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Ergativity marks subject arguments as agents of a transitive event and thereby signals verbal transitivity and influences language comprehension. We report here on an event-related brain potentials (ERP) study in Hindi, in which we investigated this interconnection to ascertain whether the ergative case as a processing cue and its ERP correlates can be generalized across and within ergative languages. The case marking on the subject argument (ergative or nominative case) in our study either matched or mismatched with the transitivity of the light verb (transitive or intransitive) in compound light verb constructions. Ergative case violations due to an intransitive light verb evoked an N400 effect, whereas nominative case violations due to a transitive light verb elicited a P600 effect. The results reveal neurophysiological differences in the processing of ergative and nominative case alignment modulated by the transitivity of the light verbs. The findings highlight the need for cross-linguistic research to aim beyond universality and elucidate the mechanism underlying the processing of language-specific structural variations.

The sign language phenomenon that some scholars refer to as “agreement” has triggered controversial discussions among sign language linguists. Crucially, it has been argued to display properties that are at odds with the notion of agreement in spoken languages. A thorough theoretical investigation of the phenomenon may thus add to our understanding of the nature and limits of agreement in natural language. Previous analyses of the phenomenon can be divided into three groups: (i) gesture-based non-syntactic analyses, (ii) hybrid solutions combining syntactic and semantic agreement, and (iii) syntactic accounts under which agreement markers are reanalyzed as clitics. As opposed to these accounts, we argue in this paper that sign language agreement does represent an instance of agreement proper, as familiar from spoken language, that is fully governed by syntactic principles. We propose an explicit formal analysis couched within the Minimalist Program that is modality-independent and only involves mechanisms that have been independently proposed for the analysis of agreement in spoken language. Our proposal is able to capture the (apparent) peculiarities of sign language agreement such as the distinction of verb types (only some verbs show agreement), the behavior of backwards verbs (verbs displaying agreement reversal), and the distribution of the agreement auxiliary. However, we suggest that the combination of mechanisms is modality-specific, that is, agreement in sign language, and in German Sign Language in particular, involves modality-independent ingredients, but uses a modality-specific recipe which calls for a (somewhat) unusual combination of independently motivated mechanisms.

Applicatives of unaccusatives provide a crucial test case for the inherent- case view of ergativity. If ergative is assigned only to external arguments, in their θ-positions, there can be no “raising to ergative” in applicative unaccusatives; an internal argument subject can never receive ergative case. In this article, I present evidence from Nez Perce (Sahaptian) that this prediction is false. In Nez Perce applicative unaccusatives, the theme argument raises over the applicative argument and is accordingly marked with ergative case. Nez Perce thus demonstrates raising to ergative. Departing from Baker’s (2014) conclusions for similar phenomena in Shipibo (Panoan), I argue that apparently nonlocal movement of the theme in the raising-to-ergative pattern involves not a covert adpositional structure, but rather a response to independently motivated constraints on antilocal movement and remnant movement.

A passive-like construction in Javanese (Austronesian) highlights how an object topicalization construction can be formally indistinguishable from a passive in languages lacking morphological case. While the so-called passive construction in East Javanese is morphologically identical to the true passive in Indonesian, it involves neither agent demotion nor promotion of the theme to subject position, but instead features A'-movement of an accusative object or adjunct to a left-peripheral topic position. East Javanese therefore contrasts with many other Indonesian-type Austronesian languages in lacking a true passive and in exhibiting an A'-oriented, two-way voice alternation that indexes topicalization rather than promotion to subject. The coexistence of this construction with a formally identical di-marked passive in closely related languages suggests a developmental pathway whereby topicalization is reanalyzed as passivization through the grammaticalization of topic into subject (Comrie 1988; Shibatani 2011). The Javanese pseudo-passive thus reveals an understudied locus of variation within the so-called Indonesian-type passives and underscores the importance of fine-grained diagnostics in the analysis of closely related languages with similar morphological profiles.

