ERGATIVITY: TOWARDS A THEORY OF A HETEROGENEOUS CLASS

• Main Authors: Maria Bittner, Ken Hale
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 1996
• Subjects: Case; agreement; A′-binding; scope; Inuit; Warlpiri. Contents 1. Syntactic and morphological ergativity 3; Hale; inuit
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.405.2576; http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~mbittner/bittner--hale-96b.pdf

The theory of Case and agreement presented in Bittner and Hale 1996 reduces the traditional distinction between syntactic and morphological ergativity to a structural difference — namely, opacity or transparency of VP to government from C. This hypothesis is tested against detailed evidence from Inuit (opaque) and Warlpiri (transparent). The complex Case and agreement systems of both languages are fully accounted for, and it is shown that the proposed structures further explain other structure-sensitive phenomena (minimal scope options, obviation, and A′-control). In each area, the differences with respect to transparency have predictable consequences