Decomposing hierarchical alignment: Co-arguments as conditions on alignment and the limits of referential hierarchies as explanations in verb agreement

Abstract

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

Person as an inflectional category

“…Alignment, in early work, was seen as a variable with a few values (accusative, ergative, neutral, three-way, split, etc.) separately ascertained for noun vs. verb inflection and main vs. subordinate clauses; but as other configurations, more splits, and more cases of hierarchically-driven splits were discovered it has evolved into a macrovariable subsuming a large number of variables that refer to different lexicosemantic classes of predicates, various syntactic constructions, and various morphological paradigms, per language (Witzlack-Makarevich 2010, Witzlack-Makarevich et al 2016). We continue to speak of languages in approximate terms as head-final, ergative, etc.…”

Optional and alternating case marking: Typology and diachrony

“…The usefulness of hierarchies has also been questioned as a generalization for so‐called hierarchical alignment. Witzlack‐Makarevich, Zakharko, Bierkandt, Zuñiga, and Bickel () argue that these systems are more usefully analysed in terms of a basic feature of co‐argument sensitivity, where marking for one participant depends on the nature of other participants in the same clause. This reanalysis also brings it more closely in line with other types of alignment, not just referent‐based splits (Witzlack‐Makarevich et al, , pp.…”

“…Witzlack‐Makarevich, Zakharko, Bierkandt, Zuñiga, and Bickel () argue that these systems are more usefully analysed in terms of a basic feature of co‐argument sensitivity, where marking for one participant depends on the nature of other participants in the same clause. This reanalysis also brings it more closely in line with other types of alignment, not just referent‐based splits (Witzlack‐Makarevich et al, , pp. 557–558), but also patterns of optional and alternating marking as defined here (see, for instance, semantic motivations for optional ergative marking as discussed in Section , which can originate both in agentivity features of A and patientivity features of O).…”

Category clustering: A probabilistic bias in the morphology of verbal agreement marking

“…In the examples of agreement markers above, we have focused on (mis-)alignment of markers by role. But in some circumstances, agreement markers may instead paradigmatically align by grammatical person and other referential categories (Nichols 1992), or by complex constellations of arguments (Witzlack-Makarevich et al 2016). For example in Anindilyakwa (Macro-Gunwinyguan; van Egmond 2012), some agreement prefixes in realis mood are paradigmatically aligned into two positions, one for first and second person, followed by one for third person, independently of the roles expressed.…”