Referential hierarchies and ditransitive verbs

in Araki

Show her to me

Alex FRANÇOIS LACITO-C.N.R.S. (France) – A.N.U.

ANU Langfest– 2 Dec 2011

On secondary alignment

Primary alignment Verbs with 2 participants, Agent-like A & Patient-like P

Which participant aligns with Subject S of intransitive clause?

• Accusative alignment (S‹=›A) vs Ergative alignment (S‹=›P)

Secondary alignment (Siewierska 2004; Haspelmath 2005; Bickel & Nichols 2009)

Verbs subcategorising for 3 arguments (give, tell, send…), espec. transfer events

Agent-like A (giver); Theme T (gift); Recipient R

Which participant aligns with Patient P of transitive clauses?

Indirective alignment (P‹=›T) “She gave WATER to the kids.”

Theme = object (aligns with P); Recipient = oblique [Dative]

Secundative alignment (P‹=›R) “She provided THE KIDS with water.”

Recipient = object (aligns with P); Theme = oblique [Instrumental, Oblique]

Neutral alignment (P‹=›T,R) “She gave THEM WATER.”

Theme / Recipient = objects (both align with P)

Typology of secondary alignment

Languages differ in their secondary alignment [Haspelmath 2005, 2011]

50% show consistent Indirective alignment (P‹=›T)

• French J’ai donné l’argent à mon propriétaire

“I gave the money to my landlord”

• Hiw (Vanuatu) Nok’ oye ne gengon ti Daniel. 1sg give:SG ART food DAT (name)

“I gave the food to Daniel.”

17% show consistent Secundative alignment (P‹=›R)

• Chamorro Ha na'i i patgon ni leche. he.ERG give ABS child OBL milk

“He gave the milk to the child.”

22% show consistent double-object strategy (P‹=›T, R)

11% show Mixed alignment structures

• English: Mixed system between indirective and double-object alignment

• Araki (Vanuatu): Mixed between indirective and secundative alignment

Araki

Araki: Oceanic (Austronesian)

≈ 5 speakers, being replaced by Tangoa (Vari-Bogiri 2005)

1997: fieldwork with last fluent speakers

2002: publication of my grammar Araki: A disappearing language of Vanuatu

SVO; Primary alignment is Accusative

Differential Object Marking based on [human] feature

Secondary alignment follows syntactic alternation also based on [human] feature

2011: follow-up research

EuroBABEL project Referential Hierarchies in Morphosyntax (Bickel, Siewierska, van Lier)

Specific investigation of ditransitive verbs

No fluent speaker/ storyteller alive; based on elicitation

The syntax of Ditransitive verbs follows a Referential scale involving [human] and [person]

Two classes of verbs

Lexical split between two classes of 3-participant verbs, based on the way they align Theme & Recipient with Patient

Fixed alignment: always indirective alignment (P‹=›T)

e.g. sohan ‘send’, hashaso ‘recommend’…

(1) Na= pa= sohan re presin san nanaru-ku. 1s:IRR= FUT= send INDF present DAT children-my

‘I’ll send presents to my kids.’

Variable alignment: only three ditransitive verbs

sle(i) ‘give’ — vse(i) ‘teach, show’ — varai ‘tell, denounce’

These three transfer verbs show regular alternation in their alignment

• Sometimes obligatory Indirective (P‹=›T)

• Sometimes obligatory Secundative (P‹=›R)

• Sometimes FREE VARIATION (P‹=›T ~ P‹=›R)

What principles govern the syntax of these 3 ditransitive verbs?

Araki ditransitive verbs

For these ditransitive verbs, the Recipient R is always Human (or animal personified, in stories)

Typical configuration: Recipient R = [+human]; Theme T = [-human]

secundative alignment (P‹=›R)

(2) Na= pa= sle-ko n’ re presin. 1s:IRR= FUT= give-2sg OBL PRTV present

‘I’ll give you a present.’

(3) Nia mo= varai-ja ni-a. 3sg 3:RE= tell-1inc.pl OBL-3sg

‘He has told us about it.’

(4) Na= pa= vse rama-ku ni-a. 1s:IRR= FUT= show father-1sg OBL-3sg

‘I’ll show it to my father.’

does not depend on morphological status

of argument (NP vs pronoun)

Araki ditransitive verbs

For these ditransitive verbs, the Recipient R is always Human (or animal personified, in stories)

Typical configuration: Recipient R = [+human]; Theme T = [-human]

secundative alignment (P‹=›R)

(2) Na= pa= sle-ko n’ re presin. 1s:IRR= FUT= give-2sg OBL PRTV present

‘I’ll give you a present.’

but if Theme T is [+human], alignment is reversed

indirective alignment (P‹=›T)

(2’) Na= pa= sle-ko san ramare! 1s:IRR= FUT= give-2sg DAT monster

‘I’ll give you to a monster!’

2002 hypothesis: [+human] T’s are promoted to Object function

A referential hierarchy

2011 study: [human] is a key feature but not the only one.

When both T and R are [+human], they compete for the Object function.

Another feature is whether a speech participant is involved

= whether T / R are [+local] (=includes 1st/2nd person) or [-local] (3rd person)

[human] and [local] together define a Referential hierarchy:

Rule:

The participant that ranks higher on the hierarchy aligns with Patients.

