LINGUIST List 22.361 Fri Jan 21 2011 Review: Lang Documentation; Typology: Gildea & Queixalós (2010) Editor for this issue: Monica Macaulay <monicalinguistlist.org> New! Visit LL's Multitree project for over 1000 trees dynamically generated from scholarly hypotheses about language relationships:             http://multitree.linguistlist.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.     Carmen Jany , Ergativity in Amazonia Message 1: Ergativity in Amazonia Date: 21-Jan-2011 From: Carmen Jany <cjanycsusb.edu> Subject: Ergativity in Amazonia E-mail this message to a friend Discuss this message Announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/21/21-2490.html EDITORS: Gildea, Spike; Queixalós, Francesc TITLE: Ergativity in Amazonia SERIES: Typological Studies in Language 89 PUBLISHER: John Benjamins YEAR: 2010 Carmen Jany, Department of World Languages, California State University, San Bernardino SUMMARY The book under review, ''Ergativity in Amazonia'', is the result of a three year project bringing together researchers from all over the world in three annual workshops, all working with first-hand data on Amazonian languages. The volume features a highly understudied and underdescribed phenomenon for this particular geographic region. As the authors in the introductory paper note, ergativity occurs in many languages of the world, but it is least documented in Amazonia. This work brings together nine articles (eight papers and a theoretical introduction) about ergative alignment in sixteen Amazonian languages. There are many more languages showing ergative alignment patterns in this geographic region, many of which have not yet been described (Monrós 2004). The papers in this volume are written by linguists with many years of fieldwork experience and are all based on discourse data, as well as on data from elicitation. The eight contributions are grouped thematically into two parts and preceded by an introductory paper discussing the geographical and genetic distribution of main clause ergativity, in addition to major theoretical issues related to ergativity. In ''Manifestations of ergativity in Amazonia'' Queixalós and Gildea set forth the definition of ergativity and the conceptual tools used by the researchers to describe and examine the observed phenomena. Following the authors, the morphosyntactic and semantic definition of ergativity can be problematic if researchers rely on categories of European languages, such as the traditionally presupposed universal category of subject, a category often questioned in the papers of this volume. The contributors of this volume adopt the same definition of ergativity as the World Atlas of Language Structures (Haspelmath et al. 2008) whereby alignment is defined by the patterning of semantico-syntactic primitives S, A, O (or P) manifesting in nominal case-marking, verbal person-marking, word order with respect to the predicate, constituency of the verb phrase, control of co-reference with reflexives or core arguments of conjoined or subordinate clauses, relativization, and topicalization. In ergative alignment S and O pattern together in the absolutive in opposition to the ergative A. Although the authors question the theoretical validity and cognitive reality of these categories, S, A, and O are used for convenience. To identify ergative patterns by semantic roles would be problematic, as Queixalós and Gildea note, given that there is more than one role possible per argument. Split systems based on semantics, such as active-stative and agent-patient systems are excluded from this study. Queixalós and Gildea indicate that while consistent accusative languages are common, languages with ergative patterns tend to present such patterns only in a subset of constructions alongside accusative patterns. This can be explained by a cognitive bias in the world's languages towards agents in transitive clauses, i.e. we pay more attention to agents than to patients. Given this premise, it would be expected that diachronically languages tend to move towards accusative patterns. Hence Queixalós and Gildea mention re-accusativization pathways and grammaticalization paths from reanalysis of biclausal constructions, in particular nominalizations, and from marked voice constructions, such as passives. Several papers in the volume discuss possible diachronic pathways for the patterns observed. The five papers in the first part, entitled ''Well-established systems: Morphological ergativity'', discuss primarily ergative patterns related to morphology in four major language families: Panoan, Tacanan, Cariban, and Jê. David Fleck's paper ''Ergativity in the Mayoruna Branch of the Panoan Family'' describes and compares ergative alignment patterns in the five still-spoken Mayoruna languages of the Panoan family and shows how Mayoruna languages are more similar to each other than to other Panoan languages, thus providing further evidence for the Mayoruna