Relational Typology Trends in Linguistics Studies and Monographs 28 Editor Werner Winter Mouton Publishers Berlin · New York · Amsterdam Relational Typology edited by Frans Plank Mouton Publishers Berlin · New York · Amsterdam Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Relational typology. (Trends in linguistics. Studies and monographs; 28) English and German. Papers from a conference held at Hannover, Germany, Jan. 15 — 17, 1982, which was subsidized by the Deutsche For- schungsgemeinschaft and the Ministerium für Wissenschaft und Kunst of Niedersachsen. Includes index. 1. Typology (Linguistics) — Congresses. 2. Grammar, Com- parative and general —Syntax—Congresses. 3. Grammar, Com- parative and general — Clauses — Congresses. I. Plank, Frans. II. Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft. III. Lower Saxony (Ger- many). Ministerium für Wissenschaft und Kunst. P204.R45 1985 415 85-18785 ISBN 0-89925-086-6 (U.S.) CIP-Kurztitelaufnahme der Deutschen Bibliothek Relational typology / ed. by Frans Plank. — Berlin ; New York ; Amsterdam : Mouton, 1985. (Trends in linguistics : Studies and monographs ; 28) ISBN 3-11-009591-2 (Berlin ...) ISBN 0-89925-086-6 (New York ...) NE: Plank, Frans [Hrsg.]; Trends in linguistics / Studies and monographs Printed on acid free paper © Copyright 1985 by Walter de Gruyter & Co., Berlin. All rights reserved, including those of translation into foreign languages. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form — by photoprint, microfilm, or any other means — nor transmitted nor translated into a machine language without written permission from Mouton Publishers, Division of Walter de Gruyter & Co., Berlin. Typesetting: Arthur Collignon, Berlin. — Printing: Druckerei Gerike, Berlin. — Binding: Lüderitz & Bauer Buchgewerbe GmbH, Berlin. Printed in Germany Preface That language typologists are focusing attention on the relational structure of clauses is certainly no new trend in linguistics, even if some insights afforded by the typological perspective appear to be relatively new. Numerous individual and concerted attempts are on record of typologies based on supposedly significant cross-linguistic differences in relational structures involving the main constituent parts of clauses. Also on record, however, are certain fundamental obstacles hindering relational typologists and typological research in general, of which the following three deserve to be singled out. Firstly and most obviously, there has been, and continues to be, the handicap that not enough thorough and reliable empirical de- scriptions are available even of the most basic aspects of rela- tional clause structures of a sufficiently wide variety of languages. Secondly, owing to a tendency to employ preconceived descriptive notions familiar from one or another tradition of describing one or another kind of languages, without much concern for spelling out the precise descriptive content of these notions and for justifying their cross-linguistic applicability, there has always been the danger of terminological looseness, often nourishing the illusion that re- lational clause structures had been adequately described if all that had really been achieved was to 'accommodate' them in one or another terminological framework of unquestioned empirical import. And thirdly, the notion of 'types' itself still needs further clarification and, of course, empirical justification, if typology is to be more than mere classification of languages according to more or less arbitrarily selected grammatical features. It is an awareness of the urgency with which such obstacles demand attention that motivated the collective efforts forming the present volume. With this general motivation in common, the individual con- tributions branch off in three specific directions. With differing emphasis, the following chapters aim to throw new light on expressions in relation, on relational expressions, and on the typological significance of differences in relational structuring. VI Preface One major emphasis is placed on elaborating adequate descriptive accounts of the patterns of relations held by actant expressions (to use one popular cover term) accompanying predicate expressions in all kinds of clauses. It is relatively uncontroversial that relations are appropriately differentiated both in syntactic and in semantic terms, and that expressions in relation are also distinguishable according to their pragmatic status in the structuring of information in discourse. Disregarding points of detail of the language-specific justification or typological suitability of individual descriptive pro- posals, what is most controversial here are questions such as: How are the three structural levels of pragmatics, semantics and syntax to be related to one another and to what extent, and in which respects, is their relatedness cross-linguistically variable? To what extent and in which respects is the definability of syntactic relations such as subject and object contingent on particular relationships between the semantic and pragmatic levels or on the patterning of actant expressions across different clause types (in particular transi- tive and intransitive clauses)? In posing such questions from various theoretical perspectives and with reference to a variety of typolog- ically supposedly differing languages, the chapters concerned tie in with much current research, typological and other, on the nature of grammatical relations. In a considerable number of contributions the emphasis is not so much on expressions in relation, but primarily on those expressions that establish the relational structure of clauses in the first place, i.e. on predicate expressions with respect to which actant expressions hold particular semantic-syntactic relations. Predicate, or more specifically verbal, categories such as aspect, voice, and agreement (or cross-reference) have traditionally been included in typological discussions. What has often been neglected, especially in recent times, is the possibility of fundamentally different predicate con- ceptions underlying the typological variety of relational clause structuring. Most familiar