Active Languages

1Active languages

Daniel Andrasson

Department of Linguistics

Stockholm University

2001

Thesis for the degree of Bachelor of Arts in General Linguistics

Supervisor: Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm

2Abstract

This thesis deals with active languages. Active languages can mark the single argument of

intransitive verbs as either Agent or Patient, which has an effect on meaning. The main

question, which this thesis tries to answer, is what the difference between Agent and

Patient marking means, and how the active alignment is marked in the morphology.

Another question is how the exceptions to the otherwise regular semantic basis of the active

marking can be explained. The results show that the difference between Agent and Patient

marking is mainly a question of event vs. state or control vs. non-control, but sometimes

more intricate morphological features can occur. The active alignment is most often marked

on the predicate (head-marking), but dependent-marking is also possible, although more

rare. The exceptions to the semantics behind the active alignment can be explained by

lexicalization, borrowing, syntactic rules and analogy.

30 INTRODUCTION 5

0.1 PURPOSE AND MOTIVATION 50.2 PREVIOUS RESEARCH 60.3 METHOD AND DATA SOURCES 60.4 DISPOSITION 8

1 THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 8

1.1 GRAMMATICAL RELATIONS, SYNTACTIC ALIGNMENT, AND A DEFINITION OF THETERM ACTIVE 81.2 SOME TERMS USED FOR DESCRIBING ACTIVE LANGUAGES 111.3 SEMANTIC ROLES 131.4 ACTIVE ALIGNMENT AND HEAD VS. DEPENDENT MARKING 15

2 ANALYSIS 16

2.1 GUARAN 172.1.1 BACKGROUND 172.1.2 ALIGNMENT 172.1.3 ACTIVE ALIGNMENT 172.1.4 EXPLAINING THE EXCEPTIONS 192.1.5 SUMMARY 192.2 GEORGIAN 202.2.1 BACKGROUND 202.2.2 ALIGNMENT 202.2.3 ACTIVE ALIGNMENT AND AN EXPLANATION OF ITS EXCEPTIONS 212.2.4 OTHER ASPECTS RELATED TO ACTIVE ALIGNMENT 252.2.5 SUMMARY 252.3 CHICKASAW 252.3.1 BACKGROUND 252.3.2 ALIGNMENT 262.3.3 ACTIVE ALIGNMENT 262.3.4 EXPLAINING THE EXCEPTIONS 282.3.5 OTHER ASPECTS RELATED TO ACTIVE ALIGNMENT 302.3.6 SUMMARY 312.4 MIDDLE WELSH 322.4.1 MIDDLE WELSH ALIGNMENT A BACKGROUND 322.4.2 ACTIVE ALIGNMENT 322.4.3 SUMMARY 342.5 ACEHNESE 342.5.1 BACKGROUND 342.5.2 ALIGNMENT 35

42.5.3 ACTIVE ALIGNMENT 352.5.4 SUMMARY 362.6 CENTRAL POMO 362.6.1 BACKGROUND 362.6.2 ALIGNMENT 362.6.3 ACTIVE ALIGNMENT 372.6.4 SUMMARY 382.7 EASTERN POMO 382.7.1 ACTIVE ALIGNMENT 382.7.2 SUMMARY 402.8 LAKHOTA 402.8.1 BACKGROUND 402.8.2 ACTIVE ALIGNMENT 402.8.3 EXPLAINING THE EXCEPTIONS 402.8.4 SUMMARY 41

3 RESULTS 41

3.1 DIFFERENCE IN MEANING BETWEEN AGT- AND PAT-MARKING 413.1.1 EVENT VS. STATE 413.1.2 PERFORMANCE, EFFECT AND INSTIGATION 413.1.3 CONTROL 423.2 WHERE AND HOW THE ACTIVE ALIGNMENT IS MARKED 433.3 EXCEPTIONS TO THE SEMANTICS BEHIND THE ACTIVE MARKING 433.3.1 LEXICALIZATION 443.3.2 BORROWING 443.3.3 SYNTAX 443.3.4 ANALOGY 45

4 SUMMARIZING DISCUSSION 45

5 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 46

6 REFERENCES 46

50 INTRODUCTION

0.1 Purpose and motivation

There is more than one purpose of this thesis. However, the main purpose is that I want tomake a guide and summary of some related and unrelated languages which all displayactive alignment in order to show what it really is. Some languages, which have beenclassified as active, are Lakhota, Guaran, Georgian and Acehnese. I will try to see whichdistinctions can be made, i.e. what difference in meaning can be expressed by the activealignment.

One example of an active language is spoken Tibetan (Chang and Chang 1980, quoted inDixon 1994). In the sentence I went to Lhasa the pronoun can be marked as Agent,assuming that I went there on purpose, while if I is marked as Patient it might refer towhen I was taken there as a child, i.e. without intention. The distinction often seems to beone between control and lack of control or between activities and states.

I will also, to the extent possible, look at where and how it is expressed, i.e. where in thegrammar the active alignment occurs and how it is marked.

Thus, the questions I will try to answer in this thesis are:

Which distinctions can be made? That is, what difference in meaning can be expressedby using different sets of pronouns, agreement marking or case, or what I will be callingAGT and PAT marking, respectively?

In what morphological situations and contexts does the active alignment occur? Is it used throughout the entire morphology, or is it only used with first and

second person pronouns, third person pronouns or lexical NPs?

Does it occur only in certain tenses or aspects? Where the active alignment is used counterintuitively or not in agreement with what

one might have expected, can the exceptions be explained, and if so, how?

My motivation for this thesis is basically my curiosity about the phenomenon of activelanguages. I want to learn more about the notion of active alignment, and also grammaticalrelations and argument structure in general.

Active languages have been an interest of mine almost since I first became more seriouslyinterested in linguistics, which was about three years ago, but I have never really taken thetime to take a closer look at them. So when it was time to write my BA-thesis it seemednatural to take the opportunity to actually do something about my lack of knowledge in thisarea. And if I could come up with some new information along the way, then all the better.

60.2 Previous research

This thesis is based primarily on Marianne Mithuns article Active/Agentive Case Markingand its Motivations (Language 67 (3), 1991), although it is structured in a slightly differentway. Mithun has tried to find the semantic basis of the active marking of some North andSouth American languages, both synchronically and diachronically, and looked atgrammaticalization and lexicalization where the semantics have become obscured. Mithundeals primarily with Guaran, Lakhota, Central Pomo, Caddo and Mohawk. This article hasbeen a crucial source. Research on other active languages has been done by Harris (1990),Hillery (1999), and Van Valin (1990) on Georgian; Manning (1995) on Middle Welsh; Durie(1988) on Acehnese; and Munro and Gordon (1982), and Smith (2000a,b) on Chickasaw.Regarding active alignment and syntactic alignment in general, Dixon (1994), Kibrik(1997), Nichols (1992), and Comrie (1989) have been of great value. Klimov was one of thefirst people who took active languages seriously. Outside Russia his work is unfortunatelyknown mostly thanks to Nichols.

0.3 Method and data sources

The purpose of this thesis has been to make a guide and summary of active languages, asmentioned in section 0.1. Questions raised have been which distinctions can be made, i.e.what difference in meaning can be expressed by active alignment. In what syntacticsituations and contexts does the activity occur? Is it used throughout the entiremorphology, or is it only used with first and second person pronouns, third person pronounsor lexical NPs? Does it occur only in certain tenses or aspects? Can the exceptions to thesemantics be explained, and how?

In order to answer these questions I started out from wordlists, grammars and papersabout languages that have been described as active. I categorized every relevant predicateand compared that to the case or agreement marking of the same predicate. By doing that Iwas able to determine the semantics of the active alignment marking of the language inquestion.

In many cases an analysis of the language had already been done. Most of the materialwhich have been the sources of the current thesis (namely the papers, rather than thebooks and grammars) deal directly with the languages as being active languages, i.e. theywere written from an active point of view. However, a great deal of them do not make useof the most up-to-date explanations, terminology, conceptions, or even theoretical framesabout the notion of active languages (most notably for Eastern Pomo in McLendon (1978),Chickasaw in Munro and Gordon (1982), and Smith (2000a,b), and Middle Welsh inManning (1995)). In these cases, I have had to totally reanalyze the data presented in thesearticles. In most cases I have also had to alter the terminology used or make other minor ormajor modifications. In all cases I have had to restructure the information and data for thepurpose of making a homogeneous presentation in the thesis.

7Here are the languages I have analyzed and the sources I have used for each language.

Language Source

Acehnese Durie (1988), Dixon (1994), Kibrik (1985), Van Valin (1990)

Central Pomo Mithun (1991)

Chickasaw Smith (2000a,b, p.c.), Munro and Gordon (1982)

Eastern Pomo McLendon (1978), Blake (1994)

Georgian Harris (1990), Hillery (1999), Van Valin (1990)

Guaran Mithun (1991), Penayo (1990)

Lakhota Mithun (1991)

Middle Welsh Manning (1995), Higley (p.c.), Gaughan (p.c.)

As regards Guaran, Georgian and Chickasaw, I have had access to a lot of data, which hasresulted in fairly thorough analyses. For other languages, the data has been more scarce,but nonetheless those languages have proven to possess interesting features of activealignment, and so I have chosen to include those. These analyses deal in most cases moredirectly with the active part of the grammar. Thus I have put them last in this thesis, tomake it easier to the reader to understand the text, since most of what is discussed thereand most of the terminology has already been mentioned in earlier language analyses.