subfamily. The data for this comprehensive study stems from a combination of extensive original fieldwork and archival research. By applying a synchronic and diachronic analysis, Fleck's comparison of personal pronoun systems, pronominal enclitics, special verb types, such as extended intransitive verbs, transitivity agreement on adverbials, and negative constructions reveals that Mayoruna languages, in particular Mastes, are gradually moving in the direction of becoming morphologically ergative. Fleck concludes that this gradual switch represents a regularization process across the Mayoruna subfamily increasing consistency of the ergative pattern by analogy to the case marking alignment, a phenomenon not commonly attested. Fleck's work is only an initial step toward the grammatical reconstruction of the Panoan family given the lack of and limited description of many languages of this family. ''Ergativity in Shipibo-Konibo, a Panoan language of the Ucayali'' by Pilar M. Valenzuela treats the highly consistent morphological ergativitiy found in the nominal case-marking of this language. Valenzuela describes the ergative-absolutive case-marking system in great detail, illustrates the only instance of syntactic ergativity manifested in internally-headed relative clauses, and discusses several types of non-ergative arrangements present in various constructions: accusative case-marking on emphatic pronouns; accusative distribution of emphatic pronouns and of the plural agreement marker on verbs; neutral case-marking in the progressive construction pointing to an aspectually conditioned split; an idiosyncratic pattern in the occurrence of doubled pronouns; and a tripartite participant agreement system on adjuncts. Antoine Guillaume in his article entitled ''How ergative is Cavineña?'' presents a clear description of morphological ergativity and explores possible ergative patterns at the syntactic level in Cavineña, a language of the Tacanan family. Guillaume shows that contrary to previous analyses Cavineña has pervasive morphological ergativity whereby case-marking and pronominal clitics follow an ergative-absolutive pattern. Previous accounts of Cavineña have mistakenly analyzed it as having a split system. Guillaume argues that the so-called split is based on a morphophonological phenomenon, i.e. suffix deletion conditioned by morphophonological factors, rather than on a syntactic one and concludes that Cavineña does not have split ergativity. His search for possible syntactic ergativity in the language led him to examine co-reference constraints in dependent clauses. While co-reference constraints in internally-headed relative clauses may follow an ergative-absolutive pattern, the same as shown by Valenzuela for Shipibo-Konibo, the dependent structures investigated by Guillaume operate on a nominative-accusative basis. In ''The ergativity effect in Kuikuro (Southern Carib, Brazil)'' Bruna Franchetto gives a thorough description of the morphosyntactic dimensions of ergativity in Kuikuro, a Cariban language, and explores some proposals within the generative framework in regards to parallels between main clauses and nominalizations. As Franchetto illustrates, Kuikuro shows ergative case marking and the morphosyntax of possessed nouns is nearly identical to verbal inflection. Moreover, Franchetto examines the range of uses of the ergative suffix/postposition 'heke' and concludes that its oblique uses are clearly distinguished from its use to mark the agentive core argument of a transitive verb. Spike Gildea and Flávia de Castro Alves examine ergativity in Cariban and Jê languages in ''Nominative-Absolutive: Counter-Universal Split Ergativity in Jê and Cariban'' and question the validity of the typological definition for ergative constructions found in Dixon (1994). The authors combine personal fieldwork data with a reanalysis of previously published data showing split ergativity in the form of nominative-absolutive alignment in five languages from the two families. They find both nominative and absolutive morphological patterns with no accusative or ergative patterns in all five languages. While the absolutive surfaces in verbal cross-referencing, the nominative occurs with word order, case forms of pronouns, and auxiliary agreement. A second split is based on tense-aspect-mood categories whereby the nominative-absolutive clauses code future, imperfective, irrealis, and negative, counter to what has been shown in the typological literature. The results of this analysis are thus typologically surprising. This leads the authors to question the current definition of ergativity which seems to place more emphasis on ergative case marking than on absolutive cross-referencing. Most of the languages examined here present no nominal case-marking. The second part ''Recent diachronic innovations: Syntactic ergativity'' comprises three papers and focuses on genetic isolates which are both morphologically and