here is the hypothesis of a passive con- ception of verbs in ergative-type languages, and correspondingly of an active verb conception in accusative-type languages, which is, however, notorious for its lack of conceptual precision. Apart from trying to elucidate these notions, various chapters take into account further parameters with respect to which predicate conceptions may vary in a typologically significant manner: the inherent stativity and intransitivity of all predicates in some languages; the lexical agent or patient centredness of predicates in different languages; the Preface VII differentiation of predicates according to the intentional, controlling or other kinds of participation of actants; various principles of subcategorization of predicates. The amount of attention paid to matters of predicate conception is perhaps the most prominent feature of the present collection vis-ä-vis other contemporary re- search on grammatical relations and relational typology. The emphasis in many chapters is, thirdly, on the question of the appropriateness of relational clause structures as a crucial parameter for language typology. If typologies were arbitrary classifications of languages on the basis of any grammatical feature that is not found in all languages alike, this issue would hold little interest. But if one is aiming for holistic, or systemic, typologies, the issue of which particular features are the ultimate type-determinants in so far as many other structural features are implicationally linked to them, is of paramount importance. Most contributors to this volume share the conviction that holistic typologies are more desirable than arbitrary language classifications; and a common point of reference is the triad of accusative, ergative and active type languages cus- tomary in relational typology. The controversies here are about the exhaustiveness of this traditional triad (which is repeatedly challenged on the grounds that it fails to take into account attested varieties of relational structuring), about the necessity and legit- imacy of recognizing divergences from these ideal types (argued for on the grounds of what look like mixtures of accusative, ergative, and active patterns in individual languages), and about the fundamental importance of patterns of relational structuring as type-determinants (which may appear dubious in the light of supposed type mixtures that cannot be explained away diachron- ically, and is often felt to lack sufficient empirical substantiation). Even though proposals and rejections of holistic types are bound to remain inconclusive for some time to come, such debates need not remain entirely programmatic. To help transcend the programmatic level is one objective of this volume, with its empirical focus on many languages that have so far received insufficient attention from the point of view of relational typology. Individually and collectively, the chapters assembled in this volume thus seek to sharpen the analytic tools suitable for the description of relational clause structures in natural languages, to offer empirically adequate descriptions of the relational clause structures and related parts of the grammar and lexicon of particular languages, to suggest and possibly justify cross-linguistic descriptive VIII Preface generalizations about relational structures, and to suggest, or at least to prepare the ground for, responsible hypotheses about neces- sary or preferred connections among individual grammatical (and perhaps lexical) features, with the expectation that some features will eventually turn out to be more crucial than others in determining the character of whole languages. More incidentally, the contributions to this volume also indicate further desiderata of future typological research. The principles of pragmatic clause and discourse structuring still deserve more comparative attention. Considering their potential typological sig- nificance, lexical structures too deserve much closer empirical scrutiny, any deeper appreciation of possible non-trivial cross- linguistic differences so far having often been prevented by the customary reliance on supposedly translation-equivalent clauses and approximate impressionistic paraphrases of predicate meanings. Lastly, even if crucial empirical information could in principle be obtained from some more or less accessible source, too much of it is bound to escape the attention even of conscientious individual typologists aiming at wider ranging descriptive generalizations, un- less they are able, and willing, to rely on much improved facilities for cataloguing large amounts of morphosyntactic and lexical data. The chapters in this volume represent a selection of the papers read at a conference at Hannover on January 15-17, 1982 that was subsidized by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft and the Ministerium für Wissenschaft und Kunst of Niedersachsen. Also included are some contributions (those of DeLancey, Frajzyngier, Givon, Plank and Thompson) that could not be read on that occasion. It should be noted that some of the contributions were already available in more or less their present form in the spring or summer of 1982, while others were not completed until summer or autumn 1983. Werner Winter deserves the special thanks of all contributors for the interest he has shown in this volume. Frans Plank Contents Preface V List of Contributors XI Georg Bossong Markierung von Aktantenfunktionen im Guarani. Zur Frage der differentiellen Objektmarkierung in nicht- akkusativischen Sprachen 1 Alice Cartier Discourse analysis of ergative and non-ergative sentences in formal Indonesian 31 Scott DeLancey On active typology and the nature of agentivity 47 Zygmunt Frajzyngier On two hypotheses regarding stativity 61 Talmy Givon Ergative morphology and transitivity gradients in Newari 89 Klaus Heger Akkusativische, ergativische und aktivische Bezeichnung von Aktantenfunktionen 109 Thomas Herok Über Sinn und Bedeutung von Prädikaten 131 Michael Job Ergativity in Lezgian 159 Georgij A. Klimov Zur kontensiven Typologie 175 Johann Knobloch Lokalvorstellung, Ergativ und Objektive Konjugation. . . . 191