The Blue Bird of Ergativity - celia

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talk about it. That is, a great many languages are what Anderson (1979) callssubject-forming languages, and that is a very particular kind of grammaticalorganization. Now, it is not by any means obvious that all languages which lack any"ergative" marking are automatically subject-forming languages -- that may be true,but such a conclusion requires further research on inverse typology, Austronesianvoice systems, Li and Thompson's topic-prominent typology, and on the oddvariants of that (if that is what they are) in languages like Burmese and Meithei.But as for the many languages in the world which do not have a clearsubject category the way most European and many other languages do, we need torecognize that there are several different parameters which languages cangrammaticalize in their system of marking core arguments. Transitivity is one ofthese, as Givón points out, and, independently (more or less) of that, the Agentivitycomplex -- though it remains an open question whether we can speak of Agentivityas a primitive in this way, or whether it must be broken down into components ofeventivity, control, volition, and what all. In any case it probably has to be keptseparate from general causation, which also has its effect in core argument marking.Another, which has been grossly neglected to date (though that is not MY fault) isdeixis, which, when it is recognized at all, tends to be carelessly and incorrectlylumped together with animacy -- which may also be a relevant factor, and, ofcourse, points back towards control, and hence toward Agentivity.Now, languages grammaticalize many different combinations of these, inmany different ways, and the grammaticalization of the same parameter may beaccomplished in quite different ways, which may or may not involve case marking.For example, it might be useful to compare transitivity as reflected in Mizo ergativemarking with transitivity as reflected in the detransitivizing so-called "reflexive"constructions of most European languages. And it is a rather obvious idea (as Ipointed out many years ago) to compare the grammaticalization of deixis in "splitergative" languages and in inverse-type languages, which often show nomorphological features that we would be inclined to call ergative.My point, my final suggestion, is that being obsessed with the idea of"ergativity" actually pulls us away from these very promising lines of research, andleaves us comparing bluebirds and blue jays, for no better reason that they are sortof the same color.18
ReferencesANDERSON, John. 1979. On being without a subject. Bloomington: IndianaUniversity Linguistics Club.BOSSONG, Georg. 1985. Empirische Universalienforschung: DifferentielleObjektmarkierung in den neuiranischen Sprachen. Tübingen: Gunter Narr.BURROW, T., and S. BHATTACHARYA. 1970. The Pengo language. London:Oxford.CHELLIAH, Shobhana. 1997. A grammar of Meithei. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.COMRIE, Bernard. 1978. Ergativity. Pp. 329-94 in Winfred Lehmann, ed.,Syntactic Typology. Austin: University of Texas Press.1979. Definite and animate direct objects: A natural class. Linguistica Silesiana3.13-21.DELANCEY, Scott. 1980. Deictic categories in the Tibeto-Burman verb. Ph.Ddissertation, Indiana University.1981. An interpretation of split ergativity and related patterns. Language57.626-57.1984. Transitivity and ergative case in Lhasa Tibetan. Proceedings of the TenthAnnual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society, 131-40.1985a. On active typology and the nature of agentivity. Pp. 47-60 inFrans Plank, ed., Relational Typology. The Hague: Mouton.1985b. The analysis-synthesis-lexis cycle in Tibeto-Burman: A case study inmotivated change. Pp. 367-89 in John Haiman, ed., Iconicity in Syntax.Amsterdam and Philadelphia: Benjamins.1990. Ergativity and the cognitive model of event structure in Lhasa Tibetan.Cognitive Linguistics 1.3:289-321.1996. rev. of R.M.W. Dixon, Ergativity. Journal of Linguistics 32:173-177.2001. The universal basis of case. Logos and Language 1.2:1-15.DIXON, R.M.W. 1972. The Diyrbal language of North Queensland. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press.1979. Ergativity. Language 55.59-138.1994. Ergativity. Oxford: Oxford University Press.19
Page 1 and 2: The Blue Bird of ErgativityScott DE
Page 4 and 5: what we mean by unmarked. I suppose
Page 6 and 7: elative markedness in this terminol
Page 8: 'A dog bit me.'In this language, I
Page 12 and 13: 25) iwínsh-ni,-m=nam i-q'ínu-sha
Page 14 and 15: a full NP two clauses previous to t
Page 16 and 17: Even in a consistent dative-subject
Page 20 and 21: DRYER, Matthew. 1986. Primary objec

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