Mithun (1991) has been a major source, as can be seen above. I have summarized the activelanguages she deals with in her article, but with the addition of other sources as well,where found. I have analyzed the other active languages the same way she has.

The question regarding what differences in meaning can be expressed in active languages,can quite neatly be summarized in a table, as we will see further on. Mithun has made sucha table (Mithun 1991: 524). One aim of this essay has been to see if it it possible to putother languages into that same table in order to see if the terms used throughout this thesisare applicable to more active languages than Mithun treats. In a way this makes thepresent thesis a kind of replication study. However, my focus lies not only on the semantics,but I have also tried to find more examples of where and when the active marking and thesemantic basis of the agreement do not match up. I have looked both for more instances oflexicalization, but also for other reasons such as syntactic explanations.

I have also looked more at where in the grammar the active alignment occurs. Mithuncenters on Native American languages, to which I have added a few in this thesis. To breakthe North American dominance, I have in addition looked at one Caucasian language(Georgian), one Austronesian language (Acehnese) and even a European language, namelyMiddle Welsh.

80.4 Disposition

Section 0 contains besides this disposition the purpose and motivation for this thesis,previous research, data sources and method.

Section 1 includes a theoretical background in which I give a general summary of semanticroles, syntactic alignment, and active alignment. I also go through some terms used whendescribing active languages.

The analysis in section 2 contains detailed descriptions of the active alignment of a numberof languages around the globe and for each language, I try to answer the questions asked insection 0.1.

Section 3 consists of the results of the analyses, the motivations behind active marking, andexceptions to the semantic basis. A summary of the answers to the questions asked inprevious sections can also be found here. I have put the available data to the extent thatit was possible in a table similar to that of Mithun (1991: 524), where the differentfeatures and peculiarities of the languages of my survey are summarized. Finally, I havedrawn conclusions as to the extent active alignment can be explained by semantics, andhow lexicalization, borrowing and other features are involved in the explanation.

1 THEORETICAL BACKGROUNDIn this section I will go through some important properties of grammatical relations,syntactic alignment and argument structure, and I will also say a few words aboutsemantic roles. This will be needed in order to fully understand the rest of this thesis. Areader who feels at ease with terms such as ergativity, activity, split-S, the distinctionbetween S, A and P, and terms like performance, instigation, effect and control may skipthis part and move directly to chapter 2.

1.1 Grammatical relations, syntactic alignment, and a definition of theterm active

Grammatical relations are relations between arguments such as subject and object and predicates, which in most European languages consist of only verbs, but in otherlanguages include what speakers of European languages would classify as adjectives andsometimes even numerals.

There are three main ways to identify grammatical relations: i) case marking, ii) cross-reference marking on verbs and iii) word order (or a combination of some of these threeways). It is mainly the first two ways which are of importance in active languages and thusin this thesis.

All languages distinguish between clauses that involve a verb and one core NP (intransitiveclauses) and those that involve a predicate and two or more core NPs (transitive clauses)

(Dixon 1994: 6). There are three main arguments used to describe grammatical relations: S,A and P1. S is the subject of an intransitive clause (John:S runs). A is the subject of a

transitive clause, and P is the object of a transitive clause (The dog:A chased the cat:P).These three main arguments can be aligned in a number of logically possible ways. Onemust remember, however, that there is a tendency for contrastive marking (including wordorder) for A and P (otherwise a transitive sentence will be ambiguous). There are pressuresto identify S with A, or S with P (Dixon 1994). If S and A are grouped together i.e. havingthe same marking distinguishing them from P, that language is a so-called nominative-accusative language. If S and P group together against A, you have an ergative-absolutivelanguage. If all three arguments are marked differently, such a language is called atripartite language. Figure 1 summarizes these three alignment types graphically.

Figure 1. Alignment of some different language types

In nominative-accusative languages the case marker marking S/A is called nominative. Ifthe language uses agreement rather than case, the agreement marker agrees with thesubject of both transitive and intransitive predicates, S and A. This is most often theunmarked case or agreement marker. The case marker marking the sole P is calledaccusative and the agreement marker agrees with P, the transitive object.

In ergative-absolutive languages, on the other hand, the case marker marking A is the soleand marked morpheme, and is called ergative. If the language uses agreement rather thancase, the agreement marker agrees with the subject of intransitive predicates, S, and withthe object of transitive predicates, P, but not with the transitive subject, A. The unmarkedc greementm tant thingt

T he usualdlotOol

1

nominative-accusative ergative-absolutive tripartite

S S S

A P A P A Pase marker is called absolutive and is marking S/P. The same goes for the aarker, which agrees with both S and P. For the purpose of this thesis, the impor

o remember is that in ergative languages, the A is the marked argument.

his leads us to the crucial question: What, then, is an active language? T9

efinition and the definition I will go with in this thesis is the following: An activeanguage is a language which organizes its core grammar so that the argument of somene-place predicates is marked like the A of a two-place predicate, while the argument ofhe other one-place predicates is marked like the P of a two-place predicate (Blake 1994).r put another way: Some one-place predicates get their arguments marked like A, andthers like P. And sometimes some one-place predicates can get their arguments markedike either A or P. Yet another way of putting it is that one can think of an active language

Dixon (1994) uses O instead of P.

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as pursuing a middle course compared to ergative and accusative languages: it marks someS like A and some like P. Schematized, it looks like this:

Let me take some examples to clarify what distinctions can be made. In Georgian, the verbicekvebs dance takes an Agent subject, while chavardeba fall takes a Patient subject. Thisis because dancing is something you have control of, while falling is something you cannotcontrol.

Another example is the Guaran clause a-x I walk an action which takes the Agentpronominal prefix a-. This can be contrasted with se-ras I am sick a state which takesthe pronominal Patient prefix se. As the attentive reader can see, the distinction oftenseems to be one between activities and states, or between control and lack of control. This iswhat I will look closer at in the present thesis.

Traditionally, the names of the case or agreement markers, marking active alignment havebeen ergative and absolutive/nominative. This, however, is misleading since it impliesergative alignment which it is not. It should thus not be called that nor the names of thecases, ergative and absolutive. Instead I have adopted the terms Agent (AGT) andPatient (PAT), but more on that in section 1.3.

Many different terms have been proposed to describe the notion of active alignment. Theterm split intransitivity is introduced by Van Valin, and other terms include variations ofthe active theme: active, active-neutral, active-inactive (Sapirs suggestion from 1917),active-stative, active-static, agentive and agent-patient (all listed in Mithun 1991: 511),agentive/patientive (Kibrik 1985), and active/non-active and unaccusative/unergative (listedin Dixon 1994: 83). All of these are in one way or another misleading, since it can be shownthat in many active languages the distinction between activities and states is not the mainone, or even a distinction at all, and it may rather be a question of control of the situation,or sometimes even more intricate features as we shall see. Hence, active is not the bestchoice of a term.

Dixon (1994) calls this phenomenon split-S, from the fact that the S of some intransitivepredicates is marked as A, while the S of other intransitive predicates is marked as P.Languages which have intransitive predicates that can take both an A and a P as their onlyargument are called fluid-S by Dixon, since the S-argument can in fact vary between A andP. Examples of such predicates can be found in e.g. Guaran. The predicate kar means tohave lunch or dinner with the AGT pronominal prefix, while it means to be a glutton withthe PAT pronominal prefix. This is not possible in split-S languages where every intransitivepredicates argument is either S or P, invariably. Dixon claims that there is a majordifference between split-S and fluid-S languages. Split-S languages are just like ergativeand accusative languages, having syntactically based marking of core constituents. The

active

S

A P

Figure 2. Alignment of active languages

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case marking or agreement marking of a predicate is always done in the same way, nomatter what the semantics is in a particular instance.

Thus, in a split-S language, if one for instance wanted to use a predicate which deals with aprototypically non-controlled event to describe that event done on purpose, then the Swould still be marked as P, and one would have to add e.g. an adverb meaning purposely.Fluid-S languages have syntactically based marking for transitive verbs, but semanticallybased marking for intransitive predicates, depending on what the semantics are in aparticular instance of use. Hence, in a fully fluid-S language, every predicate has thepossibility of taking either A or P as its marking (Dixon 1994: 72pp).

There are two problems with this. The first problem is the division of the intransitive corerole (S) into A or P. This division has a semantic basis which is similar regardless if it isvariable (fluid) or not. Second, there are languages, which employ semantic marking fortransitive clauses as well as we shall see further on. These two terms split-S and fluid-S however good and unambiguous, will not do in this thesis since I will include both types oflanguages and will not focus on the difference (if any) between them, and thus need onesingle term to refer to both concepts.

Pamela Munro (Munro and Gordon 1982) has indeed gone so far as to call the threedifferent agreement markers of Chickasaw as I, II and III, without using labels such asactive, ergative and the like.

Active might not be the best choice, since it implies a distinction between active andstative (or perhaps the name active does not even suggest a distinction at all).Nevertheless, this is the term that is most widely used in the latest literature and papersand so I have decided to use it. However, it is important that the reader understands thatthe word active does not contain the whole truth.