syntactically ergative. In ''Ergativity in Trumai'' Raquel Guirardello-Damian analyzes morphological and syntactic alignment patterns in Trumai, a language isolate spoken in Brazil. Trumai shows deep ergativity with consistent ergative-absolutive patterns surfacing in morphology and syntax, including case marking, verbal cross-referencing, relativization, reflexive clauses, verb phrase constituency, and word order. However, nominative-accusative alignment occurs in argument suppression and in the use of posture auxiliaries. The two alignment systems thus coexist and compete with each other in the syntax. A move towards accusativity is noted in the verb classes where verbs of class 2 (transitives with ergative-absolutive marking) are being replaced with the equivalent verbs of class 4 (intransitives with absolutive-dative marking). Guirardello-Damian concludes with a discussion about the traditional category of ''subject'' which is lacking in this language and suggests that the alignment system in Trumai is best described using the language-specific case categories ergative, absolutive, and dative for the obligatory arguments. As with Trumai, Katukina-Kanamari is a strongly ergative language. Francesc Queixalós, in ''Grammatical Relations in Katukina-Kanamari'', shows that Katukina manifests ergative-absolutive alignment in case-marking, verbal cross-referencing, verb phrase constituency, coordination, focalization, interrogation, relativization, and coreference with certain auxiliaries. While most syntactic mechanisms operate on the basis of the patient (defined ''in intuitive prototypical semantic terms'' p. 259), an antipassive construction allows for the agent to be accessible to such mechanisms as relativization, interrogation, clause coordination, and subordination, among others. A nominative-accusative pattern of limited use also occurs. Queixalós identifies accusative patterns in applicatives, noun incorporation, and causative constructions. Trying to explain the Katukina patterns in terms of traditional grammatical relations as defined by subject and object categories, Queixalós argues that in this language in a transitive clause ''the patient is a subject, and the agent is an object'' (p. 261). Queixalós concludes with a discussion on diachrony affirming that the shift to ergativity in Katukina is a recent event. He further provides an explanation for why ergative alignment patterns are less frequent in the world's languages. Katharina Haude examines argument encoding in Movima in ''The intransitive basis of Movima clause structure''. Movima is an isolate spoken in Bolivia. According to Haude, argument encoding is based on a salience hierarchy including deictic, semantic, and pragmatic factors, and participant roles are indicated by a direct and inverse system marked on the predicate. Movima shows an unusual split-ergative system whereby the direct construction (the most frequent and pragmatically unmarked construction) patterns ergatively and the inverse construction patterns accusatively. Moreover, Haude finds that only the obviative (= second constituent after the predicate) can be relativized or topicalized. In order to relativize the proximate (=first constituent after the predicate), a valence-decreasing operation is needed: the voice particle 'kaw' is added, and the proximate becomes the single argument in an intransitive clause. Haude shows that main clauses in Movima are parallel to predicate nominal clauses where the predicate is a possessed noun. Viewing all verbal clauses as originating from equational intransitive predicate nominal clauses allows for an interpretation of all clauses in Movima as being intransitive. Such an interpretation is possible due to the distributional similarities of verbs and nouns in the language. Haude proposes that the proximate may have originated from a modifier similar to a possessor leaving the obviative as historically the only core argument. This explains its privileged syntactic status. EVALUATION This fine collection of papers demonstrates the importance of examining first-hand discourse data to shape current linguistic theory, as each author -- after meticulously describing and discussing ergative patterns in a particular language or language family -- questions or further defines established linguistic categories. While some papers clearly emphasize their contribution to theory (Fleck, Gildea and de Castro Alves, Haude), others remain primarily descriptive in nature and could be enhanced by highlighting their theoretical contribution. Nevertheless, the volume as a whole clearly makes a significant contribution toward revising, shaping, and refining established linguistic categories. For instance, all authors indicate that identification of traditional grammatical relations is problematic for the language or languages studied. This proves that clause structures attested in Amazonia are relevant to current and future linguistic