Optional ergativity in grammar and discourse: The crucial role of annotated corpora

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Optional ergativity in grammar and discourse
The crucial role of annotated corpora

• Felicity Meakins, Eva Schultze-Berndt, Patrick
  McConvell and Candide Simard
• DOBES workshop, Nijmegen, June 2007

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The Victoria River District
Jaminjungan (Non-PN)
Kriol
Jaminjung / Ngaliwurru
Contact languages
Ngarinyman / Bilinarra
Gurindji
Eastern Ngumpin (Pama-Nyungan)
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Argument marking in the VRD languages

• Ergative marking on transitive agents (A) no
  marking (absolutive) on intransitive subjects
  (S) and transitive objects (O)
• Jaminjungan and Eastern Ngumpin languages,
  Gurindji Kriol
• Free (pragmatically conditioned) word order
• Jaminjungan and Eastern Ngumpin languages
• Head-marking (intr. S, tr. AgtO) on the verb
• Jaminjungan languages
• Pronominal clitics (intr. S, tr. AgtO)
• Eastern Ngumpin languages
• Optionality of nominal arguments
• Jaminjungan and Eastern Ngumpin languages,
  Gurindji Kriol
• Only word order (AVO) for argument disambiguation
• Kriol

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Split ergativity

• Gurindji and other Eastern Ngumpin languages have
  a split between free pronouns (unmarked A and O)
  and other nominals (ERG-ABS)
• None of the languages have a clear cut split in
  any of the other known relevant domains
• NP type / animacy
• Tense/aspect
• Verb class
• But

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Optional ergativity

• Optional ergativity is variation in the use of
  the ergative marker within its normal domain of
  application (McGregor Verstraete, to
  appear)
• Jaminjungan languages
• Gurindji Kriol
• E.g. Jaminjung

mung gani-ngayi-m .. ngarrung-ni Look.at
3sggt3sg-see-PRS woman-ERG she is looking at
her, the woman is
jarligmalangbiya thanthu .. jarriny gani-ngawu
childGIVENnow DEM hole 3sggt3sg-see-PRS the
child then, he looked at the hole
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Optional ergativity in Australian languages

• Two competing ideas
• Optional ergativity is an internal feature of a
  language system
• e.g. the presence of the ergative marker
  highlights the agentivity of the A referent
  (McGregor 1992, 1998 for Gooniyandi, Verstraete
  2005 for Umpithami)
• Optional ergativity is the result of contact with
  English or Kriol
• Adoption of SVO word order from English/Kriol as
  argument marking system results in the decreased
  functional load of ergative marker (Schmidt 1985
  for Young Peoples Dyirbal, Bavin and Shopen 1985
  for Yuendumu Warlpiri, OShannessy 2006 for Light
  Warlpiri, Meakins OShannessy forthcoming for
  Light Warlpiri and Gurindji Kriol)

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What drives optional ergative marking?

• Assumption variability of ergative marking is
  not random (whether internal or
  contact-induced)
• What data do we need to identify the relevant
  factors?
• Conversation and narrative data
• in case there is a discourse motivation for
  ergative patterns
• (2) Sufficient data for a quantitative analysis
  of the distribution
• since overt A nominals are quite rare
• - 5 of Intonation units (Jam. Text count,
  n825)
• - 13 of transitive clauses

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The data so far

• Jaminjung
• (Candide Simard, Eva Schultze-Berndt)
• approx. 6 hrs
• 6 speakers
• 114 A nominals
• multi-purpose

• Gurindji Kriol
• (Felicity Meakins)
• approx. 80 hours
• 39 speakers
• 1917 A nominals
• partly multi-purpose, partly specifically
  elicited for research question

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Variables coded

• Speaker (for GK also age)
• Text genre (?)
• Tense/aspect/mood marking
• Animacy of A
• N vs pronoun
• Word order AV vs. VA
• For GK also language of N stem (G or K)
• Dislocation
• For GK presence of a coreferential pronoun
• For J prosodic dislocation vs. integration

Gurindji Kriol det warlaku-ngku i
bin baitim det marluka leg-ta-rni DET dog-ERG
3SG PST bite-TRN DET old.maN leg-LOC-ONLY
the dog bit the man right on the leg
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Prosodic dislocation (Jaminjung)
Right-dislocated
Integrated
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Optional ergativity in Jaminjung
Jaminjung/ Ngaliwurru
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Optional ergativity in Jaminjung Nominal type

• Overall percentage of ergative-marked Agents
  72

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Optional ergativity in Jaminjung Position
Topical unmarked As?
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Optional ergativity in Jaminjung Verb Semantics
miyarra ba-rum gani-yunu jaligmarlang slow/car
eful IMP-come 3sggt3sg-say3sgOBL childGIVEN com
e carefully he said to him, the boy did
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Optional ergativity in Gurindji Kriol
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The structure of Gurindji Kriol
The dog bit the old man bang on the hand. det
dog imin baitim det man rait la
leg (Kriol) DET dog 3SGPST bite-TRN
DET man right PREP leg det
warlaku-ngku i bin baitim det
marluka leg-ta-rni (GK) the dog-ERG
3SG PST bite-TRN DET old.man leg-LOC-ONLY
warlaku-rlu katurl payarni marluka
wulu-ta-rni. (Gurindji) dog-ERG
bite bite-PST old.man
leg-LOC-ONLY
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Optional ergativity in Gurindji Kriol

