Grammatical Relations - week 7, lec 2

Question 1

What is nominative accusative case marking?

Answer 1

S and A functions are treated the same and P is different. In such a system S+A is nominative and P is accusative

Question 2

What is ergative absolutive case marking?

Answer 2

S and P functions are treated the same and A is different. In such a system S+P is absolutive and A is ergative

Question 3

What are Active-Stative Systems?

Answer 3

An argument coding system in which S is marked like an A or like a P depending on the kind of event being described and the degree of control the participant is seen as having over it.

Question 4

What is the Actor-Undergoer system of marking?

Answer 4

Actor: the participant which performs, effects, instigates, controls the situation.
Undergoer: the participant which does not do any of these things, but rather is affected by the situation.

Question 5

What is split ergativity?

Answer 5

when a language has ergative/absolutive case marking, what tends to occur is that some aspect of the language, either
in the case marking or in the verb agreement, uses nominative/accusative
case marking instead of solely ergative/absolutive case marking. That is,
the language splits between nominative/accusative and
ergative/absolutive case marking.