The other participant is encoded as a non-core argument (Oblique, Dative).

[+local] >> [-local] [+human] >> [-human]

(1st/2nd) >> 3rd [+human] >> 3rd [-human]

A referential hierarchy

(5) Na= pa= vse-ko ni-a. 1s:IRR= FUT= show-2sg OBL-3sg

‘I’ll show it to you.’

(6) Na= pa= vse-ko ni-a.

1s:IRR= FUT= show-2sg OBL-3sg

‘I’ll show her to you.’

(7) Na= pa= vse-ko sa-na.

1s:IRR= FUT= show-2sg DAT-3sg

‘I’ll show you to her.’

(8) O= kan varai-a ni-a!

2s:IRR= PROH tell-3sg OBL-3sg

‘Don’t tell him about it!’

(9) O= kan varai-á sa-na!

2s:IRR= PROH tell-1sg DAT-3sg

‘Don’t tell him about me!’

[+local] (1st/2nd)

[-local] [+human]

[-human]

R T

R T

T R

R T

T R

Regular or free variation?

A regular alternation When T & R belong to 2 different categories

on the referential hierarchy, the rule is always respected, and speakers don’t hesitate.

No variation is allowed

Works whether T/R are NPs or pronouns

Cases of free variation When T & R belong to same category on the

hierarchy, speakers accept both constructions.

[+local] (1st/2nd)

[-local] [+human]

[-human]

R T

R T

T R

R T

T R

Cases of free variation

Two [+local] persons:

(10) Rama-ku mo= je varai-á ini-ko. father-my 3:RE= NEG tell-1sg OBL-2sg

~ Rama-ku mo= je varai-ko sa-ku. father-my 3:RE= NEG tell-2sg DAT-1sg

‘Dad never mentioned you to me.’

Sensitivity to syntactic priming (Branigan et al. 1995)

(11) Marasa rapala-m mo= je varai-á ini-ko? why friend-your 3:RE= NEG tell-1sg OBL-2sg

— Mara jore jo= varai-ko ini-á, o= pa= lokoru. because if 3s:IRR= tell-2sg OBL-1sg 2s:IRR FUT be.angry

‘– Why hasn’t your friend mentioned you to me? – Because had he mentioned me to you, you would have been angry.’

Reversing 1st/2nd has no effect on syntactic structure: absence of hierarchy 1st/2nd p.

[+local] (1st/2nd)

[-local] [+human]

[-human]

R,T

Cases of free variation

Two [+human] [-local] (“3rd person”)

(12) Om= re= vsei dokta ni-a? 2s:RE= PFT show doctor OBL-3sg

~ Om= re= vsei-a san dokta? 2s:RE= PFT show-3sg DAT doctor

‘Have you shown her to the doctor?’

(13) Na= pa= vsei-a ni-a. 1s:IRR= FUT= show-3sg OBL-3sg

~ Na= pa= vsei-a sa-na. 1s:IRR= FUT= show-3sg DAT-3sg

‘I’ll show her to him.’

(14) Na= pa= je slei-a n’ re. 1s:IRR= FUT= NEG give-3sg OBL NON.SPEC

~ Na= pa= je sle re sa-na. 1s:IRR= FUT= NEG give NON.SPEC DAT-3sg

‘I won’t give him any (child).’

[+local] (1st/2nd)

[-local] [+human]

[-human]

R,T

ambiguous: T [human]

unambiguous: T [+human]

preferred strategy in texts

for T [+human]

but: Araki = moribund language + rare configuration

=> hard to carry out corpus statistics

Synthesis: A decision chart

Final discussion (1/2)

Why these 3 verbs?

Theme and Recipient compete for the privileged position of object (=aligning with Patient) only for 3 verbs , but not * .

= transfer verb which does not entail success of transfer event

=> the only participant necessarily affected is the Theme => aligns with Patient

= 3 transfer verbs which entail success of transfer event

potentially both the Theme and the Recipient are equally affected

“I’ll show my girlfriend to my parents” => who’s more affected?

For these 3 verbs, Theme & Recipient compete for the position of Patient, i.e. the participant primarily affected

This competition involves two referential features that typically play a role in the coding of Transitivity & degree of affectedness:

• human vs non-human = sentient vs non-sentient

• speech-act participant vs “non-person” = prominence

Final discussion (2/2)

Of 100+ languages of Vanuatu, Araki is the only one described with this pattern.

absent from neighbouring Tamambo, which has only free variation [Jauncey 2010]

The broader context

Some languages have alternating Ditransitive structures depending on whether arguments are expressed by NP or pronoun; Araki is not sensitive to this.

Criterions of definiteness or specificity do not play a key role. (but possibly topicality?)

Araki belongs to small group of languages in which ditransitive alignment:

depends on intrinsic referential properties of participants (animacy & person)

is determined by the relative position of T & R on a prominence scale

cf. Jamul Tiipay (Yuman, California: Miller 2001), “the basic alignment pattern is secundative, but changes to indirective if T outranks R on the person scale”

Araki appears to be the only language of this small type that combines lexical split, regular constraints based on human and local, with domains of free variation.

The syntax of ditransitives in Araki fills up a typological niche whose existence was predicted by the comparison of languages, yet had never been observed so far.

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References