LINGUIST List 21.2959 Sat Jul 17 2010 Review: Morphology; Semantics; Syntax; Typology: Dimmendaal (2009) Editor for this issue: Monica Macaulay <monicalinguistlist.org> This LINGUIST List issue is a review of a book published by one of our supporting publishers, commissioned by our book review editorial staff. We welcome discussion of this book review on the list, and particularly invite the author(s) or editor(s) of this book to join in. If you are interested in reviewing a book for LINGUIST, look for the most recent posting with the subject "Reviews: AVAILABLE FOR REVIEW", and follow the instructions at the top of the message. You can also contact the book review staff directly. Directory         1.    Giorgio Iemmolo, Coding Participant Marking Message 1: Coding Participant Marking Date: 17-Jul-2010 From: Giorgio Iemmolo <giorgio.iemmolounipv.it> Subject: Coding Participant Marking E-mail this message to a friend Discuss this message Announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/20/20-1752.html EDITOR: Gerrit J. Dimmendaal TITLE: Coding participant marking: construction types in twelve African languages SERIES: Studies in Language Companion Series 110 PUBLISHER: John Benjamins YEAR: 2009 Giorgio Iemmolo, Università di Pavia, Italy. The book under review is a collection of twelve papers originating from a typological project on participant marking held at the Institut für Afrikanistik of the University of Cologne, Germany. The contributions to the volume discuss issues related to the coding of participant marking (such as case, argument and event structure, transitivity) based on data from twelve poorly studied African languages diversified from both a genetic and an areal point of view. The volume can be of interest to specialists in African languages, as well as to language typologists and scholars interested in lesser-known languages. SUMMARY The editor's introductory first chapter (pp. 1-19) gives an overview of the book coverage, stating the goals of the book and giving useful and well-written summaries of the individual chapters. The first paper, by Christa König, concerns the Central Khoisan language !Xun (pp. 23-53). König accurately describes some interesting features of !Xun from a typological point of view. !Xun is an isolating language with basic SVO order. There is neither case nor cross-referencing on the verb: agreement is only present at the phrase level. Core participants bear zero marking, and grammatical relations are retrieved by means of word order. Peripheral participants can be marked by the transitive suffix -a, which basically serves to increase verbal valency by one: this suffix expresses all the peripheral case functions. The only pure dependent marking strategy is the preposition ke, which encodes not-frontshifted peripheral participants and, quite curiously, displaced DOs; other postpositions have an ambiguous status, following either a head or dependent pattern. Another crucial strategy for participant marking in !Xun is the serial verb construction. As for pragmatic features, in !Xun topic and focus position are clause-initial. The language presents a nearly grammaticalized topic marker, which obligatorily marks subjects and agents, and can be used with other participants if they are clause-initial. Interestingly, it is possible to have double topic marking if the topic is not the subject. Unlike topic, focus is less grammaticalized. Schneider-Blum's article (pp. 55-96) deals with the Highland-East-Cushitic language Alaaba. The author begins by describing the case system of this language, which is predominantly dependent-marking, and has eight cases within the nominal paradigm, while the modifier case-system is considerably reduced, showing only a distinction between nominative and absolutive (accusative). In the first part, the author discusses some interesting issues regarding 1) the uses of the various cases, such as the various uses of the absolutive, and 2) the problems in detecting case-distinctions, such as those between locative and instrumental, differentiated only for masculine. Subsequently, the author discusses the pronominal case-system of Alaaba: apart from the independent pronouns, distinguished for the three persons both in the singular and the plural, the absolutive, the genitive and the dative are also marked by pronominal clitics suffixed to the verb. Interesting is the fact that both absolutive and dative can be used optionally to cross-reference the direct or indirect object (DO, IO): in ditransitive clauses, only cross-reference to IO is allowed, because the two suffixes are not differentiated. The second part of the article concerns verb valency and valency-changing operations: although monovalency is quite rare in Alaaba, verbs do not have any strict constraint regarding their valency, as shown in pp. 83-85. In the remainder of the chapter, valency-changing processes are described. An interesting point illustrated by the author involves the different case-marking of causee based on the higher or lower directness in the effects of