Argument flagging in head-marking languages: Types of interaction between argument-coding systems

My project at Freiburg (2023-2024), Cologne (2024) and beyond.

This is the research project on wide-scale morphosyntactic typology which I had started back in 2009 (see e.g. this talk) and pursued intermittently till 2012, after which I had to leave it aside for the lack of time. My fellowships at the Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies (November 2023 - August 2024) and at the CRC “Prominence in Language” (University of Cologne) have allowed me to resume this work.

General Abstract

The project aims at investigating cross-linguistic diversity in the domain of interaction between the two main morphological argument-coding systems found in human languages, flagging (case marking) and indexing (verbal agreement/cross-reference). More particularly, the goal of the project is to establish a typology of argument-flagging systems in languages possessing highly-developed head-marking with a focus on how the two systems of argument encoding are distributed and interact with each other, and to try to uncover functional and, where possible, diachronic motivations for the observed types of such interactions. The project will involve a construction of a database comprising ca. 300 languages from diverse language families and linguistic areas, as well as of a genealogically stratified sample based on this database in order to conduct quantitative analysis. The research questions addressed in the project include those not covered in the typological literature, e.g. patterns of matching vs. mismatching between flagging and indexing, the extent and motivation of double-marking of different argument roles, possibility of indexing of peripheral participants etc. I believe that a broad empirical investigation of the cross-linguistic variation in this domain will not only contribute to the better understanding of the workings and development of human language, but will also be potentially beneficial for interdisciplinary studies involving sophisticated linguistic data.

Materials

Presentation Case in head-marking languages: towards a comprehensive typology. Invited talk at the Linguistisches Kolloquium München, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, 15 May 2024. pdf

This is the updated and revised version of talk I gave at the Freiburg Linguistics Colloquium in December 2015.

Presentation Differential double-marking of objects: Uralic and beyond. Invited talk at the Seminar “Current Topics in Uralic Studies and Linguistic Typology”, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, 13 May 2024. pdf

Some of the Uralic languages (all of Samoyedic, Ugric and Mordvinic) exhibit verbal agreement with definite or topical direct objects, the phenomenon falling under the typological concept of differential object indexing. In most of these languages, direct objects can also assume overt case-marking (flagging), which in some languages (e.g. Tundra Nenets) applies to all direct objects, while in others (e.g. Mordvinic) only to definite direct objects, giving rise to a variety of patterns of differential double-marking of objects. Taking this phenomenon as a starting point, I discuss differential double-marking of objects from a typological perspective on the basis of a large sample of languages. In particular, I point out the non-trivial and somewhat overlooked fact that object indexing (resp. double-marking) in Uralic is strictly confined to patients of monotransitive verbs and themes of ditransitive verbs (i.e. direct objects) to the exclusion of recipients of ditransitive verbs (i.e. indirect objects), which appear to favour double-marking cross-linguistically.

Presentation “Getting to grips with “linguistic complexity” from a cross-linguistic perspective”. Talk at the FRIAS Kolloquium, Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies, 22 April 2024. pdf

The notions “complex” and “complexity” have been current in linguistics ever since its advent as a scientific discipline in the early 19th century, but even until now there is no consensus regarding how “linguistic complexity” is to be defined, measured and compared across languages. Still, recent decades have witnessed a considerable progress in understanding “linguistic complexity”, much of which is associated with the idea that instead of trying to assess the “complexity” of a linguistic system as a whole, it is more fruitful to measure and compare “complexities” of individual subsystems (e.g. inflectional morphology) and even concrete phenomena. In my talk I shall first discuss the different understandings of “linguistic complexity” (e.g. “relative complexity” vs. “absolute complexity”) and the difficulties arising when one attempts do define and measure “complexity” in a holistic fashion. Second, I shall discuss how the cross-linguistic differences in the domain of so-called “dependent-marking” and “head-marking” (the topic of my FRIAS project) exemplify different parameters of grammatical “complexity”.

Presentation “Case in head-marking languages: towards a comprehensive typology”. Invited talk at the Hermann Paul Colloquium, Albert-Ludwigs-University of Freiburg, 15 December 2023. pdf