Grammatical Relations Flashcards
There are two types of arguments
Core arguments: required by verb (typically SUB & OBJ)
Oblique arguments: (or adjuncts) not required by verb
Languages use three different strategies to signal the relationship between verbs and their core arguments:
Constituent order
Flagging
Indexing
What is it called when a language has no clear preference for constituent order?
Free word order
Two most common constituent orders
SOV
SVO
What are the two factors that may motivate the unequal distribution of basic word orders?
Preference for subject preceding object
Preference for verb and object to be adjacent
What is flagging?
Dependent-marking at the clause level
What is indexing?
Head-marking at clause level
in ergative-absolutive system, which core arguments are ergative and which are absolutive?
A = ergative
S & P = absolutive
What’s it called when a language uses ergative alignment in one environment and accusative in another?
Split ergativity
What’s it called when S is sometimes marked like A and sometimes like P?
agent-patient alignment
What is this alignment called?
A = S = P
Neutral alignment
What is this alignment called?
A ≠ S ≠ P
Tripartite alignment
What is this alignment called?
A = P ≠ S
Horizontal alignment