the action performed by the causer: a more direct effect is reflected by the use of the absolutive, while the dative is used for less direct effect. The third chapter (pp. 97-122), by Hirut Woldemariam, examines participant marking in the Omotic language Haro (East-Ometo). Haro is an SOV pro-drop language and shows some interesting features from a typological point of view. First, there is an interesting interaction between definiteness and case marking in Haro: all nouns marked for definiteness should be case-marked. This is compulsory for core cases, that is nominative, absolutive (accusative) and genitive, which only appear on definite nouns. Peripheral cases, such as dative, comitative, etc., can also occur with indefinite nouns: when they are suffixed to definite nouns, they have to be preceded by the genitive case-marker, insofar as genitive is the base for peripheral case-markers with definite nouns. Haro exhibits some case syncretism patterns: the first is between genitive and nominative, a pattern mainly found, to my knowledge, among Omotic languages. The syncretism between instrumental and comitative is at an incipient stage. Another interesting point is the strong interplay between focus marking on the one hand and argument marking, predicate structure and verb morphology on the other. Focus is marked by default on one sentence constituent, such as adverb, a direct object in transitive clauses without adverbs, or a verb in an intransitive clause. Definite nouns cannot be marked for focality: interestingly, subject-focussing requires verb nominalization. Focused verbs carrying focus marking only have a two-way aspectual distinction between perfective and imperfective, while the tense distinction is suspended. Anne Storch's chapter (pp. 123-140) investigates Hone (Jukun, East-Benue Congo): this language exhibits very interesting patterns, both from a typological and an areal point of view. First of all, Hone completely lacks an areal feature of Chadic-Niger-Congo languages, that is the so-called ''intransitive copy pronoun'' (ICP). ICP is the subject-copying pronoun used in intransitive constructions beside the preverbal subject marker. It is usually placed after the verb, occupying the position the DO would have in transitive constructions. More interestingly, Hone seems to lack intransitivity as a morphological and syntactic category. As the author shows on pp. 128-130, Hone verbs are always bivalent: verbs are always followed by a DO (word-order is SVO) and, in the case of clearly semantically intransitive verbs, such as ''to die'', the post-verbal position is filled up by a cognate object, which is a verbal noun in the perfective aspect or a participle in the imperfective aspect. Another characteristic of Hone is mirativity, which is overtly expressed by a pronoun consisting of a particle meaning ''with'' plus the personal pronoun base: this pronoun always follows the verb, because of the strict rigidity of word order in Hone, and appears only in the perfective aspect. In the fifth chapter (pp. 141-172), Christa König gives an overview of the Kuliak (Nilo-Saharan) language Ik. Ik is a verb-initial language, with a quite elaborated case system. The case system is quite interesting: firstly, a clitic dummy pronoun is used to mark peripheral participants. Moreover, the case system for core participants shows some anomalies and irregularities, being defective. For example, if A refers to the 1st or 2nd person, the DO occurs in the nominative, giving rise to a case-neutralization pattern. In verb-initial imperative clauses, all participants are in the oblique case, whereas in verb-medial imperative clauses, S/A is encoded in the nominative, and the DO in the oblique. In relative and subordinate clauses with the subjunctive, all core participants are in the accusative. Finally, in clauses with topicalized DOs, all participants are in the nominative. Therefore, Ik exhibits a split-accusative system, with either an accusative pattern or no distinction at all. Subsequently, König discusses the cross-reference system (obligatory only for S/A if they are 1st and 2nd person) and the changing-valency devices of Ik. Remarkable about this language is the fact that head-marking strategies come into play only when case fails, and vice-versa. König also shows that almost all elements, such as conjunctions, adpositions, etc. can be case-marked. Finally, focus structure is highly grammaticalized in this language, being marked by a copulative marker. The sixth chapter, by Friederike Lüpke (pp. 173-214), is devoted to the Mande language Jalonke (Niger-Congo). Jalonke has neither case marking nor cross-reference/agreement strategies, and grammatical relations are encoded through word order only (rigid SOV). After discussing some theoretical issues related to the distinction between arguments and adjuncts, the author deals with the issue of the identification of lexical categories: she convincingly demonstrates that there is enough syntactic evidence to assume the distinction between nouns and verbs in Jalonke. With