Regarding the terms subject and object, these terms can be used in a number of ways. Ina thesis on active languages, where semantic roles like Agent and Patient are crucial, theseterms might not be the best ones to use. Subject and object work well for accusativelanguages. You can still use them for ergative languages, but differently from accusativelanguages. When we get to active languages, where the single argument of a one-place verbcan be marked in two ways, as either the A or the P of a transitive verb, we run intoproblems. Of course, you could define subject as the single argument of an intransitiveverb, and this is what I have done in this thesis. However, things get more problematic asregards transitive predicates. Two-place predicates do not usually have active marking onany of the arguments. However, some predicates do not have the prototypical Agent andPatient arguments. These are verbs like see, hear and love. This is why I have chosen touse the terms Actor and Undergoer instead, but more on that in section 1.3. Subject is inany case defined as Actor and object as Undergoer.

1.2 Some terms used for describing active languages

Mithun (1991) suggests a few features, which are important for accurately describing theuse and semantics of active marking. These are:

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event;

performance, effect, instigation (henceforth abbreviated P/E/I);

control.

For some languages the terms significant affectedness and empathy also play a major role.

Events are the opposite of states (often referred to as non-events or [event] in this thesis).Events are referred to by predicates such as jump, go, fall, hiccup and die. Someexamples of states are reside, be patient, be tall, be sick and be cold. As we can see,states often, but not always, correspond to what in English are adjectives. Events on theother hand often correspond to verbs in English.

Predicates that you control are e.g. jump, go and be careful. These can be contrasted withnon-controlled predicates such as fall, die, slip and be tall.

Examples of predicates which are performed, effected or instigated are jump, hiccup,reside, and be patient. These three terms are not exact synonyms, but are lumpedtogether into one group to be able to contrast it with control, in order to differ betweencertain predicates. For instance, the argument of predicates like jump, reside, and bepatient is in control. These are also in some way performed, effected or instigated. Buthiccup, sneeze and vomit are things that you perform, effect or instigate, but you do notcontrol them. Thus, to tell the difference between verbs like hiccup and verbs like jump,you need the term P/E/I.

As we can see, many times, the difference between these properties is the only thing thatcan explain a certain use of case or agreement markers. In most situations P/E/I andcontrol co-occur like the cases of jump, go, and reside. But in some situations they donot. People who sneeze or hiccup do perform, effect or instigate the sneezing or hiccuping,but they do not control them. In languages like Lakhota and Georgian P/E/I is an importantfeature, as we shall see further on.

The last important term in describing the semantics behind active marking is affectedness.In some languages, notably Central Pomo, being out of control is not enough to be markedas a Patient. The participant involved must also be significantly affected. Beingsignificantly affected is often the same as being in a state that is temporary as opposed toinherent states. Some examples of predicates of which the argument is significantly affectedare be tired and be cold. Non-significantly affected predicates on the other hand are betall and be strong. A participant can also be marked as significantly affected if the speakerchooses to express empathy with her, or if the argument is human. In Central Pomo, forinstance, empathy can only be assigned to first persons. One does not want to claim to feel

what other people feel. An example is H mta t o. I:PAT feel warm. but H mtamul.He:AGT feels warm. We will see that the notion of affectedness has even more intricatefeatures, and can be used to make amazing semantic distinctions.

Logically, there can be eight combinations of the three terms control, P/E/I and event.However, only five of these are used in this thesis. The three combinations not used are:

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[+control, P/E/I, event] [+control, P/E/I, +event] [control, +P/E/I, event]The first two combinations are not used because it seems a predicate cannot be controlledunless it is also performed, effected or instigated in some way. The other way around is ofcourse possible. Confer predicates like hiccup and sneeze which are [+P/E/I] but[control].

The third combination would be the non-eventive equivalent of predicates like sneeze andhiccup. However, there seems not to be any such predicates. Although even if there were,they are not of importance to this thesis.

Below is a table summing up the five relevant combinations of control, P/E/I and event,with English examples. I also include the term significant affectedness, which can affect[control, P/E/I, event] predicates.

Table 1. Summary of the different combinations of terms used to describe active languages.

[+control, +P/E/I, +event] jump, go, dance, fight

[control, +P/E/I, +event] vomit, sneeze, hiccup

[+control, +P/E/I, event] reside, be careful, reign

[control, P/E/I, +event] fall, die, slip

[control, P/E/I, event, affect] be sick, be tired, be cold

[control, P/E/I, event, +affect] be tall, be strong, be righthanded

1.3 Semantic roles

We will move on by explaining semantic roles (also called participant roles, deep semanticcases, thematic relations and thematic roles (Saeed 1997: 139)).

There are a number of semantic roles such as Agent, Patient, Experiencer, Theme, Goal,etc. According to Kibrik (1997) these roles are no longer in any doubt. Then what exactlyare the semantic roles? Kibrik (1997: 288) writes:

These semantic primes categorise the kinds of involvement of participants in theevents described by the proposition, and thus belong to the situational componentof the content of the message.

The two most important roles, and the ones that are essential to this thesis are Agent andPatient. These two roles are the semantic roles which express the core arguments of two-place verbs, and are thus the prototype of transitivity. These two roles have been defined ina number of ways by e.g. Givn, Foley and Van Valin, and Kibrik (all definitions quotedbelow from Kibrik 1997).

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The concept of the transitive Agent of verbs like do and kill can be extended to the conceptof the intransitive Agent of verbs like go and jump, while the concept of the transitivePatient of verbs like do and kill can be extended to the concept of the intransitive Patientof verbs like die and fall. These extended terms are labelled Agent and Patient. Theseconcepts are generalizations of the primary semantic roles, i.e., they are hyperroles ratherthan semantic roles.

Givn writes:

AGENT: The prototypical transitive clause involves a volitional, controlling,actively-initiating agent who is responsible for the event, thus is its salient cause.PATIENT: The prototypical transitive clause involves a non-volitional, inactive non-controlling patient who registers the events change-of-state, thus is its salienteffect.

The generalized hyperroles Agent and Patient are prototypical for the active alignment.However, some verbs like see, hear, love and be cold have other semantic roles (LikeExperiencer and Stimulus), which are unified with Agent and Patient in a way that isbased on semantics. (Kibrik 1997: 291). Foley and Van Valin use the hyperroles Actor andUndergoer for the active stategy. The definitions are as follows:

ACTOR: the participant of the situation which performs, effects, instigates, orcontrols it, or the participant primarily responsible for the accomplishment ofthe event.

UNDERGOER: the participant of the situation which does not perform, initiate, orcontrol it, but rather is affected by it in some way, or the participant primarilyaffected in the action, resulting in its change of state or characteristics.

These definitions of Actor and Undergoer provide a natural semantic explanation of theactive alignment, and these definitions are the ones I will use in the present thesis. But asthe terms Agent (AGT) and Patient (PAT) are the most widely used in the literature on activelanguages, I will use them throughout my thesis, both in the text and in the language-specific examples.

However, Actor and Undergoer do leave unexplained the accusative and ergativealignments. Kibrik suggests the two semantic hyperroles Principal and Absolutive toaccount for these language types. He defines these as

PRINCIPAL: the main participant, the hero of the situation, who is primarilyresponsible for the fact that this situation takes place.

ABSOLUTIVE: the immediate, nearest, most involved or affected participant of thesituation.

These definitions may at first sight seem very similar to Actor and Undergoer, but there areimportant differences. Let us first look at the definitions of Actor and Principal. When asituation has two participants there will be a competition between them. If one comparesthe most Patient-like participant with the most Agent-like participant, the participant thatis primarily responsible for the event to take place is the most Agent-like one. But if there

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is only one participant, it is by default primarily responsible for the fact that the situationtakes place, irrespective of its particular role specification (Kibrik 1997: 292). Kibrikshyperrole Principal is thus a relative definition that makes it possible to unify Agents andPatients in the case of one-place verbs. Likewise, the Absolutive hyperrole is also a relativeconcept which is based on the Undergoer hyperrole. When a situation has two participants,the participant which is the most Patient-like one, as compared to the Agent-like one, is themost immediate, nearest participant of the event. If there is only one participant, it is bydefault the most immediate, nearest participant of the situation, irrespective of itsparticular role specification (Kibrik 1997). This means that one and the same participantcan be both Principal and Absolutive, which explains why both accusative and ergativelanguages are natural.

In some examples I have kept the original case names, with an explanation given in afootnote. In all cases where there are examples with indirect objects and oblique cases, theirnames have been kept as they are.

1.4 Active alignment and head vs. dependent marking

Sentences and phrases are built of heads and dependents. For example, the head of a PP isthe preposition and the dependent is the object NP. The head of a VP is the verb and thedependents are the arguments of the verb. In an NP consisting of a noun and an adjective,the head is the noun and the dependent is the adjective. In a phrase like Johns book,John is the possessor/dependent and book what the phrase is about is the possessedNP/head. In English, John is the constituent that is marked and Johns book is thus anexample of dependent-marking. If book had been marked instead, it would haveillustrated head-marking.

Nichols (1992) has done research on the possible correlation between two linguisticproperties, alignment and head/dependent marking. The active language type stronglyprefers head-marking morphology. This does of course not say that it is impossible for adependent-marking language to have active alignment, just that it is more rare (Nichols1992: 101). Table 2 summarizes the number of head-, double- and dependent-markingactive languages in a survey by Nichols (1992: 101):

The total sample is 174 languages. In total, only 21 out of 174 languages are active in someaspect (on the pronoun, the nouns or the verb).

Table 2. Dominant marking of 21 languages with active alignment.

