subject marking is accomplished by a comb~nat1on of NOM or OBL NP and/or pronominal ... the increasing use of the action noun in -ti with an, ob~ lique agent in a possessive construction to express past. ~ctio2 led to its reanalysis as an ...
CLS22 PART 1
Papers from the GENERAL SESSION at the Twenty-Second Regional Meeting
CHICAGO LINGUISTIC SOCIETY 1986
edited by Anne M. Farley PeterT. Farley Karl-Erik McCullough
15 BEYOND SPLIT-ERGATIVITY,
SUBJECT MARKING IN WAKHI
Elena Bashir The University of Michigan
1. ~ntroduct~on~ Wakhi, an Eastern Iranian language belonging to the Pamir group, is usually characterized as
having a split-exgative system in the proeess of re-evolutio into a nominative-accusative system.
This paper discusses
three characteristics of contemporary Nakhll I} the distribution and function of OBL subjects, 2) gravitation of subject marking to the verb, and 3) typologically unusual behaviors in the case-marking system. In view of these considerations, I suggest that it is inappropriate to consider Wakhi even vestigially " sp lit-ergative n , and that semantic change has outstripped morphological change resulting in a system requiring new principles of analysis. The central concentration of Wakhi speakers is in the villages along both banks of the Wakhan River above its confluence with the Pamir River to form the Panj, and along both banks of the Panj which forms the boundary between Afghanistan and the Soviet Union. Wakhi speaking settlements are also found in Sarikol in Chinese Turkestan~ and in Hunza in Pakistan (Lorimer,195B,I,1~7). Based on statistical analysis of pUblished texts, this paper examines the dialects of Hunza (hereafter HW) and what are called the lower and upper dialects of the Wakhi of Wakhan proper (hereafter WW), includinglthe variety spoken in Tashkurgan in Chinese Turkestan. For purposes of this paper, the dialectal feature of interest is the eBL subject construction, which is found in HW and the upper dialect of WW. with regard to the gravitation of subject marking to the verb, the villages of Wakhan will be treated as a dialect continuum. Those mentioned in this paper are located on the following schematic map, adapted from Grjunberg and Steblin-Kamensky (1976,273). Tash
rqan
~'","""""""I'0 i ) U.S.S.R. R.
Afghanistan Wakhan R.
The past-base tenses in Wakhi are formed on stems in -t/-d which are reflexes of the Old Iranian past partici~ pTe In -ta and, as argued by Lashkarbekov (1982, 1985) of deverbal-action nouns in -til According to Lashkarbekov the increasing use of the action noun in -ti with an, ob~ lique agent in a possessive construction to express past ~ctio2 led to its reanalysis as an active finite construction. The result of this has been the em rgence.of what .,has been called a split-ergatiye system, w~th var10US degrees of ergative-like patterning in th~ past~based tenses. Nominative-accusative patterning holds 1n th~ non-p~st ten.ses. As is also happening in Indo-Ary~n, th~s part1al ergativity is decaying in the modern Pam1r l~nguagest _~or a valuable survey of this development and 1ts typolog1cal implications, see Payne (19g0).
7
2. Past-tense subject-marking in wa~hi •. Past-tense subject marking is accomplished by a comb~nat1on of NOM or OBL NP and/or pronominal sUffixe.s (hereafter PS~ t . In WW nouns have two basiccasj-forms--NOM and OBL-_d~st~nguished only in the plural. . Sg. PI, ~ ~ist Nom. ~ ObI. 3 -eV P rono uns have the following forms· i Pl•. Sg, Gen. : ObI ~ Dir. Gen. ObI. Dir. s(a)po sak ma~!ma- Pi! I. WU;, (WdZ sav (savist) sa(y)ist taw/ta- I ti tu 2. yamav yami~t yam 3. near: ya"tav ya,tist yat middle: yav ya(w)is(t)! yaw/yow far: vo(w)is(t)
I
1
Notice that in the singular~ only the 1st and.2nd.persons have contrasting direct and oblique forms, wh~le ~n the. plural the 3rd person pronouns, as well as nouns have d1Stinct direct and oblique forms. For HW Lorimer (1958~I) gives the following nominal endings: PI. Sg. -ist Nom. ~ -Eva/-avE/-dva -£!ObI: are: forms pronominal The relevant Pl Sg. Gen. Acc. Obl. Nom. Acc. Gen. Nom. I Obl, sAkE spo sAkE SAk ma~E zy wUz \ m~zE SAvE Sl\.va sAvE SA.st tao/w~ t i tau./o 2. tu tauwE
r.
Panj R. Afghanistan
;
,
". H nza
':t
16
Nom.
Sg, G'en, yEm
Obl. y!m ya
y~
ya
yau/o
yauwE/ yao
Ace, y!m yavE
yauwE' yauw../ yau
Nom. yEmUt YA'st/ yaeIilt
(yaui~tl
Pl. Gen, 09 1 • y!mv,a YEmv. yavE yavE
S) Tr,
(yauw..)
6l In,
xub
89.
~tay
-(alt
Different types and degree of emphasis
ar 7 conveyed by their positioning and optional repetition.