reference to participant marking, Lüpke examines the existence and the coding of thematic roles in Jalonke, including Effectors and Agents, Instruments, Themes, Location and Beneficiaries. In the remainder of the chapter, a fine-grained analysis of argument structure classes is presented: the author argues that verb argument structure in Jalonke encompasses information on participant roles. Moreover, four predicate types are distinguished, transitive, intransitive, causative/inchoative and reflexive, based on parameters such as external vs. internal causation, agentivity, etc. The claims based on the qualitative analysis of Jalonke data are further confirmed by a quantitative study of lexical argument realization in discourse contexts. The seventh chapter (pp. 215-237), by Christa Kilian-Hatz, deals with Khwe, a Central-Khoisan language spoken mainly in North-Eastern Namibia. Khwe has highly flexible word order that can be changed for pragmatic purposes, although there are still traces of a basic SVO constituent order. Arguments and adjuncts are mainly encoded via postpositions. The postposition à, related to the Central Khoisan focus/object marker or copula, is used to mark nominal non-specific subjects as well as DOs and IOs: interestingly, in sentences with two animate or human participants, the postposition à is used as a pure object marker. Peripheral participants are marked by a different postposition: when they are not definite (as indicated by the person-gender-number suffix), they are marked by the postposition à, the same used to encode DOs and indefinite subjects. Remarkable about this postposition is the grammaticalization chain reconstructed by the author at p. 220: from a copula marker, à grammaticalizes firstly as a focus marker for subjects and DOs, subsequently as a DO and IO case marker and finally as an oblique and genitive marker. The main restriction for the postposition to be used seems to be the indefinite and non-specific status of the nominal referent. In the remainder of the paper, valency strategies and verb serialization are analysed. The eighth chapter, by Felix Ameka (pp. 239-279), focuses on Likpe (Kwa, Niger-Congo). Likpe has SVO word order, and grammatical relations are retrieved by means of word order along with S/A cross-reference. There are two sets of subject cross-reference markers: one set is used in pragmatically unmarked clauses and the other is used in subordinate and pragmatically marked clauses. Ameka describes various participant coding patterns in Likpe, such as transitivity vs. intransitivity, figure-ground reversals and multiple argument realizations. The author demonstrates that these different constructions are employed to depict events or participants' roles and involvement in an event from different perspectives. Through the analysis of the event type of planting crops (pp. 252-253), he convincingly shows the influence that cultural practices and beliefs can have on language structure, not only at the semantic-pragmatic level, but also at the syntactic one. In the remainder of the article, other devices for encoding participants are presented and analysed, such as the valency-increasing strategies of causative and associative (the latter used to add a participant associated with another participant in the event) and the comitative and locative prepositions. Finally, the author describes serial verb constructions (SVC), Undergoer voice (UV) and experiential constructions (EC) in Likpe, discussing some interesting issues related to these constructions from a cross-linguistic perspective. In the ninth chapter (pp. 281-303), Peter Kraal looks at a specific construction of the Bantu language Makonde, namely the so-called ''conjoint-disjoint'' (CJT-DJT) distinction between verbal and nominal forms typical of Bantu languages. After a brief ethnographic introduction, Kraal presents some typical Bantu features, and introduces the CJT-DJT distinction. The distinction is usually expressed by means of phonological processes, such as vowel lengthening and tonal modification. The author begins his analysis by describing the CJT-DJT verbal system in one Makonde dialect, Chinnima. CJT forms function as single phonological phrases (PP) with the following word, whereas DJT tenses form a phonological phrase on their own. There is a third paradigm, that of ''conjoint-disjoint forms'', which, unlike CJT forms, could constitute a PP on their own; however, if these forms are followed by a DO or an adjunct, they must form a phonological phrase with them, unlike DJT forms. The same situation is roughly mirrored in the specifier system. In Makwe, the other dialect analysed by Kraal, the CJT-DJT system shows a lot of similarities. However, there are some interesting differences between conjoint-disjoint forms in Makwe and Chinnima. Indeed, in Chinnima they can form a PP only if they are not followed by any other word, while in Makwe they can constitute a PP depending on the way the speaker wants to structure information. In the last section, the author provides a functional