

• Raam chiikh-aa.

Raam.NOM screamed.

‘Raam screamed.’

Fluid differential case-marking

• Unidirectional OT sufficient?• Difference between split and fluid differential case

marking:• Split: two forms are in complementary distribution. • Fluid: two forms of the same noun phrase in the same

linguistic context + two closely related meanings.

Fluid case marking

• Volitional subjects of intransitive clauses in Hindi do not bear ergative case usually. Only with a small class of intransitive predicates fluid differential case marking occurs and then it corresponds to a difference in volitionality.

• Cf. Butt and King 1991; de Hoop and Narasimhan 2005, 2008

Fluid case marking

• Mohan ghar bhaag-aa

mohan.NOM home ran

“Mohan ran home.”

• Arunaa zamiin-par gir-ii

arunaa.NOM ground-LOC fell

“Aruna fell on the ground.”

An OT syntactic analysis

Intransitive volitional subject in Hindi

PAIP IDENTIFY

volitional/ERG

ERGATIVE *!

*

An OT syntactic analysis

Intransitive non-volitional subject in Hindi

PAIP IDENTIFY

volitional/ERG

ERGATIVE *! *

Problem for OT-syntactic analysis

• Raam-ne chiikh-aa.

Raam-ERG screamed

‘Raam screamed (purposefully).’

• Raam chiikh-aa.

Raam.NOM screamed.

‘Raam screamed.’

Reranking? Not possible in OTvolitional subject of ‘scream’ in Hindi

IDENTIFY

volitional/ERG

PAIP

ERGATIVE *

*!

Fluid differential case-marking

When we have two forms and two meanings:

• The markedness principle: Marked forms are used for marked meanings (and unmarked forms for unmarked meanings) (a.o., Horn 1984)

• The markedness principle can be proven to result from (weak) bidirectional OT (Blutner 2000), see yesterday’s lecture

Solution: Bidirectional OTSubject of ‘scream’ verbs in Hindi PAIP IDENTIFY

volitional/ERG

ERG, volitional *

ERG, non-volitional * *

, volitional *

, non-volitional

Conclusions of today’s lecture

• Prominence distinctions in the input may trigger voice or case alternations.

• Sometimes the high-prominent subject (A) is case-marked and sometimes the low-prominent subject (a) (Identify and Distinguishability are conflicting constraints)

• By the economy constraint PAIP, we can account for the fact that a subject case alternation is mostly found in ergative languages, while passive formation (a voice alternation) is mostly found in accusative languages.

Conclusions - continued• In an OT framework, we can account for the fact that DSM

and antipassive formation are mostly found in ergative languages, while DOM and passive formation are mostly found in accusative languages.

• Asymmetries between different case-systems can be derived from the different functions of case-marking, IDENTIFY and DISTINGUISH

• Unidirectional OT syntax cannot adequately account for fluid differential case marking

• Bidirectional OT can!