Ergative is not inherent: Evidence from *ABA in suppletion and syncretism

Abstract

I show that case syncretism obeys the same *ABA restriction previously observed in case-sensitive suppletion: no Vocabulary-Insertion rule can apply to both an inherent case and an unmarked core case (nominative/absolutive) without also applying to another core case (accusative/ergative). The case hierarchy that these effects motivate is one where the ergative is consistently put in the same box as the accusative, separately from all inherent cases. This offers a new kind of argument in favor of dependent-case theories, whereby accusative and ergative are both structurallyassigned to nominals that stand in an asymmetric c-command relation to another as-yet-caseless nominal nearby.

A Featural Typology of Bantu Agreement

“…The separate parameters can ⁶ There is a remarkable parallel between the implicational relation in argument-licensing heads bearing ϕ features on the one hand and case marking on the other hand. According to Smith et al 's (2019) and Zompi's (2019) findings, case marking shows the so-called *ABA pattern: languages do not show suppletion or syncretism of the unmarked case (nominative, absolutive) with inherent cases (dative, oblique), unless the other core case (accusative, ergative) does so too. This observation can be paralleled in agreement, in the following way.…”

Two representations of case: Evidence from numerals and relatives

“…Note that in order to derive the correct syncretism predictions, impoverishment must be restricted to the outermost feature of a case set, perhaps through a requirement on the well-formedness of case sets with respect to (2). Zompì (2019) proposes a similar constraint using Graduality.…”

“…This hierarchy can be adapted to the layout in (2),whereeachcasesetisbuiltwiththeadditionofasingleidentifyingfeature.Atthispoint, it is worth mentioning that some analyses of case syncretism disagree with the organization of this hierarchy (e.g. Harðarson 2016;Graf 2019;Zompì 2019;Bárány 2021), suggesting that the feature decomposition may not be as incremental as Caha (2009) proposes. For now, I assume thatCaha'sdecompositioniscorrect,but §4reflectsonhowthetwo-levelaccountproposedinthis paper is compatible with these alternate views of syncretism, as well as with languages in which both the priority and syncretism patterns align with (2).…”

“…Up to this point, I have assumed thatCaha's (2009) view of case-feature accumulation is correct for syncretism; sets of case features grow incrementally with the addition of a single feature. In examining exceptions to Universal Contiguity, other analyses of syncretism implement less exacting ideas of feature growth, positing that the lexical cases are not strictly ordered with respect to each other (e.g Harðarson 2016;Graf 2019;Zompì 2019;. Bárány 2021).…”

Pseudo-ABA patterns in pronominal morphology

“…In recent years there has been a profusion of studies into the absence of ABA patterns in morphology (e.g. Caha 2009;Bobaljik 2012;Moskal 2018;Smith et al 2019;Zompì 2019;Middleton 2020;Middleton forthcoming). Many of these studies have linked the absence of ABA patterns to the structure that underlies the morphological domain in question.…”