Cover not available
Article published In:
Studies in Language
Vol. 38:1 (2014) ► pp.44–79

Variation in pronominal indexing

Lexical stipulation vs. referential properties in Alor-Pantar languages

| University of Surrey
| University of York
| Nanyang Technological University Singapore
| UC Santa Barbara
| Leiden University

We examine the role of referential properties and lexical stipulation in three closely related languages of eastern Indonesia, the Alor-Pantar languages Abui, Kamang, and Teiwa. Our focus is on the continuum along which event properties (e.g. volitionality, affectedness) are highly important at one extreme or play virtually no role at the other. These languages occupy different points along this continuum. In Abui, event semantics play the greatest role, while in Teiwa they play the smallest role (the lexical property animacy being dominant in the formation of verb classes). Kamang occupies an intermediate position. Teiwa has conventionalised the relation between a verb and its class along the lines of animacy so that classes become associated with the animacy value of the objects with which the verbs in a given class typically occur. Paying attention to a lexical property like animacy, in contrast with event properties, has meant greater potential for arbitrary classes to emerge.

Keywords: affectedness, Papuan, inflectional classes, lexical stipulation, animacy, agreement, Alor-Pantar, volitionality
Published online: 25 April 2014
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/sl.38.1.02fed
References
Aissen, Judith
2003 Differential object marking: Iconicity and economy. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 21(3). 435-483. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Arkadiev, Peter
2008 Thematic roles, event structure, and argument encoding in semantically aligned languages. In Mark Donohue & Søren Wichmann (eds.), The typology of semantic alignment, 101-117. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Baayen, R. Harald
1992 Quantitative aspects of morphological productivity. In Geert Booij & Jaap van Marle (eds.), Yearbook of morphology 1991, 109-149. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Baird, Louise
2008 A grammar of Klon: A non-Austronesian language of Alor, Indonesia. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.Google Scholar
Beavers, John
2011 On affectedness. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 29(2). 335-370. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bickel, Balthasar
2008 On the scope of the referential hierarchy in the typology of grammatical relations. In Greville G. Corbett & Michael Noonan (eds.), Case and grammatical relations. Papers in honour of Bernard Comrie, 191-210. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bossong, Georg
1991 Differential object marking in Romance and beyond. In Dieter Wanner & Douglas A. Kibbee (eds.), New analyses in Romance linguistics, Selected Papers from the XVIII Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages 1988 , 143-170. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Croft, William
1988 Agreement vs. case marking and direct objects. In Michael Barlow & Charles A. Fergusson (eds.), Agreement in natural language: Approaches, theories, descriptions, 159-180. Stanford: Center for the Study of Language and Information.Google Scholar
Dalrymple, Mary & Irina Nikolaeva
2011 Objects and information structure. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
De Hoop, Helen & Andrej Malchukov
2007 On fluid differential case marking: A bidirectional OT approach. Lingua 117(9). 1636-1656. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
DeLancey, Scott
1985 On active typology and the nature of agentivity. In Frans Plank (ed.), Relational typology, 47-60. Berlin: Mouton.Google Scholar
Dixon, R.M.W
1979 Ergativity. Language 55(1). 59-138. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Donohue, Mark
2008 Bound pronominals in the West Papuan languages. In Claire Bowern, Bethwyn Evans & Luisa Miceli (eds.), Morphology and language history: In honour of Harold Koch, 43-58. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Donohue, Mark & Søren Wichmann
(eds.) 2008 The typology of semantic alignment. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Dowty, David
1991 Thematic protoroles and argument selection. Language 67(3). 547-619. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Dryer, Matthew S
1986 Primary objects, secondary objects, and antidative. Language 62(4). 808-845. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Durie, Mark
1987 Grammatical relations in Acehnese. Studies in Language 11(2). 365-399. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Evans, Nicholas
2004 Experiencer objects in Iwaidjan languages (Australia). In Peri Bhaskararao & Karumuri Venkata (eds.), Non-nominative subjects, 77-100. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2007 Pseudo-argument affixes in Iwadja and Ilgar: A case of deponent subject and object agreement. In Matthew Baerman, Greville G. Corbett, Dunstan Brown & Andrew Hippisley (eds.), Deponency and morphological mismatches. Proceedings of the British Academy, vol. 1451, 271-296. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fedden, Sebastian, Dunstan Brown, Greville G. Corbett, Marian Klamer, Gary Holton, Laura C. Robinson & Antoinette Schapper
2013 Conditions on pronominal marking in the Alor-Pantar languages. Linguistics 51(1). 33-74. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Givón, Talmy
1976 Subject, topic, and grammatical agreement. In Charles Li (ed.), Subject and topic, 57-98. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Grimes, Charles E., Tom Therik, Barbara Dix Grimes & Max Jacob
1997 A guide to the people and languages of Nusa Tenggara. Kupang: Artha Wacana Press.Google Scholar
Haan, Johnson W
2001 The grammar of Adang: A Papuan language spoken on the island of Alor East Nusa Tenggara – Indonesia. Sydney: University of Sydney dissertation.Google Scholar
Heusinger, Klaus von & Georg Kaiser
2011 Affectedness and differential object marking in Spanish. Morphology 21(1). 1-25. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Holton, Gary
