Malagasy clause structure and language acquisition

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Clause-linking and clause hierarchy: syntax and pragmatics. pp. 269-311, 2010

This paper analyses clause-linking strategies in mostly Austronesian languages, with particular focus on the functions of informational and referential hierarchy strategies in the architecture of complex clauses. Informational (topic, focus) hierarchy and its markers, structure clauses as subordinate via the contrast between presupposition vs. assertion. Referential hierarchy and its markers (endophoric demonstratives and definite markers), are another subordinating strategy based on the contrast between already referential/backgrounded clause vs. asserted main clause. Paths of evolution leading from coordinators or from endophoric demonstratives to informational hierarchy markers and to subordinating conjunctions or constructions are more specifically discussed. It is argued that informational hierarchy and referential hierarchy strategies are inherent to the syntactic architecture of the complex clause.

Interclausal relations in Papuan languages and in particular their prototyical clause chaining structures have long presented serious descriptive problems. These have been analyzed variously as instances of subordination, coordination, and even a third unique type of relationship, cosubordination. This paper argues that clause chaining structures are actually a type of coordination, but distinguished from familiar types of coordination by the type of constituent coordinated, S versus IP. The parametric variation found in clause chaining constructions across Papuan languages is in turn accounted for in terms of the types of functional heads of verbal inflections, negation, mood, tense, illocutionary force, which head the individual IPs conjoined in clause chains. This paper presents a revision of the theory of clause linkage, in particular the theory of nexus, first developed in Foley and Van Valin (1984) and restated in Van Valin and La Polla (1997) and Van Valin (2005). The original theory proposed three categories of nexus, the traditional ones of subordination and coordination and a new type, cosubordination. Subordination and coordination were distinguished along the traditional lines of embedded versus non-embedded. For our purposes here, we will define an embedded clause as one which functions as a constituent, either core or oblique (Andrews 2007; Foley 2007), of another clause, the main or matrix clause. Conventionally, grammarians have called embedded subordinate clauses which function as core arguments complements, and those which function as oblique constituents, adverbial clauses, but in our view this is not the most perspicacious terminology because it obscures their overall similarity, a similarity clearly brought out in the structure of many Papuan languages. For that reason, in this paper we will refer to both types simply as subordinate clauses and note the level of embedding, core versus oblique. Clauses linked in a coordinate nexus are not in an asymmetrical relationship of embedded versus matrix clause, but rather are joined at the same level, strung along rather like beads on a string. Designating a clause by the exocentric category S (Bresnan 2001), we can represent the contrast between subordinate and coordinate nexus as Figure 1:

This paper deals with the voice system of Indonesian, and argues that certain of the constructions traditionally analysed as passives, should be given a different treatment, parallel to arguments by for Tagalog. We examine the role of different conceptions of subject and their place in binding. We show that, unlike other Western Austronesian languages, the logical subject -l-subject for short (i.e., the semantically most prominent argument) plays little role in binding: being a logicalsubject alone does not make an argument a binder. Syntactic prominence is crucial, and in particular the data on binding in Indonesian presented here further confirms the notion of syntacticised argument structured (a-str) first proposed in Manning (1994 and also adopted in Arka (1998) wherein a central role is given to the notion of a-subject. Like other Austronesian languages, the (surface) grammatical subject (i.e., the SUBJ in the f-structure or gr-subject for short) plays little role, especially in the binding of morphologically complex reflexives. The data from binding is supported by other syntactic tests such as topicalisation with pronominal copy.

The Linguistic Review, 1982

Lingua, 2008

Although the neutral clauses of standard Indonesian are SVO, the language also permits verb-initial word order, and belongs to a branch of the Austronesian language family that was probably originally verb-initial. An analysis of Indonesian clause structure is investigated which exploits these connections, inspired by Cole and Hermon's analysis of the closely related language Toba Batak. In this analysis, VP must raise to the specifier of T and the subject can then raise to a specifier outside the clause proper. Such an analysis is shown to be inferior to an analysis of standard Indonesian in which SVO clauses are derived by simply raising the subject to the specifier of T. Evidence is presented that in some varieties of standard Indonesian, but not others, verb-initial clauses are derived by raising VP to an even higher specifier. Overall, the investigation serves to highlight some of the empirical considerations that can be brought to bear on 'abstract' analyses of clause structure. #

This paper uses the realisation of locative-related roles in Balinese to show that there is no clear-cut distinction between arguments and adjuncts, supporting the gradient nature of grammatical functions (cf. Croft 2001;. It argues that argumenthood is not wholly a property of a lexical head predicate and that a purely lexically based projectionist approach to syntactic argument structures cannot be maintained. It also explores the effect that the interplay between relevant properties of locatives has on their recruitability as arguments, and a novel argument-index analysis is proposed as a means to distinguish adjuncts from arguments. The analysis makes use of both general and languagespecific morphosyntactic and morphosemantic tests.

Natural Language & Linguistic Theory, 2006

Article type -theoretically oriented work on (morpho-)syntax acquisition -reaction to recent papers in NLLT * We would like to express our deepest appreciation to the children and families who participated in our study. Our gratitude also to Ed Keenan, who spent countless hours going through the acquisition data with us and who never tired of explaining the fine points of Malagasy or sharing with us his adventures in Madagascar. Thanks also to Matt Pearson and Lisa Travis for their very detailed comments on an earlier draft of this paper, to Murat Kural, Nathan Klinedinst, and three NLLT reviewers whose careful reading has greatly improved this paper. Our appreciation also to Marcel den Dikken for his help throughout the review process. Parts of this paper have been presented at AFLA XIII and at GALA 2005. We are grateful to the audiences at these conferences for their helpful comments. Finally, our thanks also to Zahra Khalili and Nathan Klinedinst for editorial assistance. This project was partially supported by a UCLA Faculty Senate Grant to Hyams. All errors are of course our own.

2019

This chapter discusses grammatical relations (GRs) in Balinese (ISO 639-3: ban, Austronesian, spoken by ~3 million, mainly in Bali, Indonesia). It is demonstrated that Balinese typologically shows relational properties typical for the Indonesian type of Austronesian languages, in terms of voice marking, argument marking, GR alternations, and other related processes such as relativisation, reflexivisation and control. In a wider typological context, Balinese shows splitS in terms of verbal morphology. Syntactically the overall grammar of Balinese shows a symmetrical alignment system: actor (A) and patient (P) arguments of transitive verbs can be equally selected as the grammatical subject or Pivot without the demotion of the other. In addition to voice morphology (showing AV, UV, and middle alternations), Balinese also has applicative and causative morphology, which is good evidence that semantic roles and surface grammatical relations are organised as two distinct layers in the grammar. It is demonstrated in this chapter that much of Balinese syntax revolves around the notion of the privileged argument of Pivot, and its related morphosyntactic and morphosemantic properties in the voice system, in both simple and complex structures; e.g. in clausal argument with/without control and adverbial clauses. We start with the distinction between grammatical relations and grammatical functions (section 2), followed by the selecting properties of Pivot (section 3). Balinese grammar also exhibits a set of properties distinguishing core arguments from obliques, discussed in sections 4 and 5. Three-place predicates are discussed in section 6. It is shown that Balinese exhibits a secundative alignment. Adjuncts are very similar to obliques but they are different in certain respects (section 7). Clausal dependants (complements and adverbial clauses) are discussed in sections 8-9. A conclusion is given in section 10.