ESSAYS ON LANGUAGE FUNCTION AND LANGUAGE TYPE ESSAYS ON LANGUAGE F U N C T I ON AND LANGUAGE TYPE Dedicated to T. Givón Edited by JOAN BYEEE University of New Mexico JOHN HAIMAN Macalester College SANDRA A. THOMPSON University of California JOHN BENJAMINS PUBLISHING COMPANY AMSTERDAM / PHILADELPHIA The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of Ameri­ can National Standard for Information Sciences — Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Essays on language function and language type : dedicated to T. Givón / edited by Joan Bybee, John Haiman, Sandra A. Thompson. p. cm. Includes index. 1. Typology (Linguistics) 2. Grammar. Comparative and general. 3. Functionalism (Linguis­ tics) I. Givón, Talmy, 1936- . II. Bybee, Joan L. III. Haiman, John. IV. Thompson, Sandra A. P204.E86 1997 410'.l-dc21 97-7390 ISBN 90 272 2168 5 (Eur.) / 1-55619-522-2 (US) (alk. paper) CIP © Copyright 1997 - John Benjamins B.V. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any other means, without written permission from the publisher. John Benjamins Publishing Co. · P.O.Box 75577 · 1070 AN Amsterdam · The Netherlands John Benjamins North America · P.O.Box 27519 · Philadelphia PA 19118-0519 · USA Contents Instead of an Introduction 1 From His Colleagues 3 His Publications 13 The Essays 23 Semantic Aspects of Morphological Typology 25 Joan Bybee The Typology of Predicate Case Marking 39 Bernard Comrie Grammaticahzation and the Gradience of Categories: Relator Nouns and Postpositions in Tibetan and Burmese 51 Scott DeLancey A Typology of Argument-Determined Constructions 71 RM, W. Dixon and Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald Are Grammatical Relations Universal? 115 Matthew S. Dryer Introducing Ergative Word Order via Reanalysis: Word Order Change in the Cariban Family 145 Spike Gildea Living in Three Languages 163 Colette Grinevald Self-Abasement in Language: A Case Study on the Viability of a Metaphor 181 John Haiman The Misumalpan Causative Construction 199 Ken Hale vi Contents On Attributive Possession in Kabiye 217 Bernd Heine and Kézié Lébikaza When 'Grammar' and Discourse Clash: The Problem of Source Con­ flicts 231 Paul J. Hopper A Dynamic Account of Grammatical Function 249 Ronald W. Lang acker On Zero Anaphora 275 Charles N. Li Head-Marking and Objecthood 301 Frantiseli Lichtenberk Participant and Event Anaphora in Newspaper Articles 323 Carol Lord and Kathleen Dahlgren Lexical Affixes and Morphological Typology 357 Marianne Mithun Versatile Nominalizations 373 Michael Noonan The Maasai External Possessor Construction 395 Doris L. Payne Voice in Seko Padang 423 Thomas E. Payne and Thomas Laskowske Mind, Code, and Text 437 Dan I. Slobin Index 469 Instead of an Introduction T. Givón Photograph by Dr. A. Beck From His Colleagues Joan Bybee One of the benefits of having participated in the same field for more than twenty-five years is the opportunity for longitudinal observations of the lives of the people working beside you. Even though what we see developing are characteristics that were present from the beginning, observing exactly how they evolve and shape a person's career keeps us interested. Talmy Givón is a man of great intelligence and therefore of great complexi­ ty. We know him as a man obsessed and driven. Fortunately for his academic friends (who have sometimes suffered under his obsessions) linguistics is not his only passion. Talmy lives on many levels. I wouldn't presume to know what all his existential planes are, but one I am well-acquainted with and in a position to sympathize with, is his interest in the ranching/cowboy culture of the southwest. This is an adopted culture for him, but well-chosen, since it provides him a connection not only with agriculture, which has been a life-long interest, and nature in the form of broad vistas and big skies, but also with a rich and lively musical tradition. It also provides the rest of us with a true linguistic oddity — a southwestern drawl delivered with an Israeli accent! I have been fascinated with the fact that Talmy has always been careful to proclaim his adherence to non-academic culture by his dress. I don't remember how he dressed when I first saw him around UCLA in the early '70s, because his presence was overshadowed by his companion, Shaggy Dog, who was big and black and who inspired the theory that dogs use SOV word order (a good example of the fact that even brilliant people can sometimes have silly ideas). Shaggy Dog was often cavorting in the back of the colloquium room with an enormous white dog and Bob Rodman's Olde English Sheep Dog, who was no doubt teaching the other dogs Anglo-Saxon (which, quite caninely, is basically SOV). But it is easy enough for me to recall Talmy's get-up at the 1976 Linguistic Institute in Oswego, NY. He looked for all the world like a Mexican desperado, one of those relics of Pancho Villa's incursions into Los Estados