The acquisition of ergativity / edited by Edith L. Bavin, Sabine Stoll.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Bavin, Edith Laura.

Stoll, Sabine.

Series:

Trends in language acquisition research ; v. 9.

Trends in Language Acquisition Research ; 9

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Grammar, Comparative and general--Ergative constructions.

Grammar, Comparative and general.

Typology (Linguistics).

Physical Description:

1 online resource (347 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Amsterdam ; Philadelphia : John Benjamins Publishing Company, [2013]

Language Note:

English

System Details:

Mode of access: World Wide Web.

Summary:

Ergativity in Mayan languages is realized in the cross-referencing features on verbs rather than as case marking features on noun phrases. Overt absolutive markers appear with intransitive verbs. Some Mayan languages extend the ergative markers to intransitive verbs in aspectless complement clauses. The languages also make changes to transitive verbs in the same aspectless contexts. We evaluate how Mam, Q'anjob'al and Yucatec children acquire the extension of the ergative markers to intransitive verbs and the changes to transitive verbs in aspectless clauses. In each language we analyzed data of three children in the age range of 2;0 to 3;0. Our findings show that: (i) although the three languages have similar patterns of extended ergativity, children are sensitive to language-specific constraints on extended ergativity; (ii) the input frequency does not predict the acquisition of extended ergativity. We conclude that the structure of each language is responsible for the acquisition of extended ergativity.

Contents:

The Acquisition of Ergativity

Editorial page

Title page

LCC data

Table of contents

The acquisition of ergativity

Introduction

Acquiring ergativity: Some challenges

Semantic bootstrapping hypothesis

Universal vs. language specific

When ergative alignment applies: Split systems

Identifying the argument structure of verbs

The social context of acquisition

Overview of the volume

Final comment

References

Ergativity

Alignment types

Semantic alignment

Symmetric alignment

Alignment splits

Syntactic alignment biases

Some diachronic issues

Conclusions

Ergativity in child Basque

Ergativity in Basque

Basque case marking

Basque verbal morphology

Basque word order

The development of case and agreement in child Basque

Factors which influence morphological development

Phonological difficulty

Morphological complexity

Input frequency

Research questions

Methods

Participants

Procedures

Data analyses

Results

Verbal agreement errors

Case errors

Discussion and conclusions

Appendix

The acquisition of ergativity in Inuktitut

Structure of Inuktitut

Study 1: Ergativity in child spontaneous speech

Data collection and preparation

Data coding

Results and discussion

Alternatives options for expressing bivalent propositions

Study 2: Ergativity in caregiver spontaneous speech

Data collection, preparation, and coding

Study 3: Ergativity in elicited narratives

Data collection

Comparison across three data types

Study 4: Ergativity in West Greenlandic child spontaneous speech

General discussion

References.

Appendix 1: Elicited Narrative from Grade 3 Participant (SJ)

The acquisition of ergative case in Warlpiri

Ergative morphology

The cross-referencing system

Possible factors influencing the acquisition of ergative morphology

The data

Data set 1: Spontaneous speech

Data analysis

Development over 13-14 months

Adult input

Case allomorphs

Data set 2: Elicited narratives

Book one

Book two

Summary and conclusions

The acquisition of ergative marking in Kaluli, Ku Waru and Duna (Trans New Guinea)

Some typological features of Trans New Guinea languages

Kaluli

Introduction to the language

Ergativity in Kaluli

Ergative marking on nouns, proper names, and demonstratives

Ergative marking on personal pronouns

Acquisition of Kaluli ergative marking

Acquisition of the ergative marker -ya:

Acquisition of ergative personal pronouns

Cues for appropriate use of ergative marking

The Kaluli interactional setting

Ku Waru

Ergativity in Ku Waru

Acquisition of Ku Waru ergative marking

The role of adult input

Baby ergative form

Overextensions

Co-construction of an ergative-marked clause

Other uses of ergative marking

Conclusions regarding Ku Waru language socialisation

Duna

Ergativity in Duna

Duna ergative marking in child language

Comments on Duna adult input and language socialisation

Discussion

Formal similarities and differences

The interactional setting

Further questions

The acquisition of ergative case in Chintang

Chintang: Grammatical background

Verbs and verbal agreement

Nouns and case marking of core arguments

Theoretical expectations and hypotheses.

Reliance on frequency and saliency

Functional learning

Item-speci c learning

Interactional learning

Participants, recordings and data overview

Study 1: Overall usage of ergatives by children and adults

Study 2: Functional learning

Study 3: Item-speci c learning

Study 4: Interactional learning

Ergative case-marking in Hindi child-caregiver speech

Acquiring case-marking in Hindi

Split-S marking

Split-accusative marking

Verb semantics

Patterns of verbal agreement

Argument ellipsis

Light verbs

Dialectal variation

Ergative case-marking in caregivers' input

Coding

Verbs

A- and O-role arguments

Verb inflection and light verbs

Ergative case-marking in Hindi child language

Summary and discussion

The acquisition of split-ergative case marking in Kurmanji Kurdish

Kurmanji Kurdish and split-ergativity

Split-ergative case marking in Kurmanji

Acquisition of Kurmanji-split-ergative case marking

Naturalistic speech study

Results for caregivers

Results for developmental pattern in children

Elicited production task study

Conclusion

Appendix A: Elicited production task transitive target sentences

The acquisition of agreement in four Mayan languages

Overview of agreement morphology in Mayan verbs

Data and method

Ergative agreement

Ergative subject agreement

Ergative possessor agreement

Ergative subjects vs. possessors

Errors in ergative marking

Summary: Acquisition of ergative marking

Absolutive agreement.

Absolutive subject agreement on verbs

Absolutive vs. ergative subjects

Absolutive object agreement

Absolutive subjects vs. objects

Summary: Absolutives

Agreement and status

Appendix: Summary table of verb types in the data for all 4 languages

The acquisition of extended ergativity in Mam, Q'anjob'al and Yucatec

Contexts of extended ergativity

Method

The language samples

Input analysis

The intransitive hypothesis

The ergative hypothesis

The acquisition of extended ergativity

Mam

Q'anjob'al

Yucatec

The comparative analysis

Index.

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9789027271235

9027271232

OCLC:

864903364