Alignment change in Iranian languages : a construction grammar approach / Geoffrey L.J. Haig.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Haig, Geoffrey.

Series:

Empirical approaches to language typology ; 37.

Empirical approaches to language typology ; 37

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Iranian languages--Verb.

Iranian languages.

Iranian languages--Ergative constructions.

Iranian languages--Transitivity.

Iranian languages--Tense.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (380 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

New York : Mouton de Gruyter, 2008.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

The Iranian languages, due to their exceptional time-depth of attestation, constitute one of the very few instances where a shift from accusative alignment to split-ergativity is actually documented. Yet remarkably, within historical syntax, the Iranian case has received only very superficial coverage. This book provides the first in-depth treatment of alignment change in Iranian, from Old Persian (5 C. BC) to the present. The first part of the book examines the claim that ergativity in Middle Iranian emerged from an Old Iranian agented passive construction. This view is rejected in favour of a theory which links the emergence of ergativity to External Possession. Thus the primary mechanisms involved is not reanalysis, but the extension of a pre-existing construction. The notion of Non-Canonical Subjecthood plays a pivotal role, which in the present account is linked to the semantics of what is termed Indirect Participation. In the second part of the book, a comparative look at contemporary West Iranian is undertaken. It can be shown that throughout the subsequent developments in the morphosyntax, distinct components such as agreement, nominal case marking, or the grammar of cliticisation, in fact developed remarkably independently of one another. It was this de-coupling of sub-systems of the morphosyntax that led to the notorious multiplicity of alignment types in Iranian, a fact that also characterises past-tense alignments in the sister branch of Indo-European, Indo-Aryan. Along with data from more than 20 Iranian languages, presented in a manner that renders them accessible to the non-specialist, there is extensive discussion of more general topics such as the adequacy of functional accounts of changes in case systems, discourse pressure and the role of animacy, the notion of drift, and the question of alignment in early Indo-European.

Contents:

Introduction

Aims and assumptions

The Iranian languages

Alignment in the Iranian context

Constructions and syntax

Old Iranian

The Mana Kartam construction

Implications for diachronic syntax

What is a passive?

Re-assessing the M. K. construction

The semantics of the genitive

Summing up the alternatives

Conclusions

Western Middle Iranian

Middle Iranian

Past transitive constructions

The case system

Case and person

Pronominal clitics

Clitics expressing core arguments

Past transitive verbs

Summary of Middle Iranian

Case systems in West Iranian

Introduction

Three processes

Innovated object markers

Inhalt

The tatic-type languages

Explanations for change

Case and animacy

Towards a solution

Summary of case

Kurdish (northern group)

Overview of the morphosyntax

The canonical ergative construction

Deviations from canonical ergativity

Summary of deviations

Evidence from Badynany

Summary of the northern group

The central group

Suleimani morphosyntax

Aligning case and agreement

Summary of the central group

Desire, obligation, possession, and ergativity

A brief synopsis

Areal pressure and alignment change

Alignment in Indo-European

On explanations for change

Appendices

Case in Old Persian

Changing rules of clitic placement.

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references (p. [339]-358) and index.

ISBN:

9786613396570

9781283396578

1283396572

9783110198614

3110198614

OCLC:

476206323