Speaker: Loren Billings (SOL) Title: Marking transitivity overtly (but not pronominal case) and its consequences on mapping persons to roles

Abstract:

Two types of transitive clause in the same Austronesian language exhibit seemingly unrelated patterns. We argue that the two phenomena are explained in the same way.

To begin, unlike every other language known to us, this language attests only a single paradigm of clitic pronouns. Moreover, in a finite clause if clitic pronouns encode both arguments, these pronouns' order relative to each other in the clitic cluster is invariant, with the first-person preceding the second-person form. If the clitic consists of just these two forms, then it encodes first person acting on second (hereafter 1>2), as in 'I pushed you'. However, the addressee can be the Actor, with the speaker serving as Undergoer (2>1), as in 'You pushed me'. If this happens, then the same order of the two clitic pronouns results as in 1>2 but an additional clitic precedes both pronouns in the clitic cluster to indicate this marked relation of persons and semantic roles. In this language, third-person clitic pronouns are inaudible. To encode a third-person Actor and with a first- or second-person Undergoer, as in 'They pushed {you/me}', then the same "additional clitic" precedes the lone SAP clitic pronoun (3>SAP). If SAP>3, as in 'I/You pushed them', then the SAP pronoun is alone in the clitic cluster. If 3>3, as in 'She pushed them', then the same "additional clitic" is now alone in the clitic cluster.

The other transitive-clause type is imperative. If the Undergoer (of the addressee) includes the speaker, then the verb is suffixed using one set of transitive markers, as in 'Push me!' On the other hand, if the Undergoer is not the speaker (or the addressee), as in 'Push them!', then the imperative verb takes one of a distinct set of transitive suffixes. (Whether that third-person Undergoer is encoded by a free pronoun, a nonpronominal expression, or unexpressed does not change the verb's suffix.)

 

If you want to attend the talk via Zoom, please register in advance for this meeting:

https://lu-se.zoom.us/meeting/register/u5Mlf-2qqzsjGNVA8iPXKqP4rAzM6s2Skw26

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.