explanation for CJT and DJT forms, showing how variation is accounted for by the information structure role of focus. In the tenth chapter (pp. 305-329), Gerrit Dimmendaal investigates the Eastern Sudanic language Tama (Nilo-Saharan). The author begins by discussing some issues related to the Tama phonological system, showing the presence of cross-height and rounded harmony in Tama, and sketching the tonal oppositions within the phonological system. Subsequently, he provides some information on the nominal and verbal system. In the verbal system, Tama quite commonly uses light-verb constructions, formed by a general meaning verb plus a nominal, adjectival or adverbial coverb. As for the nominal system, Tima shows the presence of a specifier, whose function is not yet fully understood, but which seems to express referentiality, as confirmed by the fact that it is obligatorily used with nouns modified by a pronominal possessive. In the second part of the article, participant marking is investigated. Tama is an SOV language with a dependent-marking pattern, head-marking being limited to subjects and agents. The nominative is unmarked; accusative is obligatory only with pronominal DOs, while nominal DOs can be optionally marked, resulting in a typical differential object marking (DOM) system. At a first glance, DOM in Tama seems to be governed by the need for distinguishing between agents and patients: however, as pointed out by Dimmendaal, other pragmatic factors may influence the presence of overt marking for DOs, but further studies based on texts are needed in order to clearly determine the factors at play. In the eleventh chapter (pp. 331-353), Gerrit Dimmendaal provides an initial outline of the poorly studied language Tima, spoken in Sudan. After a brief review of the previous studies on the language, Dimmendaal gives a sketch of Tima phonology. Section two deals with nominal and verbal morphology: Tima has a highly reduced system of nominal modifiers compared to other Kordofanian languages. With verbs, a clusivity distinction is found in the first person plural. Furthermore, the verb may be double inflected for subjects or agents when it carries specific tense-aspect. On the contrary, there is no cross-reference to the subject in the presence of a focalized phrase in the clause. In the remainder of the article, Dimmendaal examines the encoding of participants and the interaction between syntax and pragmatics in Tima. The basic word order in Tima is SVO. However, pragmatics appears to strongly influence word order as well as case marking. For example, in negated clauses, word order shifts to VSO. More interestingly, focus marking results in a split-ergative system. The situation is very interesting from a typological point of view, also because it is quite infrequent cross-linguistically, split-ergativity being usually conditioned by other factors, such as tense-aspect, animacy hierarchy, finiteness, etc. The last chapter, by Azeb Amha (pp. 355-384), deals with the Omotic language Wolaitta. Wolaitta has SOV word order, which can be changed for pragmatic reasons, for example to express focus. Case marking is obligatory on both nouns and pronouns: remarkable about Wolaitta case marking is the fact that indefinite nouns are not morphologically marked for the accusative. The indefinite accusative form is also the citation form for nouns, as for other Omotic and Cushitic languages. Agreement on the verb in Wolaitta only indicates the S/A roles. Moreover, the language distinguishes declarative and interrogative verb forms via S/A inflection. Such a system is quite rare from a cross-linguistic point of view. In the remainder of the article, Amha deals with various issues related to participant marking. First, she analyses canonical and non-canonical uses of case-marking depending on verb type, and demonstrates that the alternation between nominative and accusative to encode the experiencer with some verbs can only be understood based on the notion of control. When the experiencer does have some control on the achievement of the event, it is marked by nominative case; lack of control is coded by accusative case. Second, Amha provides an initial outline of the switch-reference system in Wolaitta: the language makes use of morphological markers on dependent verbs to signal whether the S/A of the subordinate clause is the same or differs from that of the main clause. EVALUATION This volume is a very interesting and valuable collection of papers on important and widely discussed topics in current linguistic analysis. The contributions to the volume cover a large variety of questions pertaining to participant marking, and present data hardly known to non-specialists. Besides providing new data from African languages, several papers of this collection also deserve, in my opinion, special attention from theoretical linguists and typologists, since they provide important contributions to our understanding of case (Dimmendaal, König, Woldemariam), raise serious issues on the need for studying argument structure