Dominantalignment

Head Double Dependent Total

Active 14 4 3 21

Of the three active languages in Nichols sample (Georgian, Eastern Pomo and Tonkawa)

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plus Tsova-Tush that are dependent-marking, three are classified as fluid-S2 (Tsova-Tush,

Eastern Pomo and Tonkawa) and only one (Georgian) as split-S. The fluid-S language typeis very uncommon among active languages (Merlan 1985, quoted in Nichols 1992). Thus wecan see a clear tendency for fluid-S languages to be case-marking. Head-marking languageswith active alignment are split-S with the exception of Acehnese. Whether this holds trueor not I will not debate here, since it is not of primary concern for the results of this thesis.Nevertheless, it is an interesting correlation, which is explained thus: Languages withactive alignment prefer head-marking since they grammaticalize lexical categories of verbs.However, dependent-marking active languages are generally fluid-S, as we saw, whichmeans that they rather grammaticalize nominal semantic roles and not verb categorization(Nichols 1992). In conclusion it can be put like this: alignments that favor nominal markingare associated with grammaticalization of nominal semantic functions, and those that favorverbal marking are associated with the grammaticalization of verbal semantics. Or, inother words, if the active alignment is marked on the NP, the activity is related tosemantic functions of the NP (see also section 1.3 Semantic roles). If the active alignment ismarked on the predicate, the activity is related to the semantics of the verb.

For the purpose of this thesis, it is enough to say that active languages grammaticalizeeither lexical categories of verbs or nominal semantic functions, as opposed to accusativelanguages, which grammaticalize subject-object relations and ergative languages, whichgrammaticalize agent and patient3.

2 ANALYSISIn this part of the thesis I will go through a number of languages from different parts of theworld. I will look at the active alignment of the languages in order to establish what thesemantics behind the marking is, in which way the active alignment is expressed (head-marking or dependent-marking), and if the active alignment exists in only some specificpart of the grammar. I begin each section with a description of the language generally anda short background. Then I describe the normal alignment. After that, I uncover thegrammatical whereabouts of the active alignment and I go through examples of predicatesthat display active alignment and analyze these. I explain the exceptions to the activealignment (which almost always show up), and last in case I have found some I showexamples of other active and semantically related things such as transitive verbs,emotional verbs, etc. Keep in mind that the analyses of Acehnese, Lakhota, Central Pomoand Eastern Pomo are shorter and deal more directly with the active alignment of thelanguage in question due to the scarcity of data (see also section 0.3).

2 see section 1.1

3 see Nichols (1992) for the full discussion, especially pages 65-69.

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2.1 Guaran

2.1.1 Background

Guaran is one of the languages in the Tup-Guaran family. It is spoken in South America,mainly in Paraguay by 4,648,000 people (1995), which is 95% of the population, and inArgentina in regions bordering Paraguay by hundreds of thousands. About half of the ruralParaguayans are monolingual in Guaran. The name of the country itself Paraguay is aGuaran word.

2.1.2 Alignment

Guaran does not mark its nouns for case, but it does have two different sets of pronominalverb prefixes, which denote two different cases. I call these AGT and PAT. The pronominalsystem contains distinct forms for three persons, two numbers (for first and second person)and inclusive and exclusive first person pronouns (Mithun 1991: 512). The AGT set is usedfor some intransitive arguments and all A-arguments of transitive verbs. The PAT set isused for some other intransitive arguments and P-arguments of transitive verbs. The firstperson AGT prefix is a- and the first person PAT prefix is se-. Let us first look at the use ofthese prefixes in transitive sentences. The first example demonstrates the A-use and thesecond one the P-use:

(1) ha uppe a-ara sup And there I caught him.(2) se-yuk var mo He would have killed me.

It is clear that the AGT prefix a- is used for transitive agents and the PAT prefix se- is usedfor transitive patients.

2.1.3 Active alignment

Now let us have a look at intransitive predicates. Examples (3) and (4) use the AGT a- prefixwhile examples (5) and (6) use the PAT se- prefix (examples from Mithun 1991: 511).

(3) a-x 1SG-walk I walk.

(4) a-pu 1SG-got:up I got up.

(5) se-ras 1SG-am:sick Im sick.

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(6) se-ropeh 1SG-am:sleepy Im sleepy.

Obviously, some predicates are used with the AGT prefix and some with the PAT prefix, butwhat determines when to use which? Below is a list of intransitive predicates some of whichtake the PAT prefix and some of which take the AGT prefix. Let us see if we can find a reasonfor the difference in marking (Examples from Gregores and Surez 1967, quoted in Mithun1991: 512f).

AGT PAT

gwat walk comeyan runyemoet chatyerok dancepit smokeyemosara playma.ap work fallman dieyepasur sinkkas staggerkay get lostk sleepyek split, crack, burst

yemahi be hungrykane be tiredakate be stingyak be tender, unripeka- be weak-ak be hot, warmakw be fast, quick, lightfootedamr be dead, deceased, distantaat be anxious, grieveda have a crampapesi be smoothaim be sharparan be wiseate be lazymir be humblepos be angrykarap be shortkat be possiblekar be lamemoriah be poor

The difference between predicates that take AGT and those that take PAT is one betweenevent and state. Predicates in the AGT group have meanings which are activities,accomplishments and achievements (Vendler 1967, Van Valin 1990, quoted in Mithun1991: 513), i.e what I call events. They have meanings which imply a change over time ordynamicity. Predicates in the PAT group on the other hand denote states and imply acertain stability over time (Blake 1994, Mithun 1991).

The division of Guaran predicates into either states or events is not totally fixed. Somepredicates can be used with both the AGT and the PAT pronominal prefix. Guaran is thus aso-called fluid-S4 language, at least in some cases. The predicate kar means to have lunch

or supper, to dine if used with the AGT prefix, but to be a glutton with the PAT prefix.Similarly, ka means to get drunk with AGT and to be a drunkard, to be drunk with PAT,and mim means to shine with the eventive - prefix, but to be brilliant with the stativese- prefix.

4 See section 1.1 and Dixon (1994: 78)

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If we summarize these findings in a table, we get the following results:

Table 3. Summary of the semantics behind Guaran pronominal prefix marking.

+ event+ P/E/I

+ control

+ event+ P/E/I control

+ event P/E/I control

event+ P/E/I+ control

event P/E/I control

Guaranexamples

x go, yerokdance

fall,man die

karap beshort,ras be sick,kane betired

Pronominalprefix AGT AGT AGT PAT PAT

2.1.4 Explaining the exceptions

Even though the active system of Guaran is very regular and transparent throughout thesystem, there are exceptions. One is lexicalization. One set of pronominal affixes becomesfixed even if the meaning of the predicate changes. One example is the verb esav to wink,an event, and should thus be used with the AGT prefix, but in fact the PAT prefix is used.However, the verb is formed from the word es eye, and its literal meaning is to havedefective eyes, which clearly is a state and should be marked with the PAT se- prefix.Another aspect, which may affect the case or agreement system of an active language islanguage contact. Guaran has borrowed, and borrows, a large number of words fromSpanish. These verbs are regularly marked as dynamic or events, even if they have astative meaning. An example is avuri meaning to be bored. This predicate is used with theAGT case prefix, even though it obviously is of stative meaning. This is due to the borrowingfrom Spanish se abburir. Guaran has generalized its borrowing so that Spanish adjectivesare used with the stative case (PAT), while Spanish verbs are used with the dynamic case(AGT) (Mithun 1991: 514). This leads to correct results in most cases adjectives often havea stative meaning and verbs a dynamic meaning but sometimes it comes out incorrectly.Guaran also has a native verb kaigw meaning to be or become bored, which is used aspredicted from the rule of event vs. state with the stative PAT pronominal prefix. Anotherexample of the same fact is apur to hurry, to be in a hurry borrowed from the Spanishverb se apurar. This predicate is classified as an event, while the native predicate -age,having the exact same meaning, is marked with the PAT prefix and is thus classified as astate.

2.1.5 Summary

In summary, Guaran marks its active alignment by pronominal prefixes on the predicate,i.e. head-marking. The AGT prefix is used if the predicate denotes an event, if it is dynamic,

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or indicates a change over time. The PAT prefix is used when the predicate denotes a state,or is stable over time. Spanish borrowings sometimes cause confusion since adjectives areregularly marked as PAT and verbs as AGT. This leads to cases such as avuri to be boredbeing marked as AGT even though it is a state, due to its being borrowed from the Spanishverb se abburir of the same meaning.

2.2 Georgian

2.2.1 Background

Georgian is the largest one of the South Caucasian (Kartvelian) languages. It is spoken bynearly 4 million people in Georgia and also by some groups in Iran and Turkey (Harris1981, Hillery 1999).

2.2.2 Alignment

In Georgian, verbs are divided into four Classes for syntactic and semantic, and mainly morphological reasons. Class 4 verbs are treated differently from the other verbs forsemantic reasons. They contain verbs of emotion and attitudes, so called experiencer-verbs.The other verbs are divided into transitive and intransitive ones. Transitive verbs fall intoClass 1 and the intransitive verbs fall into Classes 2 and 3. There are of course exceptionsto the transitive/intransitive dichotomy, in that some verbs in Class 1 do not take a directobject (e.g. daamtknarebs he will yawn (Harris 1981:259)), and some verbs in Classes 2and 3 may indeed take a direct object (e.g. itamashebs he will play is an intransitive Class3 verb, but may take a direct object as in the sentence nardi vitamashe I playedbackgammon (Harris 1981:265, 1990:47)). As we shall see further on, it is the Classes 2and 3, which are of special interest to us.

