Essays on Language Function and Language Type: Dedicated to T. Givón

485 Pages·1997·20.521 MB·

by  Joan L. Bybee, John Haiman, Sandra A. Thompson (eds.)

ESSAYS ON LANGUAGE FUNCTION AND LANGUAGE TYPE

ESSAYS ON
LANGUAGE F U N C T I ON
AND LANGUAGE TYPE
Dedicated to T. Givón
Edited by
JOAN BYEEE
University of New Mexico
JOHN HAIMAN
Macalester College
SANDRA A. THOMPSON
University of California
JOHN BENJAMINS PUBLISHING COMPANY
AMSTERDAM / PHILADELPHIA
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of Ameri­
can National Standard for Information Sciences — Permanence of Paper for
Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Essays on language function and language type : dedicated to T. Givón / edited by Joan Bybee,
John Haiman, Sandra A. Thompson.
p. cm.
Includes index.
1. Typology (Linguistics) 2. Grammar. Comparative and general. 3. Functionalism (Linguis­
tics) I. Givón, Talmy, 1936- . II. Bybee, Joan L. III. Haiman, John. IV. Thompson, Sandra A.
P204.E86 1997
410'.l-dc21 97-7390
ISBN 90 272 2168 5 (Eur.) / 1-55619-522-2 (US) (alk. paper) CIP
© Copyright 1997 - John Benjamins B.V.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any
other means, without written permission from the publisher.
John Benjamins Publishing Co. · P.O.Box 75577 · 1070 AN Amsterdam · The Netherlands
John Benjamins North America · P.O.Box 27519 · Philadelphia PA 19118-0519 · USA
Contents
Instead of an Introduction 1
From His Colleagues 3
His Publications 13
The Essays 23
Semantic Aspects of Morphological Typology 25
Joan Bybee
The Typology of Predicate Case Marking 39
Bernard Comrie
Grammaticahzation and the Gradience of Categories: Relator Nouns
and Postpositions in Tibetan and Burmese 51
Scott DeLancey
A Typology of Argument-Determined Constructions 71
RM, W. Dixon and Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald
Are Grammatical Relations Universal? 115
Matthew S. Dryer
Introducing Ergative Word Order via Reanalysis: Word Order Change
in the Cariban Family 145
Spike Gildea
Living in Three Languages 163
Colette Grinevald
Self-Abasement in Language: A Case Study on the Viability of a
Metaphor 181
John Haiman
The Misumalpan Causative Construction 199
Ken Hale
vi Contents
On Attributive Possession in Kabiye 217
Bernd Heine and Kézié Lébikaza
When 'Grammar' and Discourse Clash: The Problem of Source Con­
flicts 231
Paul J. Hopper
A Dynamic Account of Grammatical Function 249
Ronald W. Lang acker
On Zero Anaphora 275
Charles N. Li
Head-Marking and Objecthood 301
Frantiseli Lichtenberk
Participant and Event Anaphora in Newspaper Articles 323
Carol Lord and Kathleen Dahlgren
Lexical Affixes and Morphological Typology 357
Marianne Mithun
Versatile Nominalizations 373
Michael Noonan
The Maasai External Possessor Construction 395
Doris L. Payne
Voice in Seko Padang 423
Thomas E. Payne and Thomas Laskowske
Mind, Code, and Text 437
Dan I. Slobin
Index 469
Instead of an Introduction
T. Givón
Photograph by Dr. A. Beck
From His Colleagues
Joan Bybee
One of the benefits of having participated in the same field for more than
twenty-five years is the opportunity for longitudinal observations of the lives of
the people working beside you. Even though what we see developing are
characteristics that were present from the beginning, observing exactly how they
evolve and shape a person's career keeps us interested.
Talmy Givón is a man of great intelligence and therefore of great complexi­
ty. We know him as a man obsessed and driven. Fortunately for his academic
friends (who have sometimes suffered under his obsessions) linguistics is not his
only passion. Talmy lives on many levels. I wouldn't presume to know what all
his existential planes are, but one I am well-acquainted with and in a position to
sympathize with, is his interest in the ranching/cowboy culture of the southwest.
This is an adopted culture for him, but well-chosen, since it provides him a
connection not only with agriculture, which has been a life-long interest, and
nature in the form of broad vistas and big skies, but also with a rich and lively
musical tradition. It also provides the rest of us with a true linguistic oddity —
a southwestern drawl delivered with an Israeli accent!
I have been fascinated with the fact that Talmy has always been careful to
proclaim his adherence to non-academic culture by his dress. I don't remember
how he dressed when I first saw him around UCLA in the early '70s, because
his presence was overshadowed by his companion, Shaggy Dog, who was big
and black and who inspired the theory that dogs use SOV word order (a good
example of the fact that even brilliant people can sometimes have silly ideas).
Shaggy Dog was often cavorting in the back of the colloquium room with an
enormous white dog and Bob Rodman's Olde English Sheep Dog, who was no
doubt teaching the other dogs Anglo-Saxon (which, quite caninely, is basically
SOV). But it is easy enough for me to recall Talmy's get-up at the 1976
Linguistic Institute in Oswego, NY. He looked for all the world like a Mexican
desperado, one of those relics of Pancho Villa's incursions into Los Estados