within discourse (Lüpke), and shed new light on interfaces between syntax and semantics/pragmatics within the domain of case marking (Amha, Dimmendaal, Kilian-Hatz, Kraal, Schneider-Blum). Moreover, important theoretical issues are raised with respect to transitivity theory and lexicalist vs. constructionist approaches to argument structure (Lüpke, Storch), as well as the relevance of cultural practices and beliefs in shaping languages (Ameka). Although my overall evaluation of the book is absolutely positive, I would like to make a few remarks, both on single papers and the general organization of the book. My first remark concerns the general ordering of the papers, which shows no thematic or areal justification but rather follows alphabetical ordering by language. No cross-referencing among the articles is found to improve cohesion with respect to similar phenomena, e.g. focus marking. Furthermore, more careful editorial work could have been done: reading is at times made difficult by the several typos found in the articles. Some terms, lastly, are not clarified, e.g. Woldemariam and Kilian-Hatz should have probably explained what is meant by ''absolutive'', used instead of accusative, since the label might be confusing for readers who are not acquainted with Omotic and Cushitic linguistics. As for individual chapters, I would like to make three points. In the chapter on Alaaba, it is unclear why the author considers absolutive (accusative) marking of the experiencer in example (11), p. 59, ''he is ill'', and absolutive marking of the reason relation in (12), p. 59, ''I could not come because of the rain'', as unexpected or unusual. To find experiencers or reason relations marked by the accusative it is not so infrequent cross-linguistically, e.g. see the Wolaitta example (18), p. 370, ''I am sick'', presented by Amha, in which the experiencer is marked by the accusative case. As for reason relations, a number of Amazonian languages, e.g. Tariana (Aikhenvald 2003), mark them for the accusative. Another point of criticism is the discussion by Dimmendaal on differential object marking (DOM). In the introduction to the volume, the author states on p. 13 that ''iconicity […] is not the strategy guiding case marking in languages using differential object marking. Here, an alternative -- and highly important -- principle, that of economy, manifests itself''. In the analysis of DOM in Tama, the author states again that the underlying principle for DOM patterns is only that of economy, rather than iconicity (p. 327). In an economic DOM system, overt marking will only be present when there is the need to disambiguate between the noun phrases. According to the iconicity principle, well represented in DOM languages, such as Romance languages, overt marking indexes salient semantic or pragmatic properties of the DO, regardless of the need for disambiguation. In the Tama examples presented by Dimmendaal, I am not sure that an economic principle is at play; for instance, in example (71), p. 325, it is not clear why there would be any need for disambiguation. In the clause ''she hit the child with a big stick'', the 3rd singular person pronominal is unmarked, insofar as the nominative is unmarked in the language, whereas the DO ''child'' is marked by the accusative case. Even if OSV word order were possible, and initial pronouns ''may be used as topic markers (coindexed with following subjects or objects)'' (p. 325), the agent is higher than the DO in the animacy hierarchy. Therefore, the basic interpretation of the clause would see the pronoun as the agent and the full noun phrase as the DO. The role of ambiguity thus appears to be too often overemphasized in languages. Finally, one last observation concerns the case marking description in Wolaitta: it is not easy to understand (at least for me) whether differential marking based on definiteness is found when the author states that ''indefinite objects are not marked for the Accusative case'' (p. 359). Maybe further information on the situation would be necessary. To sum up, in spite of minor shortcomings, this collection of papers is a very valuable contribution to the study of participant marking and related issues across African languages, and sheds new light on crucial phenomena from both a typological and a theoretical point of view. REFERENCES Aikhenvald, Alexandra (2003). A Grammar of Tariana. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ABOUT THE REVIEWER Giorgio Iemmolo studied Linguistics, Ancient Greek, Latin and History of the Italian Language at both the University of Palermo and the University of Pavia from 2003-2008. He is currently a PhD Student in Linguistics at the University of Pavia, Italy, where he is working on a typological and diachronic study of Differential Object Marking. Read more issues|LINGUIST home page|Top of issue Page Updated: 17-Jul-2010       About LINGUIST    |   Contact Us       While the LINGUIST List makes every effort to ensure the linguistic relevance of sites listed on its pages, it cannot vouch for their contents.