Apart from common cases of differential argument marking, referential hierarchies affect argument marking in two ways: (a) through hierarchical marking, where markers compete for a slot and the competition is resolved by a hierarchy, and (b) through co-argument sensitivity, where the marking of one argument depends on the properties of its co-argument. Here we show that while co-argument sensitivity cannot be analyzed in terms of hierarchical marking, hierarchical marking can be analyzed in terms of co-argument sensitivity. Once hierarchical effects on marking are analyzed in terms of co-argument sensitivity, it becomes possible to examine alignment patterns relative to referential categories in exactly the same way as one can examine alignment patterns relative to referential categories in cases of differential argument marking and indeed any other condition on alignment (such as tense or clause type). As a result, instances of hierarchical marking of any kind turn out not to present a special case in the typology of alignment, and there is no need for positing an additional non-basic alignment type such as "hierarchical alignment". While hierarchies are not needed for descriptive and comparative purposes, we also cast doubt on their relevance in diachrony: examining two families for which hierarchical agreement has been postulated, Algonquian and Kiranti, we find only
Two of the major assumptions that common statistical tests make about random
The limits of classical statistical tests in typologyTwo major assumptions that common statistical tests rely upon are not tenable for most typological data. We suggest to use randomization tests, which avoid these assumptions and which are applicable to a wide range of data types, so most typological data can be analyzed with the same tools. To establish our case for the use of randomization-based tests, we will first discuss the underpinnings of the two types of statistical tests that are most often used by typologists, and by social scientists in general. The two types of tests are the parametric tests (such as the t-test) and the classical non-parametric tests (such as the chi-square test). Both types of tests make assumptions which can be problematic for typological data. We will focus on the assumptions of the parametric tests first.
Starting from the clause, the functional domain of motion events with the three loci Verbal, Adnominal, and Adverbal, the paper investigates various grammatical and lexical means of expression for the encoding of the local roles Source and Goal in a sample of 117 languages and in more detail in one language with grammatically indifferent Source-Goal encoding, Mapudungun. It is found that the feature Source-Goal (in)difference forms a global cline with Consistent languages clustering in Eurasia and Indifferent languages being most frequent in the New World.
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