2010 Person-marking, verb classes, and the notion of grammatical alignment in Western Pantar (Lamma). In Michael Ewing & Marian Klamer (eds.), Typological and areal analyses: Contributions from east Nusantara, 97-117. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.Google Scholar
Holton, Gary, Marian Klamer & František Kratochvíl
2009 The languages of Alor-Pantar (Eastern Indonesia): A (re)assessment. Paper presented at the Eleventh International Conference on Austronesian Linguistics (11-ICAL), Aussois, France, 22-26 June, 2009.
Holton, Gary, Marian Klamer, František Kratochvíl, Laura C. Robinson & Antoinette Schapper
2012 The historical relations of the Papuan languages of Alor and Pantar. Oceanic Linguistics 51(1). 86-122. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hopper, Paul & Sandra Thompson
1980 Transitivity in grammar and discourse. Language 56(2). 251-299. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hurford, James R
2007 The origins of meaning: Language in the light of evolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press. (Studies in the Evolution of Language 8).Google Scholar
Klamer, Marian
2008 The semantics of semantic alignment in eastern Indonesia. In Mark Donohue & Søren Wichmann (eds.), The typology of semantic alignment, 221-251. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2010a A grammar of Teiwa (Mouton Grammar Library 49.) Berlin: Mouton De Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2010b Ditransitive constructions in Teiwa. In Andrej Malchukov, Martin Haspelmath & Bernard Comrie (eds.), Studies in ditransitive constructions: A comparative handbook, 427-455. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
n.d. Teiwa corpus. Toolbox file (11,000 words of proper text plus 6,000 words of elicited material).
Klamer, Marian & František Kratochvíl
2006 The role of animacy in Teiwa and Abui (Papuan). In Proceedings of BLS 32 . Berkeley: Berkeley Linguistic Society. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kratochvíl, František
2007 A grammar of Abui. Utrecht: LOT.Google Scholar
Kratochvíl, František
2011 Transitivity in Abui. Studies in Language 35(3). 589-636. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mithun, Marianne
1991 Active/agentive case marking and its motivations. Language 67(3). 510-546. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2008 Does passivization require a subject category? In Bernard Comrie, Greville G. Corbett & Michael Noonan (eds.), Case and grammatical relations: Studies in honor of Bernard Comrie, 211-240. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mohanan, Tara
1990 Arguments in Hindi. Stanford, CA: Stanford University dissertation.Google Scholar
Næss, Åshild
2004 What markedness marks: The markedness problem with direct objects. Lingua 114(9-10). 1186-1212. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2006 Case semantics and the agent-patient opposition. In Leonid Kulikov, Andrej Malchukov & Peter de Swart (eds.), Case, valency and transitivity, 309-327. Amsterdam. John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2007 Prototypical transitivity. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pawley, Andrew, Simon P. Gi, Ian S. Majnep & John Kias
2000 Hunger acts on me: The grammar and semantics of bodily and mental process expressions in Kalam. In Videa P. De Guzman & Byron W. Bender (eds.), Grammatical analysis: Morphology, syntax and semantics. Studies in honour of Stanley Starosta, 153-185. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press.Google Scholar
Reesink, Ger
2010 Prefixation of arguments in West Papuan languages. In Marian Klamer & Michael Ewing (eds.), East Nusantara, typological and areal analyses, 71-95. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.Google Scholar
Robinson, Laura C. & Johnson W. Haan
To appear. Adang. In Antoinette Schapper (ed.) Papuan languages of Timor-Alor-Pantar: Sketch grammars
Ross, Malcolm
2005 Pronouns as a preliminary diagnostic for grouping Papuan languages. In Andrew Pawley, Robert Attenborough, Jack Golson & Robin Hide (eds.), Papuan pasts: Cultural, linguistic and biological histories of Papuan-speaking peoples, 15-66. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.Google Scholar
Schapper, Antoinette
To appear Kamang. In Antoinette Schapper (ed.), Papuan languages of Timor-Alor-Pantar: Sketch grammars. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Schapper, Antoinette & Marten Manimau
2011 Kamus Pengantar bahasa Kamang-Indonesia-Inggris (Introductory Kamang-Indonesian-English dictionary; UBB Language & Culture Series, A-7, Charles E. Grimes, series editor). Kupang: Unit Bahasa dan Budaya.Google Scholar
Siewierska, Anna
2004 Person. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2011 Verbal person marking. In Matthew S. Dryer & Martin Haspelmath (eds.), The world atlas of language structures online. Munich: Max Planck Digital Library, chapter 102. [URL]. (19 September, 2011).Google Scholar
Singer, Ruth
2011 Typologising idiomaticity: Noun-verb idioms and their relations. Linguistic Typology 151. 625-659. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Stokhof, W.A.L
1975 Preliminary notes on the Alor and Pantar languages (East Indonesia). Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.Google Scholar
Tsunoda, Tasaku
1981 Split case-marking in verb-types and tense/aspect/mood. Linguistics 19(5-6). 389-438.Google Scholar
1985 Remarks on transitivity. Journal of Linguistics 21(2). 385-396. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 3 other publications

Saad, George, Marian Klamer & Francesca Moro
2019. Identifying agents of change: Simplification of possessive marking in Abui-Malay bilinguals. Glossa: a journal of general linguistics 4:1 DOI logo
Schapper, Antoinette
2015. Temperature terms in Kamang and Abui, two Papuan languages of Alor. In The Linguistics of Temperature [Typological Studies in Language, 107], ► pp. 858 ff. DOI logo
van Lier, Eva & Maria Messerschmidt
2022. Lexical restrictions on grammatical relations in voice and valency constructions. STUF - Language Typology and Universals 75:1 ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 24 february 2023. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.