The impact of attentional centering on ergative marking in Tima

Abstract

One of the languages on the African continent which displays ergative features is Tima, a Niger-Congo language spoken in the Nuba Mountains of Sudan. In this contribution, the impact of attentional centering – influenced by factors including the animacy of the participants, the identifiability of the agent, and the givenness of either A or P participant – on the choice of construction between AVO and OVAerg is investigated. The research brought forth the following findings: token-identifiable human agents typically trigger an AVO constituent order; type-identifiable human agents typically trigger an OVAerg constituent order; the event described may or may not be decomposed into two sub-events; inanimate agents acting on human animates trigger a decomposition of the event into two sub-events: first, P is presented, and second, A is introduced as an ergative-marked participant following the verb. The information structural device of givenness interacts with the two parameters of agent-identifiability and animacy. A given agent always leads to an AVO construction. A given patient finds the speaker faced with the choice of opting for an AVO or an OVAerg construction.