Th~s same set of sUffixSs is used with both transitive and intransitive verbs, Subject marking in those varieties of Wa~hi which preserve the OBL subject construction is complex A employing NOM or OBL NP and/or prono-:"minal suffixes. Examples Cl)(10) display the five main ways of indicating the subject. For both transitives and intransitives the sUbject may be encoded by (a) an OBL personal pronoun (or noun in HW) (1&2) 1)
Tr,
taw rna? lafc fand ~et youCOBL ICOBL) much deception give(PAST) 'You deceived me greatly. t (P~134~Tashkurgan)
maz r~~d"'ay I (OBL) leave(PAST)-ay 'I left.' (P,134,Tashkurgan)
Tr,
ma~-am
pit-r
ki
tl"
dare....am
I(OBL)-PSlsg drink(PAST)_i that you(GEN) pain-PSlsg
4)
In:
~I drank ma~~m
Cit) out of compassion for you." CP,80) niya~t-ay
I (OBL)-PSlsg go out(PAST)_ay ~I
went out.·
(P,80)
or (c), of NOM NP plus PS (5&6)
(P,143,Tashkurgan)
?ixn
'Finally they went to the king.
I
presence
(G,S-K,81,Zung)
or Cd), it may be marked by the PS alone C7 & 8)
~uz-av tiyor kert-ay aa jangal wBzd-3V bread-PS3pl ready do(PAST)-ay to jungle come (PAS'l')'They made ready their bread and came PS3pl to the jungle. f (P,163,Ishmurg) oista oista-av r~id~y
7) Tr,
Bl In,
slowly slowly-PS3pl go(PAST)-ay 'They went very slowly.
I
(G,S-K,81,Zung)
or (e), by NOM NP alone (9 and 10) , 9) Tn juwon ya-rar Juwob e.a-t-ay youth (NOM) him-OAT answer give(PAST)-ay 'The youth answered him. . . (G,S-K,aO,Zung) muysaaf{d wezd-ay
old man (NOM) corne(PAST)-ay 'The old man came.
(G,S-K,80,.Zung)
I
3. Oblique subjects.? In Wakhi, OBL subjects occur with both intransitive and transitive past tenses: Am?na the Pamir languages this generalized deve~opme~t ~s un1que 8 in wakhi. The appearance of the OBL subJect 15 not predictable on syntactic grounds alone~ it is not obligatory in those situations where it exists as an option. Table 1 shows the distribution of NOM and OBL subjects in t~e.d~a lects permitting OBL SUbjects, broken down by transltlvlty status of the verb and by person and number. Frequency of OBL NP subject ~s. NOM NP subject in simple past-tense clauses , . Transitive Intransltlve vlllage/person text /nurnber NOM OBL NOM OBL Tashkurgan I 1 sg, 1 2 0 0 Table 1.
or (b), of OBL NP plus PS (3&4) 3)
ta-rak
&lid
tWell, now I have given you my daughter • • alqissa yamis wazd-av da P?tso
PI,
~(a)n
.... (a)m
.,(a)v 3, -i/-~ .,(a)v These pronominal suffixes may attach to any constituent in the sentence; further~ they may appear more than once in the same clause.
x~
wuz
give (PAST)-ey
from Pakhal~na (1975~73) t l,~ 2.
niv-em
well now-PSlsg I (NOM) self daughter you(OBL)-DAT
finally they(NOM) go(PAST)-PS3pl to k,ng
The point for our discussion is that HW does distinguish NOM from OBL forms in both singular and plural for nouns and pronouns in all persons. Wakhi has a set of pronominal suffixes which function to refer tO,the subject of past-base verbs. They are, Person
17
,
sg.
3
0
0
0
Tashkurgan II 1 sg. 2 sg. Tashkurgan III 1 sg.
2
5
0
1
3
0
1 1
0 2
1
0
2
3
2
2
sg.
5 0
I I
18
Table i.
(continued) Transitive
Langar-Kishn 1 sg. 2 sg. Zung 1 sg. 2 sg. Hunza (2, 4, 5) 1 sg. 1 pI. 2 sg. 2 pI. 3 sg. 3 plo
Intransitive
OBL
NOM
OBI.
NOM
1
2 0
o o
0 0
0 0
1 1
1 0
0 0 0 0
1
0 0 0
16
16
5
3
12 2
2 0 0 0 92 5
0 0
1
4
o
o o
From Table 1 we see that in the ww texts studied NOM subjects appear only slightly more frequentLy than OBL subjects. This is true for both transitives and intransitives. In the more conservative HW there appears to be some correlation of DBL subject with transitivity, especially in the 1st person sg. Four of the five 1st sg. DBL sUbjects are with transitives, and the one DBL intransitive is with the verb I say '. Also, considering all intransitive past tense clauses in the HW corpus, we see that 99 of them have NOM subjects and only 16 have OBL subjects. Neither Pakhalina nor Grjunberg and Steblin-Kamensky discuss factors conditioning the appearance of the OBL subject. Payne (1980,1f32) says that "the oblique case for subjects is • • • in free variation in both transitive and intransi ti ve sentences in the upper dialect of 'i'lakhi." And Lashkarbekov (1982, 1985) maintains that the OBL and the direct construction are functionally equivalent. In his description of HW, Lorimer hazarded the fol1owingt "The transitive nominative (=OBL) is used in preference to the corresponding mobile pronominal particle (=PS) when it is desired to stress the identity of the subject~ but this does not mean that it is only used in such cases." (19:;8,1,91:1) The present paper argues that the occurrence of the OBL sUbject is not random-~that NOM and OBL subjects are not entirely equivalent. The conditioning factors appear to be related on the one hand to the perceived semantics of the action involved rather than to the inherent lexical semantics of a given verb, and on the other to discourse structure. The hypothesis advanced here is that an OBL subject will be more likely to appear when one or all of the following conditions obtains. (1) The action is per~
19 ceived' as volitional and active rather than as 11pas~ive". or stative; (2) the referential identity of the,subJect ~s to be stressed; (3) within a discourse, the subJect or t
