On prominence hierarchies: Evidence from Algonquian

Macaulay, Monica

doi:10.1515/lity.2009.019

Cited by 47 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…Such idiosyncrasies are fairly common in the 8 Also see Macaulay (2005Macaulay ( , 2009) for similar conclusions with respect to a range of further Algonquian languages and Mithun (2012) for a wider survey of hierarchical systems in genealogically unrelated languages of Northern California.…”

Section: Comparative Triads Alignmentmentioning

confidence: 81%

Decomposing hierarchical alignment: Co-arguments as conditions on alignment and the limits of referential hierarchies as explanations in verb agreement

et al. 2016

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Apart from common cases of differential argument marking, referential hierarchies affect argument marking in two ways: (a) through hierarchical marking, where markers compete for a slot and the competition is resolved by a hierarchy, and (b) through co-argument sensitivity, where the marking of one argument depends on the properties of its co-argument. Here we show that while co-argument sensitivity cannot be analyzed in terms of hierarchical marking, hierarchical marking can be analyzed in terms of co-argument sensitivity. Once hierarchical effects on marking are analyzed in terms of co-argument sensitivity, it becomes possible to examine alignment patterns relative to referential categories in exactly the same way as one can examine alignment patterns relative to referential categories in cases of differential argument marking and indeed any other condition on alignment (such as tense or clause type). As a result, instances of hierarchical marking of any kind turn out not to present a special case in the typology of alignment, and there is no need for positing an additional non-basic alignment type such as "hierarchical alignment". While hierarchies are not needed for descriptive and comparative purposes, we also cast doubt on their relevance in diachrony: examining two families for which hierarchical agreement has been postulated, Algonquian and Kiranti, we find only

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Section: Comparative Triads Alignmentmentioning

confidence: 81%

Decomposing hierarchical alignment: Co-arguments as conditions on alignment and the limits of referential hierarchies as explanations in verb agreement

et al. 2016

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“…Lastly, we ask the question of where one might turn next in order to create a better understanding of where hierarchy effects come from, and in particular how the counter-universal hierarchical patterns come to exist. The literature is rich with strange hierarchies, as seen in Silverstein's (1976) original set of examples (which do not consistently yield the neat, clean hierarchies we see in typology textbooks), or Zúñiga's (2006Zúñiga's ( , 2008 and Macaulay's (2009) discussion of hierarchies in Algonquian, or more recent statements of general concern like those in Richards and Malchukov (2008). Table 10 summarizes the sorts of synchronic problems that have been described for "The Hierarchy".…”

Section: Sourcesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Referential hierarchies: A new look at some historical and typological patterns

Gildea

Zúñiga

2016

Linguistics

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This paper proposes a diachronic typology for the various patterns that have been referred to as Hierarchical Alignment or Inverse Alignment. Previous typological studies have tried to explain such patterns as grammatical reflections of a universal Referential Hierarchy, in which first person outranks second person outranks third person and humans outrank other animates outrank inanimates. However, our study shows that most of the formal properties of hierarchy-sensitive constructions are essentially predictable from their historical sources. We have identified three sources for hierarchical person marking, three for direction marking, two for obviative case marking, and one for hierarchical constituent ordering. These sources suggest that there is more than one explanation for hierarchical alignment: one is consistent with Givón's claim that hierarchical patterns are a grammaticalization of generic topicality; another is consistent with DeLancey's claim that hierarchies reflect the deictic distinction between present (1/2) and distant (3) participants; another is simply a new manifestation of a common asymmetrical pattern, the use of zero marking for third persons. More importantly, the evolution of hierarchical grammatical patterns does not reflect a consistent universal ranking of participants -at least in those cases where we can see (or infer) historical stages in the evolution of these properties, different historical stages appear to reflect different hierarchical rankings of participants, especially first and second person. This leads us to conclude that the diversity of hierarchical patterns is an artifact of grammatical change, and that in general, the presence of hierarchical patterns in synchronic grammars is not somehow conditioned by some more general universal hierarchy.

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“…We now turn to a formalization of how this probe attracts the correct argument. As described in section 2 above, in Algonquian languages certain types of agreement operations target the highest ranked argument along some kind of hierarchy (see Macaulay 2005 on nuances in the hierarchy). Critically, if there are no arguments of the highest rank, the probes do not fail.…”

Section: Best Matchmentioning

confidence: 99%

The interaction of person and number in Mi’gmaq

Coon

Bale²

2014

NLY

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This paper presents puzzles concerning the representation of features in the agreement system of the Eastern Algonquian language, Mi'gmaq. A growing body of research converges on the idea that φ-agreement should be separated into distinct person (π 0 ), number (# 0 ), and sometimes gender (γ 0 ) probes (e.g. Anagnostopoulou 2003, Béjar 2003, Béjar and Rezac 2003, Laka 1993, Shlonsky 1989, SigurDsson 1996, SigurDsson and Holmberg 2008, Preminger 2012. While these proposals account well for agreement and partial agreement patterns in a number of languages, we show that in order to account for the agreement system of Mi'gmaq, π 0 and # 0 must probe together, which we argue to be the result of fusion of two distinct probes. We discuss the implications of Mi'gmaq agreement for "prominence hierarchies" and feature geometries in the grammar.

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On prominence hierarchies: Evidence from Algonquian

Cited by 47 publications

References 7 publications

Decomposing hierarchical alignment: Co-arguments as conditions on alignment and the limits of referential hierarchies as explanations in verb agreement

Decomposing hierarchical alignment: Co-arguments as conditions on alignment and the limits of referential hierarchies as explanations in verb agreement

Referential hierarchies: A new look at some historical and typological patterns

The interaction of person and number in Mi’gmaq

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