Transitive alignment: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 23:04, 10 June 2022

Latest revision as of 23:45, 20 September 2023

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[[Rushani dialect|Rushani]], an [[Iranian languages|Iranian dialect]], has this alignment in the past tense. That is, in the past tense (or perhaps [[perfective aspect]]), the agent and object of a transitive verb are marked with the same case ending, while the subject of an intransitive verb is not marked. In the present tense, the object of the transitive verb is marked, the other two roles are not – that is, a typical [[nominative–accusative]] alignment.<ref>J.R. Payne, 'Language Universals and Language Types', in Collinge, ed. 1990. ''An Encyclopedia of Language''. Routledge. From Payne, 1980.</ref>

{{interlinear|indent=2

|top= '''Intransitive: no case marking'''

:{|class=wikitable

| az-um ||pa ||Xaraɣ ||sut

| I(ABS)-1SG to Xorog went

|-

:| 'I went to Xorog'}}

|I([[List of glossing abbreviations|{{sc|abs}}]])-1sg ||to ||Xorog ||went

|}

:'I went to Xorog'

{{interlinear|indent=2

|top= '''Transitive, past tense: double case marking '''

:{|class=wikitable

| mu ||tā ||wunt

| me(OBL) you(OBL) saw

|-

:| 'I saw you' (double oblique: literally 'me saw thee')}}

|me([[List of glossing abbreviations|{{sc|obl}}]]) ||you({{sc|obl}}) ||saw

|}

:'I saw you'

:(double oblique: literally 'me saw thee')

{{interlinear|indent=2

|top= '''Transitive, present tense: accusative case marking '''

:{|class=wikitable

| az ||tā ||wun-um

| I(ABS) you(OBL) see-1SG

|-

:| 'I see you' (nominative–accusative)}}

|I({{sc|abs}}) ||you({{sc|obl}}) ||see-1sg

|}

:'I see you'

:(nominative–accusative)

According to Payne, it's clear what happened here: Rushani once had a [[split-ergative]] alignment, as is common in the area, where the object was marked (oblique) in the present tense, but the agent was marked in the past. The case forms of the object were then [[Morphological leveling|leveled]], and with the marking applied to the past tense as well. However, this resulted in a complication, the typologically unusual situation where the agent and object are treated the same, and different from the intransitive subject. Given its rarity, one might expect such a system to be unstable, and indeed it appears to be changing. Payne reports that younger speakers change the past-tense construction to one of the following, either using the absolutive (= nominative) inflection for the agent:

{{interlinear|indent=2

:{|class=wikitable

| az-um ||tā ||wunt

| I(ABS)-1SG you(OBL) saw

|-

:| 'I saw you' (nominative–accusative)}}

|I({{sc|abs}})-1sg ||you({{sc|obl}}) ||saw

|}

:'I saw you'

:(nominative–accusative)

or secondarily marking the object as an object, using the preposition ''az'' (literally 'from'):

{{interlinear|indent=2

:{|class=wikitable

| mu ||az ||taw ||wunt

| I(OBL) ACC you(OBL) saw

|-

:| 'I saw you' (effectively, accusative and double-accusative)}}

|I({{sc|obl}}) ||{{sc|acc}} ||you({{sc|obl}}) ||saw

|}

:'I saw you'

:(effectively, accusative and double-accusative)

==See also==