Two other important things in Georgian verb morphology are Screeves and Series. Screevesare really nothing more than ordinary tense-aspect-mood-status paradigms. However, eachconjugational pattern in Georgian represents a unique combination of tense, aspect, moodand status, and is known as a screeve5. One might think of a screeve as a TMA pattern. A

screeve consists of the pattern of verb forms for each person and number. There are elevenscreeves in Georgian, grouped into three Series:

Series I the present series has two subseries (present and future), each with threescreeves. Series II the aorist6 series has two screeves, while Series III the perfect

series has three.

5 This word was coined on the basis of the Georgian term mckrivi (row) to avoid using the label tense with itsstrong temporal connotations.

6 Aorist is comparable to past tense.

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It can also be noted that verb-agreement in Georgian follows a strict nominative-accusativeprinciple, it is the case-marking that is of interest as regards the active alignment. OldGeorgian however, actually did have active verb-agreement as well. The predicate wasagreeing with the objects of transitive verbs and subjects of intransitive inactive verbs byusing the verbal agreement suffix -en in Series II (Harris 1990: 39). This agreement hasbeen lost in modern Georgian.

To further complicate things, Georgian is also ergative, but only in the aorist series,otherwise it follows a nominative-accusative strategy. It is thus a so-called split-ergativelanguage. Compare the following examples (from Hillery 1999)7:

Nominative-Accusative (in the future series):

(1) bich-i dzaghl-s bagh-(s)-shi8 damalavs.boy-NOM:SG dog-DAT:SG garden-DAT:SG-in hideThe boy will hide the dog in the garden.

(2) dzaghl-i bagh-(s)-shi daimaleba.dog-NOM:SG garden-DAT:SG-in hide-oneselfThe dog will hide in the garden.

Ergative-Absolutive (in the Aorist series):9

(3) bich-ma dzaghl-i bagh-(s)-shi damala.boy-ERG:SG dog-ABS:SG garden-DAT:SG-in hideThe boy hid the dog in the garden.

(4) dzaghl-i bagh-(s)-shi daimala.dog-ABS:SG garden-DAT:SG-in hide-oneselfThe dog hid in the garden.

2.2.3 Active alignment and an explanation of its exceptions

This ergative alignment is only true for Class 1 verbs in the aorist series. The intransitiveverbs in Class 2 and Class 3 in the aorist series behave differently from Class 1 verbs anddifferently from what they do in Series I (future and present) and Series III (perfect).

Examples (5) and (6) exemplify a Class 3 verb (play) and a Class 2 verb (remain) (fromHillery 1999):

7 I have simplified the verb complex in the examples since it is of no interest to this thesis and would only serve toblur the discussion. However, the curious reader might want to know that the infix -i- is a so-called objectversion vowel, which in this case marks reflexivity. The prefix da- often marks the perfective. I have completelyignored the verb-agreement since it always follows a nominative-accusative principle.

8 The dative suffix is -s which is assimilated into the postposition -shi in.

9 The attentive reader may notice that ABS and NOM are in fact the same case, traditionally called nominative inGeorgian studies. I decided to split them up to further clarify the difference between the future series and theaorist series. The case called DAT most often functions as accusative, but I chose to keep the original name.

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(5) bich-ma bagh-shi itamasha.boy-AGT:SG garden-DAT:SG play-inThe boy played in the garden.

(6) bich-i bagh-shi darcha.boy-PAT:SG garden-DAT:SG remain-inThe boy remained in the garden.

As we can see, in example (5) the AGT case is used, and in example (6) the PAT case is used,despite the fact that they are both intransitive verbs. Georgian thus can mark the subject ofone-place predicates as either Agents or Patients. Hence Georgian must be an activelanguage, be it only in very strict syntactical surroundings, i.e. the Series II (aorist),Classes 2 and 3 (the intransitive verbs).

Now, what determines if the argument of a verb gets AGT or PAT case marking? Let us lookat some different Class 2 and Class 3 verbs and see what they have in common.

Class 2 verbs mark their subject as PAT and Class 3 verbs mark their subject as AGT. Hereare some examples of Class 2 PAT verbs (from Harris 1981: 263ff)10:

(a) ikneba he will be(b) elodeba he will wait for him(c) gatqdeba it will break(d) chavardeba he will fall(e) darcheba he will remain(f) moxdeba it will happen(g) gamtbari ikneba it will be heated, warmed(h) dacerili ikneba it will be written(i) dacqebuli ikneba it will be begun, started(j) daicqeba it will begin(k) chaketili ikneba it will be locked

(l) chaiketeba it will lock(m) gadneba it will melt(n) daibadeba it will be born(o) gatetrdeba it will become white(p) gagrzheldeba it will become long(er)(q) acekvdeba he will begin to dance(r) dacerili ikna it got written(s) dachrili ikna he got wounded(t) ecereba it will stand written, be in a state of having been written(u) etamasheba he will play with him(v) mouqveba he will tell it to him(w) ikbineba he bites(x) igineba he curses, swears

10 The verbs being in the future is simply because Harris (1981) has chosen to do so. It does not affect the analysis.

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(y) icveta it dripped

Below follow some examples of Class 3 AGT verbs (from Harris 1981: 265f):

(A) icekvebs he will dance(B) imgherebs he will sing(C) itamashebs he will play(D) ibrzhvis he will fight(E) isuntkebs he will breathe(F) itirebs he will cry(G) iqvirebs he will yell(H) ilaparakebs he will talk(I) ioxrebs he will sigh(J) ixvrinebs he will snore(K) irbens he will run(L) isrialebs he will slide(M) ipikrebs he will think(N) imepebs he will reign(O) imushavebs he will work(P) iqaraulebs he will guard it(Q) ibavshvebs he will behave childishly(R) imgzavrebs he will travel(S) ikashkashebs it will glisten(T) iprialebs it will shine(U) idughebs it will boil

Now, what is it that characterizes Class 2 (PAT) and Class 3 (AGT) verbs? Let us begin withClass 2. First of all, we can disregard the verbs (g) to (n). These verbs are analytic andsynthetic passives, derived from basic Class 1 verbs. They end up in Class 2 since they arenow intransitive, but what is now the subject was originally the object, and is still markedas such. The verbs (r) to (t) are also passives, what Harris calls Zustandspassiv, being inClass 2 for the same reasons as (g) to (n). The inceptives (o) to (q) are also seen as non-controlled, and semantically analyzed as such by Harris (1981: 39ff, 246, 261).

The verbs (u) and (x) are in a group of exceptions to Class 2. These are controlled verbs, butare still in Class 2. These exceptions are explained in three ways:

1. All of them occur in synchronically non-productive morphological subclasses. 2. Some of them cause confusion for native speakers.3. Some or all of them are regularized in the non-literary dialects.

The predicates (u) to (x) are all in closed and non-productive morphological subclasses.They have become lexicalized and frozen. They also cause confusion for native speakers. Anexample of the latter can be seen in example (7) and (8) (Harris 1981: 246):

(7) macivridan cqalma icvetarefrigerator:from water:AGT drippedWater dripped from the refrigerator.

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Example (7) can be compared to example (8):

(8) macivridan cqali icvetarefrigerator:from water:PAT drippedWater dripped from the refrigerator.

The verb cvetva drip is a verb which formally belongs to Class 3 (AGT). However, the use in(7) is considered more literary and is preferred by prescriptive norms, and one languageconsultant noted that he knew that (7) was right (normative), but that it sounded strange,as though the water were dripping on purpose, as though the water were active (aktiuri).By this comment, the native speaker thus both proves that these few verbs (u) to (y) shouldin fact be seen as exceptions rather than counter-examples, and, more importantly, thatGeorgian bases its active alignment on control or P/E/I rather than event vs. state.Analyzing the verbs (a) to (f) we see that all of them are in fact non-controlled predicates.The exception might be the verb be, which is a special case and hard to definesemantically.

Finally, some verbs which are exceptions in the literary language (based on the dialect ofthe capital Tbilisi) are regularized in many dialects, including Gurian and Imerian inwestern Georgia, the mountain dialects of north central Georgia, and Pereidnian spoken inIran. Some examples are (Harris 1981: 246) kacma cavida The man-AGT went and kacmaadga The man-AGT got up, where the subjects are marked as Agents as would be expectedfor control-verbs. In the Tbilisi dialect, these verbs are exceptions marking their subject asPatient.

As regards the verbs in Class 3 (AGT), we see that all of them are controlled. The exceptions(e.g. (J), (S), (T) and (U)) can all be shown to belong to frozen, lexicalized, non-productivesubclasses (Holisky 1980). One interesting thing we can see by analyzing Class 3 verbs isthat predicates that are not controlled but still performed, effected or instigated fall in thisclass. Examples of Class 3 verbs with these features are ixvrinebs snore and also iprialebsshine and ikashkashebs glisten. The conclusion to draw from this is that case marking inGeorgian is in fact not based on control but on performance, effect and instigation. Anargument does not need to be in control to be marked as AGT, it is sufficient for it to in someway perform, effect or instigate the event (or state).

As regards what would have been the last column in table 4 below, showing predicates thatare [event], [P/E/I] and [control] (i.e, traits, properties or attributes such as be tall, besick and be tired) is unapplicable in Georgian since this language uses adjectives that aremore like nouns than verbs (as in English). This, however, is of no importance to theanalysis, since verbs like imepebs reign and iqaraulebs guard, which are [event] stillmark their argument as AGT showing that [event] cannot be crucial to the case marking.