Many Mayan languages show a syntactically ergative extraction asymmetry whereby the A-extraction of subjects of transitive verbs requires special verbal morphology, known as Agent Focus. In this paper I investigate the syntax of Agent Focus in Kaqchikel, a Mayan language spoken in Guatemala. I argue that this extraction asymmetry in Kaqchikel is the result of a particular anti-locality constraint which bans movement that is too close. Support for this claim comes from new data on the distribution of Agent Focus in Kaqchikel that show this locality-sensitivity. The distribution and realization of Agent Focus will then be modeled using a system of ranked, violable constraints operating over competing derivations. This theoretical choice will be supported by details in the pattern of agreement in Agent Focus. I will then show how rerankings of the proposed constraints can model the attested distribution of Agent Focus in a number of other Mayan languages. I also discuss extensions of this approach to other patterns of anti-agreement.

At first glance, the brain’s language network appears to be universal, but languages clearly differ. Does the brain adapt to the specific details of individual grammatical systems? Here, we present a magnetoencephalography (MEG) study on case and agreement in Hindi and Nepali. Both languages use split-ergative case systems. However, these systems interact with verb agreement differently—in Hindi, case features conspire to determine which noun phrase (NP) the verb agrees with (subject, object, or neither), but in Nepali the verb always agrees with the subject NP. We found that NPs with different case values elicit different MEG signals around 200–500 and 600–900 ms. In subsequent exploratory analyses, we failed to find a reliable difference in this brain activity between the two languages corresponding to the different relations between case and agreement. However, we identified a portion of the left temporoparietal junction as exhibiting a statistically nonsignificant effect that may warrant further investigation.

Many Austronesian languages exhibit an extraction restriction whereby only one particular DP—the “pivot” argument, the choice of which is reflected by morphology on the verb—can be Ā-extracted. We show that such extraction restrictions can vary between different Ā-constructions in Bikol: local clefting is limited to the pivot, whereas topicalization can target pivots and non-pivot agents but not non-pivot themes of transitive verbs. Following the phase-theoretic, locality-based approach to such extraction asymmetries in related Austronesian languages, we propose that clefting and topicalization differ in the featural specifications of their probes, with clefting necessarily targeting the closest DP and topicalization simply seeking the closest topic constituent. Evidence for this approach comes from the behavior of long-distance clefting, which may target certain non-pivot arguments and involve gaps or resumptive pronouns. The inventory of different long-distance cleft types is explained by the possibility of embedded topicalization and hanging topic left dislocation feeding higher clefting. Our study strengthens the view that the classic Austronesian pivot-only extraction restriction is best characterized in terms of syntactic locality, rather than as a restriction on the grammatical function or morphological case of movement targets.

In the literature, it is often assumed that ergative constructions originate in passive constructions. The present contribution explores the likelihood of such a passive-to-ergative analysis for one language (Tima, Niger-Congo, Sudan), showing that this analysis cannot be substantiated and suggesting an origin in active constructions instead. This study is situated in its areal context (outlining similarities to split case marking systems across the region, especially in the Southern branch of Eastern Sudanic) and against the background of discussions in the Indo-Iranian family (from where the passive-to-ergative hypothesis presumably spread).

This article explores how we take responsibility for our past actions in language, using an ideational perspective. It focuses on the way we construe actions in transitive and ergative language patterns and from this develop a cline of responsibility, which has maximum responsibility at the one end and minimum responsibility at the other. The article examines a number of instances of language use from different genres and registers with this cline to determine the extent to which language users take responsibility (or not) for their actions through language.

This paper builds on the proposal that human languages reconstruct back to an intransitive (one argument) absolutive-like grammar. Such grammars are arguably still found in a variety of constructions across languages, including in verb-noun compounds in e.g. English and Serbian, and in Serbian se \"middles.\" Given the highly productive nature of se middles in Serbian, and given their specialization for low elaboration of events, and for the inanimate end of the Animacy Hierarchy, the proposal is that Serbian is best analyzed as a split-accusative language, on analogy with split-ergative languages, in that its dominant/default grammar is accusative, but the absolutive grammar (ergativity) occupies a significant niche.