typology, and more generally that examining and publishing data from understudied languages is essential to shape linguistic theory. Haspelmath (2007) argues that categories with the same label in two languages are never identical and sometimes not even particularly similar. Therefore, it is important to reinforce all discussions with sufficient data from naturally occurring language to allow for replication and future re-evaluation of any claims made. In this volume, all points made are thoroughly illustrated by an abundance of examples stemming from both discourse and elicitation data. In fact, the authors often refer to their previous and extensive work on a language, making it clear that they have thoroughly studied the language being discussed. While I highly welcome this data-driven approach, it is unfortunate that the explanation of the glosses is treated differently in each paper. Glosses are either discussed in a footnote at the beginning of a paper, they are included in the endnotes of a particular article, or an explanation of glosses is lacking altogether. This book would have benefited from a general list of glosses adopted for the entire volume and included at the beginning or end of the book. If this is not possible due to established glossing traditions for a particular language or language family, a more consistent presentation could have been adopted, such that the reader would always know where to find explanations for glosses. Another minor inconsistency occurs in the format of the articles: not all papers include a brief abstract at the beginning. Despite these minor shortcomings this book is certainly a significant addition to studies in ergativity. Moreover, it has to be noted that, as with many other published selections of papers, the volume is limited to treating a set of selected languages rather than representing an exhaustive study of ergativity in Amazonia. Nonetheless, it is a first step toward including languages of this understudied geographic region in typological and theoretical discussions of ergativity. The volume may thus be less valuable as a complete work of reference, but any linguist working on ergativity should consult this work. As the editors acknowledge, there is a significant gap in the coverage of the region, since papers focusing on Tupian languages are absent. In addition, further studies and more accurate language descriptions focusing on ergative patterns in South America and based on discourse data are necessary to examine grammaticalization pathways given that detailed descriptions of synchronic systems offer diachronic insight. Several authors propose diachronic explanations for the observed patterns, a first step in that direction. In sum, it is great to see more work come out of this highly underdescribed and understudied geographic region and to have collaboration of researchers across the globe. This volume is surely an important addition to typology potentially inspiring further first-hand data-driven typological studies that challenge and refine current definitions of ergativity and of linguistic categories. Furthermore, I welcome the growing interdependent relationship between fieldwork and typology, as evident from this volume, where new data from previously undescribed languages and already existing data equally inform linguistic theory. REFERENCES Dixon, Robert M.W. 1994. ''Ergativity''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Haspelmath, Martin. 2007. Pre-established categories don't exist: Consequences for language description and typology. In ''Linguistic Typology 11''. 119-132. Haspelmath, Martin, Matthew S. Dryer, David Gil, and Bernard Comrie (eds.). 2008. ''World Atlas of Language Structures Online''. Munich: Max-Planck Digital Library. http://wals.info/ Monrós, Eva. 2004. L'ergativitat a Amèrica. Fitxes bibliogràphiques. In ''Ergativity in Amazonia III'', Francesc Queixalós, 189-278. Paris: CELIA-CNRS. http://celia.cnrs.fr/FichExt/Documents%20de%20travail/Ergativite/Introductions_ergativite.htm ABOUT THE REVIEWER Carmen Jany received her PhD from UC Santa Barbara in 2007. Since then, she holds a position as Assistant Professor of Linguistics and Spanish at California State University in San Bernardino. Her main research interests include linguistic typology, Native American and other endangered languages, morpho-syntax, phonetics and phonology, and language contact. Currently, she is working on the grammatical description of Chuxnabán Mixe, a Mexican indigenous language. Her dissertation was a typologically-framed grammatical description and analysis of Chimariko, an extinct Northern California language. New! Visit LL's Multitree project for over 1000 trees dynamically generated from scholarly hypotheses about language relationships:             http://multitree.linguistlist.org/ Read more issues|LINGUIST home page|Top of issue Page Updated: 21-Jan-2011       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.