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Table 4. Summary of the semantics behind Georgian case-marking.

+ event+P/E/I+ control




Examples icekvebs dance, itamashebs playibrzhvis fight

ixvrinebs snore,ikashkashebsglisten

chavardeba fall,gatqdeba break,daixrcho drown

imepebs reign,iqaraulebsguard, ipikrebsthink

Case-marking

AGT AGT PAT AGT

2.2.4 Other aspects related to active alignment

One other thing, which is not related to the active character of Georgian, but still of interestfrom a semantic point-of-view is that the predicates in Class 4 in all series mark theirsubject with the dative case, and the direct object with the nominative. Most Class 4 verbsdenote feelings, emotions, sensations and states of being that endure for periods of time.The Class 4 verbs also include desideratives, which indicate an urge to do something andwhich are formed using the circumfix e- -eb, e.g. etsek'veba he feels like dancing ascompared to tsek'vavs he dances. A few Class 4 verbs mark the direct object with thegenitive, e.g. gogos dzaghlis eshinia the girl is afraid of the dog (Hillery 1999).

2.2.5 Summary

Summarizing the active alignment of Georgian we see that the active alignment isrestricted to Series II i.e. the aorist and Classes 2 and 3, the intransitive verbs. Theargument of Class 3 verbs takes an AGT and the argument of Class 2 verbs takes a PAT. Theother Series have a split-ergative alignment. The reason as to why a predicate ends up inClass 3 or Class 2 is based on semantics. The main conclusion is that the active alignmentof Georgian shows a distinction not between control and non-control, but of performance,effect and instigation. Finally we see that the active alignment of Georgian is marked bycase as opposed to most other active languages (even though in Old Georgian it was markedby verb-agreement as well). The exceptions can be explained as being old lexicalized (non-productive) verb-forms (which is also proved by the regularization in dialects other than themain one), and causing confusion to the native speakers. On a peripheral remark we cannote that Georgian also has a special class of verbs whose arguments take the dative case.These experiencer-verbs thus have a kind of semantic case-marking.

2.3 Chickasaw

2.3.1 Background

Chickasaw is a Western Muskogean language primarily spoken in Oklahoma.

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2.3.2 Alignment

Chickasaw is an accusative language insofar as it marks all full nouns with either thenominative suffix -at or the accusative suffix -a (even though the accusative marker is inmany cases optional). An example (from Smith 2000b: 6):

(1) hattak-at ihoo-a pisa-tokman-NOM woman-ACC see-PASTThe man saw the woman.


Let us look at the use of the pronominal agreement affixes Agent, Patient and Dative(DAT)11 of intransitive predicates. The agentive pronominal agreement affixes are used withverbs that denote an action and typically require some kind of volition on the part of thesubject. The patientive pronominal agreement suffixes are used with stative verbs, i.e.verbs which describe a situation or property and do not require the participation of thesubject. The dative pronominal agreement suffixes are used with experience verbs, roughlyverbs that show a mental state. (Smith 2000a). We will soon see if this holds true.Chickasaw is also a pro-drop language and thus does not need to have explicit independentpronouns. Intransitive verbs which take the agentive agreement affix are aya go, foyopabreathe, and toyya climb. Predicates that are marked with the patientive agreementsuffix are chaaha be tall, chiwiiki be heavy, and lhinko be fat. Predicates that take thedative agreement suffix are takhobi be lazy, and ilhlha be scared.

A predicate which shows this pattern clearly is chokma good. Below are examples with theAGT, PAT and dative affixes. As we see, Chickasaw is a so called fluid-S language where asingle root gets different meanings depending on which agreement affix is attached to it.(Examples from Munro and Gordon 1982: 84)

(2) chokma-ligood-1SG:AGTI act good.

(3) sa-chokma1SG:PAT-goodI am good.

(4) an-chokma1SG:DAT-goodI feel good

11 Munro and Gordon call these I, II and III, due to the fact that on many occasions AGT, PAT, and DAT are clearlymisleading. However, to keep the terminology in this thesis consistent, I have changed these to AGT, PAT, and DATrespectively.

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Let us look more closely at the exact use of the active alignment in Chickasaw intransitivepredicates. Which predicates take the AGT affix and which take the PAT one? Here is a list ofwords (from Smith p.c.) which correspond to the predicates Mithun (1991: 524) uses. Withinparenthesis is the agreement suffix (either AGT or PAT or sometimes DAT). A (3) means thatthe predicate takes a third person only, and thus no agreement.

aya (AGT) gomalli (AGT) jumpowwatta (AGT) huntyya'sha (AGT) to exist, to be located, to live thereaha'anhi (AGT) be carefulilihopo (AGT) be extremely fearful or suspiciousyahmanhi (AGT) pay attentionyakohmanhi (AGT) to be this way

habishko (AGT or PAT) sneezehowita (AGT or PAT) vomitchokfiyammi (AGT or PAT) hiccupshalalli or shalatli (AGT or PAT) slip/slide

illi (PAT) diechaaha (PAT) be tallkilimpi (PAT) be strongabika (PAT) be sicktikahbi (PAT) be tired kapassa (PAT) be coldichchokwa (PAT) be cold

inkapassa (DAT) feel cold

A special case is fall/take heed which translates into the following:

ittola sg.-pl. animate (PAT); sg. animate (AGT); sg. inanimate (3)lhatapa pl. inanimate (3)wilili pl inanimate (3)

If we put these predicates into a table to see if they show control or not, are events orstates, etc. we end up with a table like this:

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Table 5. Summary of the semantics behind Chickasaw agreement marking.

+ event+ P/E/I+ control




event P/E/I control

Examples aya go, mallijump,owwatta hunt,[shalallislip/slide,ittola fall/takeheed,habishko

sneeze,howita vomit,chokfiyammi

hiccup]

habishko

sneeze,howita

vomit,chokfiyammi

hiccup

illi die,shalalli

slip/slide,ittola

fall/takeheed

yya'sha

exist, belocated, livethere,aha'anhi becareful,ilihopo besuspicious,yahmanhi

payattention,yakohmanhi

be this way

chaaha betall, kilimpibe strong,abika besick, tikahbibe tired,kapassa becold,ichchokwa becold

Pronominalprefix AGT PAT PAT AGT PAT

As we can see, in Chickasaw it is control that takes precedence in the agreement marking,and not the difference between event and state. Predicates such as go, jump and runalways take an Agent affix. Some of the events which are in the [P/E/I] and [control]group (like fall, die and slip/slide) can take either an AGT or PAT affix. They take aPatient affix if they are non-controlled and an Agent affix if they are controlled. Examplesof predicates with this fluid marking are fall/take heed and slip/slide, but not die forobvious reasons. The same holds true for events such as hiccup and vomit which take anAGT if they are controlled and a PAT if they are not (fluid-S in Dixons terms). This is why Ihave included them within brackets in the first column ([+event] [+P/E/I] [+control]). Thedifference between the former (the slip/slide and fall predicates) and the latter (thehiccup and vomit predicates) is that hiccuping and vomiting are events that aresomehow performed, effected or instigated by someone, while falling and dying are not(Mithun 1991).

Another special thing about Chickasaw to note is that predicates which denote a mentalstate (inkapassa (DAT) feel cold) are marked with the DAT pronominal affix.

2.3.4 Explaining the exceptions

This is not the whole story, however. In many cases of intransitive predicates theagreement marking is not what one would have expected. Although the active alignment isbasically semantically based there are a number of exceptions, which according to Munro

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and Gordon (1982) and Smith (2000b) can only be explained with syntax and lexicalization.Munro and Gordon (1982: 82) writes:

In particular, this system appears to have undergone a number of changes resultingin (frequent) lexicalization of agreement type [] Further, it is not true (even giventhe lexical restrictions noted) that identification of the subject is based solely onsemantic role.

Let us have a look at some exceptions to the semantically overt marking.

The subject of banna want takes a PAT affix, but in Chickasaw, if there are two agreementmarkers on a predicate, one of them must be an AGT marker. The problem here is thatbanna cannot have two agreement morphemes. One of the arguments must be an overtseparate pronoun or full NP, and the object must always be third person. Hence, if there isan object in a sentence using the predicate banna, either the subject must be marked asAGT or the object must be. And the object cannot marked as AGT, since it it would then beinterpreted as the subject.

Inherent transitive predicates can never be used intransitively. For example sa-hopoo where sa- is a first person PAT-prefix and hopoo means be jealous can only mean He isjealous of me and never I am jealous. This is because hopoo is inherently transitive. Hencesa-hopoo must be interpreted in a way so that the PAT-prefix is the object of the sentenceand that there is an implicit third person subject which is marked as AGT.

Reflexives and reciprocals always take AGT agreement, even with predicates whichotherwise would have taken a PAT or DAT affix. Some verbs contain a reflexive or reciprocalmarker and might derive from reflexive or reciprocal verbs, but synchronically they cannotalways be analyzed as such. These precdicates may also take an AGT affix, even those whichare non-controlled and hence should have used a PAT affix. Some examples are ilachaffa tobe an only child, ilolhatabli to spill (something) on oneself and ilimalhkaniya to forgetoneself, which are all non-controlled predicates. Ilimalhkaniya also requires a DAT affixwhen not used reflexively. These verbs are always used reflexively and it appears as if thefirst element ili- is a reflexive prefix which has become frozen. Consequently there wouldbe an explanation as to why these predicates are used with AGT even though they have astative meaning and should take PAT, namely lexicalization.

