Abstract
We test Preferred Argument Structure theory against corpus data from Tondano, an Austronesian language with symmetrical voice. Investigating the use of full noun phrases in individual argument positions, we find no significant clustering of both S and P as opposed to A, hence no discourse ergativity. Moreover, neither pivotal nor non-pivotal grammatical relations appear to specialise in the accommodation of full noun phrases. Thus, grammatical relations do not serve as architecture for regulating information flow in discourse. Only constituent order reflects information flow, so that full noun phrases tend to occur in clause-final position. More generally, correlations of humanness and topicality predict most straightforwardly attested patterns of argument realisation.
Acknowledgements
The research reported here has been supported by a Discovery Early Career Researcher Award from the Australian Research Council awarded to Stefan Schnell (DE120102017) for the project “Typology of language use” hosted by the Centre for Research on Language Diversity at La Trobe University, Melbourne. An earlier version of this article was presented in the Linguistics Seminar Series at the University of Newcastle in February 2016, and we thank the audience for useful comments. We are also grateful to Sonja Riesberg for most valuable feedback, in particular on matters concerning symmetrical voice. We thank the three anonymous reviewers for their comments on the draft manuscript. All remaining errors are of course our responsibility. Finally, Tim Brickell would like to thank the Tondano community in Rinegetan and Kiniar for their tireless support during his PhD candidature.
Abbreviations
- 1/2/3
1st/2nd/3rd person
- an
animate
- av
actor voice
- cmp
completive
- cv
conveyance voice
- dam
Differential A Marking
- dem
demonstrative
- dir
directional
- dist
distal
- dom
Differential O(bject) Marking
- dsm
Differential Subject Marking
- dyn
dynamic
- ex
exclusive
- gen
genitive
- GR
grammatical relation
- hes
hesitation
- in
inclusive
- inan
inanimate
- irr
irrealis
- lex
lexical
- lim
limitative
- lv
locative voice
- NP
noun phrase
- PAS
Preferred Argument Structure
- pl
plural
- pn
proper noun
- prep
preposition
- prox
proximative
- pv
patient voice
- rdp
reduplication
- sg
singular
- uv
undergoer voice
- VC
verb complex.
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