• det mukmuk bin kuli laim
• DET owl PST fight OBL3SG.O
• The owl went for (the boy).
• dem bi-ngku kuli laim det
  warlaku-yu.
• DET.PL bee-ERG fight OBL3SG.O DET
  dog-DAT
• (And) the bees went for the dog.
• 66.5 of A nominals marked ergative

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Constructing the dataset

• Issues in creating the data set
• discourse motivations for ergative marking
• optionality of nominals
• variation in mixed language system
• Dataset

Narrative
Conversation
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Peer Elicitation

Ergative Bingo
Ergative Picture-Match Game
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Quantitative Methodology

• 1917 A nominals coded for presence of ergative
  marker and other variables
• Variables tested against presence of ergative
  marking using multilevel logistic regression
  model (PinheiroBates 2000)

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Factors affecting ergative marker in GK

• more likely to appear if
• (1) post-verbal, (2) co-referential pronoun,
  (3) inanimate
• ai bin gon mingip-ma i bin purtuj
  mi faya-ngku
• 1SG PST go crawl-DIS 3SG PST set.fire 1SG
  fire-ERG
• I crawled (to the fire) and it set fire to me,
  the flames did.

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Factors affecting ergative marker in GK

• less likely to appear if
• (1) action is not realised and (2) the verb is
  marked continuative
• ngayu garra ged-im-bat too
  partiki-walija
• 1SG FUT get-TRN-CONT too bush.nut-PAUC
• Im going to get a whole lot of partiki too.

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Function of the ergative marker in GK

• continues to be related to A nominal
• (in this respect it contributes to argument
  marking)
• discourse prominence
• (highlights the agentivity of A nominal)
• det warlaku im til trai teik-im-at
• DET dog 3SG still try take-TRN-out
• det ngarlu karnti-nginyi .
• DET hive tree-ABL .
• "The dog tried to take the bee hive from the
  tree.
• dem bi-walija-ngku dei bin jayijayi im.
• DET.PL bee-PAUC-ERG 3PL PST chase 3SG
• "That mob of bees chased him then!

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Optional ergativity in Jaminjung and Gurindji
Kriol

• Similarities
• Percentage of ergative marking approx. 70
• Differences
• Jaminjung - verbal semantics more important
• Jaminjung - evidence of a pronoun/N split
• Higher frequency of ergatives postverbally in GK
  but not in Jaminjung
• GK - ergative marking also occurs on
  intransitives
• Contact or language internal?

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Continuing investigation

• The documentation of a language is enriched by
  documentation of neighbouring languages
• Ideally investigation of optional ergativity
  requires documentation of neighbouring languages
  not just the language in question
• Better understanding about whether it is a
  language internal feature or language contact
• Areal dimension
• perform similar analysis neighbouring languages
  to south (Bilinarra, Ngarinyman and Gurindji)
• Temporal dimension
• more work required to look more closely at
  Gurindji, and early Gurindji-Kriol code-switching
  data

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Language documentation and optional ergativity

• Different genres
• Conversation and narrative required to draw out
  information structure motivations
• BUT language documentation will always reflect
  research interests
• Elicitation required to get sufficient relevant
  data for quantitative analysis
• Can manipulate variables in elicitation
• Comparable datasets for different languages?!!?
• Frog stories
• Picture-match peer elicitation

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Ergative marking in the VRD languages

• Jaminjungan and Eastern Ngumpin languages and
  Gurindji Kriol have ergative marking on agents
  (A)
• intransitive subjects (S) and transitive
  objects (O) are unmarked (absolutive)
• Jaminjungan and Eastern Ngumpin languages have
  free (pragmatically conditioned) word order
• Kriol has no case marking, word order in
  transitive clauses is AVO
• e.g. Gurindji
• jarrwa punya ngu karu, marluka-rlu.
• spear poke-PRS.IMP CAT child(ABS) old.man-ERG
• The old man speared the child.
• karu-walija ngu-lu tipart karrinyana
• child-PAUC(ABS) CAT-3PL jump be-PRS.IMP
• The kids are jumping.

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Argument marking in the VRD languages

• e.g. Gurindji (Eastern Ngumpin)
• jarrwa punya ngu karu, marluka-rlu.
• spear poke-PRS.IMP CAT child(ABS) old.man-ERG
• The old man speared the child.
• karu-walija ngu-lu tipart karrinyana
• child-PAUC(ABS) CAT-3PL jump be-PRS.IMP
• The kids are jumping.

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Optional ergative marking

• Optional ergativity is variation in the use of
  the ergative marker within its normal domain of
  application (McGregor Verstraete, to appear)
• I.e. not completely predictable
• Optional ergativity is found in the Jaminjungan
  languages and in Gurindji Kriol
• e.g. Gurindji Kriol
• det warlaku im til trai teik-im-at
• det dog 3SGNF still try take-TRN-out
• det ngarlu karnti-nginyi .
• DET hive tree-ABL .
• "The dog tried to get the bee hive from the
  tree.
• dem bi-walija-ngku dei bin jayijayi im.
• DET.PL bee-PAUC-ERG 3PL.S NF chase 3SG.O
• "That mob of bees chased him then!

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ES96_A18_02gl_228
Jal_045
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Language documentation and optional ergativity
annotations