There is also a verb aknniya not to think anything. It is intransitive, and takes PATagreement. Even though the verb cannot take a direct object, it is possible to add thereciprocal prefix itta- leading to ittaknniya which is a predicate with three meanings: 1)to be committed (intransitive); 2) to be commited to each other (intransitive i.e., itcannot take another object); and 3) to be committed to (transitive, but object cannot be 1stor 2nd person). The semantics of the first intransitive version, is even more patient-likethan the original, and the other two are more experiencer-like, which should have a DATsubject. However, since there is a reciprocal, the subject must show AGT agreement (MarcusSmith, personal communication).

There are two verbs meaning to be scared. One takes a PAT subject and the other a DATsubject. This cannot be explained semantically, but it is possible to find a syntactic

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explanation. When the version of be scared that takes a PAT subject is the complement ofwant it cannot agree with its subject if it corefers with the subject of want. The other,which takes a DAT subject, must agree. (Smith, p.c.). This might, according to Smith, bebecause of the subject not being the underlying subject but only a surface subject.

One last oddity that about the Chickasaw active system is the quantificational verbs. Theseare most probably non-controlled and non-events and should thus take PAT marking, butcontrary to the expected they take AGT marking without exception. Here are some examples(supplied by M. Smith, see also Munro et.al. 1982: 85):

lawa to be many, to be a lot, to be a bunch.

chaffa one; to be one in number, to be the one, to be the other one (sg subj).

lttassa to be all alone by oneself; to be flat-chested, skinny

momma to be all

This use has not yet been explained, neither semantically nor syntactically. The onlyexplanation I dare although I do not have any diachronic data for these predicates inChickasaw is that these quantificationals are seen as controlled, and hence take the AGTaffixes. I am aware that this reasoning is circular. However, Alabama, a language in thesame family as Chickasaw, also appears to mark quantificational predicates as Agents. TheAlabama predicates toklo two, totchiina three, and sahmi some all take AGT agreementmarking. Thus it looks like this is a feature of the language family. If something hassurvived for hundreds of years it should have been analogically levelled out if it is anexception (M. Smith, p.c.). Confer also Chickasaw predicates such as yya'sha to exist, tobe located, to live there and aha'anhi be careful. These predicates are states and notperformed, effected or instigated in any way. They are however controlled (being careful issomething you are on purpose, something you have control of) and thus take an AGT affix.The only explanation I can see is that the quantificationals behave in the same manner.

2.3.5 Other aspects related to active alignment

The pronominal agreement affixes can also be used with transitive predicates in a mannersemantically similar to the use in intransitive clauses. Regarding transitives the markingrather seems to be one of active vs. stative rather than control vs. non-control. This is notthe main interest of this thesis, so I have not delved deeper into the matter, but I go withthe findings of Munro and Gordon (1982). Nevertheless, when looking at transitives youwill find a number of exceptions to the semantic marking, which is of interest to this thesis.For transitives, the AGT affix is typically used to mark the subject, more or lessindependently of its semantic role. For instance, love involves an Experiencer rather thanan Agent, but still marks its subject as AGT. This is consistens with the use of the hyperroleActor in this thesis, which marks the participant primarily responsible for theaccomplishment of the event (cf. section 1.3).

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One of the other two affixes (i.e. PAT and DAT) marks the object. The Patient suffix is thenused for direct objects and object of applicatives, and the dative suffix is used with dativesand benefactives. (Examples from Smith 2000b):

(5) chi-pisa-li [direct object]2SG:PAT-see-1SG:AGTI see you.

(6) chim-anompoli-li [dative]2SG:DAT-speak-1SG:AGTI am speaking to you.

(7) chi-hollo-li [benefactive]2SG:DAT-love-1SG:AGTI love you.

(8) chin-taloowa [benefactive]2SG:DAT-singHe sings for you.

Subjects of transitive predicates, though, are not crucially associated with AGT, either. Hereare some examples, which also show the semantics behind the selection of the agreementmarker. Remember takes a PAT affix since it is a stative transitive verb and to like tastetakes a DAT affix since it is an experience verb. This is thus exactly what one would haveexpected. However, this system is not very consistent. Confer love above, which also is anexperience verb, but which agrees with its subject as if it were an Agent. Examples fromMunro and Gordon 1982: 85:

(9) holhchifo chi-nokfnkha-taname 2SG:PAT-remember-QUEDo you remember her name?

(10) paska in-champolibread 3:DAT12-like:tasteShe likes the bread.

2.3.6 Summary

In summary, intransitive predicates indisputably draw the line between control and non-control. Regarding where in the system the active marking occurs, it is only in the first andsecond person pronominal affixes.

It is clear that Chickasaw bases its active system on semantics, and that earlier this musthave been even more apparent. However, nowadays, the use has become blurred because ofsyntactic rules and lexicalization. The agreement marking for many verbs is marked

12 The only overt (or existing) agreement suffix is the third person dative.

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lexically, either idiosyncratically, or by the rules of the exceptions, which I have gonethrough above, where e.g. reflexives always takes an AGT pronominal agreement affix.

2.4 Middle Welsh

2.4.1 Middle Welsh alignment a background

The active nature of Middle Welsh is rather a question of nominalization than finite verbs.However, Middle Welsh can have strings of nominalizations, which then work somewhatlike finite verbs. Nevertheless, it is important to remember that this language differs fromthe other languages in quite a considerable manner.

Welsh is normally a verb initial language. For some reason, it was considered elegant inlate medieval prose to initialize the subject but one had to indicate this by borrowing therelative particle a and putting it before the displaced verb. (Verbs were normally precededby preverbal particles.) So you get a construction like Gwyr a aeth Catraeth, which lookslike [it is] Men [who] went to Catraeth, but was used to mean men went to Catraeth. Byanalogy, one took the verbal noun and fronted it also: Kyfodi a oruc arising [that] he did,meaning he arose. (Sarah Higley, p.c.)

So instead of he went you got he did go. When a series of actions needed to be describedonly the first was given the auxillary or a finite verb, the rest were expressed by a series ofverbal nouns. So he arose, and went out and looked and saw... would be arising he did,and going out, and looking and seeing... This gives a very fluid narrative effect when forexample one event leads to another. Usually the subject is established at the beginning ofthe sequence, but if it needs to be expressed later, an o-construction can be used with averbal noun. The nearest translation would be by as in its taking by Arthur. Normally o isthe preposition from. Here are a couple of examples (Keith Gaughan p.c.):

Y deffroes sarff... a serpent awoke [finite verb to start the chain off] a chyrchu neuad... andmaking for the hall Ac arganuot y mab... And perceiving the child a dwyn ruthur idawand making a rush at him

That is [then] a serpent awoke and made for the hall and perceived the child and made arush at him.


In transitive non-finite clauses, transitive subjects (A) are marked with the preposition oof, from, and transitive objects (P) are marked as simple adnominal genitives. (Examplefrom Manning 1995: 174).

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(1) VN13 AGT PATkymryt [o Arthur] [y daryan eureit]

taking of Arthur the shield goldenArthur took the golden shield.

Subjects of non-finite intransitive verbs vary between being marked as either the AGT ofabove or the PAT. (Manning 1995: 181, 184)

(2) VN AGTymlad [ohonafi] dros vym baryf

fighting of-me for my beardI fought for my beard.

(3) VN PATkynn diodef [Crist]

before suffering ChristBefore Christ suffered.

Ymlad 'fight' thus marks its subject as AGT while diodef 'suffer' marks its subject as PAT.

Here are some verbs which take AGT and PAT marking (Manning 1995: 185f).

AGT PAT

marchogaeth ridekerdet walkredec runcrwydraw wanderllauuryaw laborbuchedockau live a lifeymlad fightymgyuot fightymwan joustymdidan conversepregethu preachbwyta eatstudyaw studygwylyaw watchryuedu wondergwedyaw prayymgueiraw prepare selfymbaratoi prepare selfymwasgu embrace e. otherymrodi devote selfpechu sinymgroessi cross selfymchoelut returnesgynnu mount

marw diellithraw slipdiangk escapedygwydaw fall downbot behanuot be from

However, there is not just a simple dichotomy between AGT and PAT verbs. Some verbs maytake either AGT or PAT marking. Let us look at the three classes.

13 VN is Verbal Noun

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Sample verbs of class 1 (AGT):ride, walk, run, fight, preach, eat, study, pray, return, sin, mount.

Sample verbs of class 2 (AGT or PAT):suffer, sleep, sit down, flee, remain.

Sample verbs of class 3 (PAT):be, die, slip, escape, fall down.

We can easily see that all of the verbs in class 1 are [+control], though they need not be[+event] as we can see from verbs like pray. Verbs in class 3 are all [control], but notalways [event]. Thus the main distinction seems to be one of control vs. non-control.

The second class of verbs is tricky to analyze without more information than I have found.However, it seems that there is a tendency for [+control] verbs like eisted sit down andymwahanu part ways to take AGT marking. Regarding [control] verbs like diodef sufferthere is no clear preference.

One other aspect is that only human subjects can be marked as AGT. If the intransitivesubject is non-human it is marked as PAT, regardless of which verb is used. Remember alsothat this variation between AGT and PAT is only applied to intransitive verbs.

Analyzing the above predicates leads us to the conclusion that all verbs which mark theirargument as AGT are [+control], but they may be either [+event] (e.g. kerdet walk andymlad fight) or [event] (e.g. gwylyaw watch). The predicates taking the PAT marking onthe other hand, are typical examples of [control] predicates (marw die, llithraw slip,dygwydaw fall down and diangk escape14). Like the AGT predicates, they may be either[+event] or [event], although the [event] predicates are all derivatives of bot be.

2.4.3 Summary

In summary we see that Middle Welsh active alignment made a distinction between controland non-control. Agents are marked with the preposition o of, from and it is used both onpronouns and on full NPs. The active alignment also only occurs in non-finite clauses.

2.5 Acehnese

2.5.1 Background

Acehnese (also spelled Achinese, Achehnese, and Atjenese) is a Malayic (westernAustronesian) language spoken by around 3 million people in the northern part of Sumatra,Indonesia.

14 Diangk escape is used here in the sense of escape from us in the sentence Diangk eneit y gwrda The goodmans

soul escaped implying a lack of control.

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2.5.2 Alignment

AGT pronominal clitics precede the verb and PAT pronominal clitics come after the verb. TheAgent of a transitive sentence is marked with the preposition l (Blake 1994).


Let us begin by looking at some example sentences (Kibrik (1997: 285)).

(1) geu-jak gopnyan(s)he-go (s)he(S)he goes.

(2) gopnyan rht(-geuh)(s)he fall(-(s)he)(S)he falls.

(3) gopnyan geu-mat ln(s)he (s)he-hold I(S)he holds me.

Here we clearly see that AGT arguments are marked by the prefix geu-, while the PATargument is marked by the suffix -geuh. There is thus a difference in marking for theargument of intransitive predicates. They can be marked as either AGT or PAT.

Let us look at a list of predicates to see which get AGT marking and which get PAT marking(Durie 1988: 6).

AGT PAT

beudh get up

cruep lie on stomach

dng stand

iem keep quite, still

manoe bathe

marit talk

plueng run

woe return

bagah be fast, be rapid

beureth explode

gatay itch, feel itchy

gli be thicklish

hanyt drown

lah be born

mabk be intoxicated

reubah topple over

trh arrive, happen

Analyzing these predicates, it is quite clear that the difference is one between control andnon-control. The AGT predicates are all [+control], but can be both [event] such as iem

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keep quite, still and [+event] like plueng run- The PAT predicates can be both [event] likebagah be fast and [+event] like reubah topple over, but they are all [control].

In Acehnese one actually marks sneeze, cough and vomit and similar predicates (thosewhich are [control] but [+P/E/I]) as AGT, since it is seen as the element of control is anegative or potential one: the activities concerned can be inhibited, delayed or permitted, ifnot completely controlled. The non-controlled derivatives, such as cough uncontrollablyimply a pathological lack of any control, however limited.

Thus it seems that Acehnese is yet another language in which performance, effect andinstigation play the leading role.

The verb mabk drunk takes a PAT clitic, since being drunk is seen as pathological.Drunkenness is strictly forbidden in the Aceh culture and hence not seen as something onedoes, but rather a bad state one can be in.

The active alignment of Acehnese also has an effect on the syntax. For example, inAcehnese the verb want requires A - A coreference between the clauses. It would beimpossible in Acehnese to say He wants to die because there would be coreference, but theembedded sentence would not have an Agent. Also, I want him to run would be impossible,because there is no coreference between the Agents. These concept would require acomplicated structure. He wants to go is accepted, but He wants to fall is not.

2.5.4 Summary

The active alignment of Acehnese makes a distinction between predicates that are in someway seen as performed, instigated or effected (marked as AGT) and things that are not(marked as PAT). It is marked by pronominal clitics, which are affixed to the verb. Theactive alignment can occur in any tense or aspect and for first, second and third person.

2.6 Central Pomo

2.6.1 Background

Pomo is a group of languages which is a branch of Northern Hokan and is spoken in southwestern USA.

2.6.2 Alignment

Central Pomo distinguishes case on pronouns for all four persons and on some nounsreferring to human beings (Mithun 1991: 518). There are three cases, two core cases andone oblique. The arguments of intransitive predicates can be marked as either of the twocore cases, which I call AGT and PAT.

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Central Pomo marks performers, effectors, instigators and controllers as Agents, and all theothers (such as those who are sick, chased away, fall and die) as Patients. Thus the maindistinction is based on control. Situations which are performed, effected or instigated butnot controlled (e.g. predicates like hiccup and sneeze) does not take an Agent prefix, but aPatient one. Let us look at some examples. a is the first person agent pronoun and to is thefirst person patient pronoun. (All examples from Mithun 1991: 518f)

(1) a bda chw I:AGT live here. [+control, event](2) a pdw e I:AGT jumped. [+control, +event](3) to lya I:PAT fell. [control, +event](4) to yqan I:PAT remember. [control, event](5) to sesya I:PAT sneezed. [control, +P/E/I]

As we can see, controllers take the agentive pronoun a and those that do not includingperformed, instigated and effected predicates get the patientive to. Whether a predicate isan event or a state is not important. To be marked as AGT, one must thus be in control.P/E/I is not enough.

Although this is not the whole story. It is far more complicated, and interesting.

Two important features of Central Pomo active alignment are significant affectedness andempathy. In Central Pomo, it does not suffice to be out of control to be marked as a Patient.You must also be significantly affected.

If one possesses an inherent state such as be tall, be good, be beautiful and be deaf, onereceives an AGT pronoun. Participants do not have to be aware of their own attributes. Butif an inherent state is marked by an inchoative, the state suddenly becomes significantlyaffected and so marked as a PAT. That is, the coming into being of a state is affecting aparticipant more that just being in a state. Confer the sentences below:

(6) Ym e a I:AGT am old.(7) Ymaq to I:PAT have gotten old.

Another thing that follows from this is that only human beings (or pets or animals inlegends) can be marked as PAT, since non-humans cannot be significantly affected and onecannot feel empathy for them. The pronoun mu tu in (8) below referring to a man is in thePAT case, but the pronoun mul is in the AGT case and refers to a bee. (Mithun 1991: 521).

(8) Qalw mu tu He:PAT died.(9) Mul qalw It:AGT (the bee) died.

If the speaker does not know the effect of the state or event, the PAT pronoun is not evenused for human beings. For some predicates, like the ones in (10) to (13) below, a PATpronoun is used for first person, but an AGT pronoun is used for third persons. This isbecause speakers do not want to claim they feel what another person is feeling.

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(10) H mta t o I:PAT feel warm.(11) H mta mul He:AGT feels warm.(12) yaa to I:PAT am afraid.(13) yaa mul He:AGT is afraid.

One more thing to notice about the active system of Central Pomo is that one can alsochoose to use the agentive pronoun, if one wants to just state a fact, without paying anyattention to the affectedness of the person(s) involved in the action.

Let us sum this all up in table 6 below.

Table 6. Summary of the semantics behind Central Pomo agreement marking.





event P/E/I control affect

event P/E/I control+ affect

Examplepredicates

go/walk,kill, bite,slide

sneeze fall, slip,becomesick

stand up,sit/dwell

be tall, bestrong

be tired, becold

Pronoun AGT PAT PAT AGT AGT PAT

2.6.4 Summary

To sum it up, this means that in Central Pomo a person is marked as Patient only if it issimultaneously out of control and significantly affected and the speaker chooses to expressempathy with him or her (because he of she is affected in such a way).

The active alignment is shown through case on pronouns, for all four persons and in alltenses and aspects.

2.7 Eastern Pomo


Eastern Pomo (McLendon 1978) has an interesting variant of the active language type withcomplementarity between Agents and Patients, in that pronouns, kinship terms and propernames can be marked as PAT, while other nouns can only be marked as AGT. The verbs endup in one of the following classes depending on whether they take one or two argumentsand if the arguments are marked as AGT or PAT (Blake 1994: 127)

One argument is marked as AGT and optionally another argument as PAT. (kill, bite). One argument is marked as PAT: (fall, be burned, bleed, sneeze, become sick). Two argument both marked as PAT: (love, hate).

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One argument which is marked as either AGT or PAT: (slip/slide). One argument is marked as AGT if it is a pronoun, a kinship term or proper name, and

PAT if it is a common noun: (sit/dwell, go/walk, stand up)

Following our terminology, and concentrating on the intransitive predicates, we canconclude the following.

Some events such as fall and sneeze and even become sick are marked as PAT, but theargument of other events like kill and bite are marked as AGT. Thus the marking cannotbe one between event and state. Looking instead at a predicate like slip/slide gives us aclue, it can be marked as either AGT or PAT. Predicates like kill, bite, sit/dwell, go/walk,and stand up are all controlled, but fall, be burned, bleed, and sneeze all imply a lackof control. Hence it seems that control is the important factor. Further evidence of this isthat predicates like sit/dwell, and go/walk both mark their argument as AGT. What thesepredicates have in common is in fact that they are controlled. But they are also bothperformed, effected or instigated. How do we know that it is not in fact P/E/I that is thecrucial ingredient? Well, if we compare a [+P/E/I] but [control] predicate sneeze forinstance with a predicate which is both [+control] and [+P/E/I], e.g. go/walk, we find thatit is only go/walk that marks its argument as AGT. Thus it must be control that is maindistinction between Agents and Patients.

If we put this into a table it looks like this:

Table 7. Summary of the semantics behind Eastern Pomo agreement marking.





event P/E/I control

Examplepredicates

go/walk,

Documents

Active Languages