Table Of ContentRelational Typology
Trends in Linguistics
Studies and Monographs 28
Editor
Werner Winter
Mouton Publishers
Berlin · New York · Amsterdam
Relational Typology
edited by
Frans Plank
Mouton Publishers
Berlin · New York · Amsterdam
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Relational typology.
(Trends in linguistics. Studies and monographs; 28)
English and German.
Papers from a conference held at Hannover, Germany, Jan.
15 — 17, 1982, which was subsidized by the Deutsche For-
schungsgemeinschaft and the Ministerium für Wissenschaft und
Kunst of Niedersachsen.
Includes index.
1. Typology (Linguistics) — Congresses. 2. Grammar, Com-
parative and general —Syntax—Congresses. 3. Grammar, Com-
parative and general — Clauses — Congresses. I. Plank, Frans.
II. Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft. III. Lower Saxony (Ger-
many). Ministerium für Wissenschaft und Kunst.
P204.R45 1985 415 85-18785
ISBN 0-89925-086-6 (U.S.)
CIP-Kurztitelaufnahme der Deutschen Bibliothek
Relational typology / ed. by Frans Plank. — Berlin ; New
York ; Amsterdam : Mouton, 1985.
(Trends in linguistics : Studies and monographs ; 28)
ISBN 3-11-009591-2 (Berlin ...)
ISBN 0-89925-086-6 (New York ...)
NE: Plank, Frans [Hrsg.]; Trends in linguistics / Studies and
monographs
Printed on acid free paper
© Copyright 1985 by Walter de Gruyter & Co., Berlin. All rights reserved, including
those of translation into foreign languages. No part of this book may be reproduced
in any form — by photoprint, microfilm, or any other means — nor transmitted
nor translated into a machine language without written permission from Mouton
Publishers, Division of Walter de Gruyter & Co., Berlin.
Typesetting: Arthur Collignon, Berlin. — Printing: Druckerei Gerike, Berlin. —
Binding: Lüderitz & Bauer Buchgewerbe GmbH, Berlin.
Printed in Germany
Preface
That language typologists are focusing attention on the relational
structure of clauses is certainly no new trend in linguistics, even if
some insights afforded by the typological perspective appear to be
relatively new. Numerous individual and concerted attempts are on
record of typologies based on supposedly significant cross-linguistic
differences in relational structures involving the main constituent
parts of clauses. Also on record, however, are certain fundamental
obstacles hindering relational typologists and typological research
in general, of which the following three deserve to be singled out.
Firstly and most obviously, there has been, and continues to be,
the handicap that not enough thorough and reliable empirical de-
scriptions are available even of the most basic aspects of rela-
tional clause structures of a sufficiently wide variety of languages.
Secondly, owing to a tendency to employ preconceived descriptive
notions familiar from one or another tradition of describing one or
another kind of languages, without much concern for spelling out
the precise descriptive content of these notions and for justifying
their cross-linguistic applicability, there has always been the danger
of terminological looseness, often nourishing the illusion that re-
lational clause structures had been adequately described if all that
had really been achieved was to 'accommodate' them in one or
another terminological framework of unquestioned empirical
import. And thirdly, the notion of 'types' itself still needs further
clarification and, of course, empirical justification, if typology is to
be more than mere classification of languages according to more
or less arbitrarily selected grammatical features. It is an awareness
of the urgency with which such obstacles demand attention that
motivated the collective efforts forming the present volume.
With this general motivation in common, the individual con-
tributions branch off in three specific directions. With differing
emphasis, the following chapters aim to throw new light on
expressions in relation, on relational expressions, and on the
typological significance of differences in relational structuring.
VI Preface
One major emphasis is placed on elaborating adequate descriptive
accounts of the patterns of relations held by actant expressions (to
use one popular cover term) accompanying predicate expressions
in all kinds of clauses. It is relatively uncontroversial that relations
are appropriately differentiated both in syntactic and in semantic
terms, and that expressions in relation are also distinguishable
according to their pragmatic status in the structuring of information
in discourse. Disregarding points of detail of the language-specific
justification or typological suitability of individual descriptive pro-
posals, what is most controversial here are questions such as: How
are the three structural levels of pragmatics, semantics and syntax
to be related to one another and to what extent, and in which
respects, is their relatedness cross-linguistically variable? To what
extent and in which respects is the definability of syntactic relations
such as subject and object contingent on particular relationships
between the semantic and pragmatic levels or on the patterning of
actant expressions across different clause types (in particular transi-
tive and intransitive clauses)? In posing such questions from various
theoretical perspectives and with reference to a variety of typolog-
ically supposedly differing languages, the chapters concerned tie in
with much current research, typological and other, on the nature
of grammatical relations.
In a considerable number of contributions the emphasis is not so
much on expressions in relation, but primarily on those expressions
that establish the relational structure of clauses in the first place,
i.e. on predicate expressions with respect to which actant expressions
hold particular semantic-syntactic relations. Predicate, or more
specifically verbal, categories such as aspect, voice, and agreement
(or cross-reference) have traditionally been included in typological
discussions. What has often been neglected, especially in recent
times, is the possibility of fundamentally different predicate con-
ceptions underlying the typological variety of relational clause
structuring. Most familiar here is the hypothesis of a passive con-
ception of verbs in ergative-type languages, and correspondingly of
an active verb conception in accusative-type languages, which is,
however, notorious for its lack of conceptual precision. Apart from
trying to elucidate these notions, various chapters take into account
further parameters with respect to which predicate conceptions may
vary in a typologically significant manner: the inherent stativity and
intransitivity of all predicates in some languages; the lexical agent
or patient centredness of predicates in different languages; the
Preface VII
differentiation of predicates according to the intentional, controlling
or other kinds of participation of actants; various principles of
subcategorization of predicates. The amount of attention paid to
matters of predicate conception is perhaps the most prominent
feature of the present collection vis-ä-vis other contemporary re-
search on grammatical relations and relational typology.
The emphasis in many chapters is, thirdly, on the question of the
appropriateness of relational clause structures as a crucial parameter
for language typology. If typologies were arbitrary classifications
of languages on the basis of any grammatical feature that is not
found in all languages alike, this issue would hold little interest. But
if one is aiming for holistic, or systemic, typologies, the issue of
which particular features are the ultimate type-determinants in so
far as many other structural features are implicationally linked to
them, is of paramount importance. Most contributors to this volume
share the conviction that holistic typologies are more desirable than
arbitrary language classifications; and a common point of reference
is the triad of accusative, ergative and active type languages cus-
tomary in relational typology. The controversies here are about
the exhaustiveness of this traditional triad (which is repeatedly
challenged on the grounds that it fails to take into account attested
varieties of relational structuring), about the necessity and legit-
imacy of recognizing divergences from these ideal types (argued for
on the grounds of what look like mixtures of accusative, ergative,
and active patterns in individual languages), and about the
fundamental importance of patterns of relational structuring as
type-determinants (which may appear dubious in the light of
supposed type mixtures that cannot be explained away diachron-
ically, and is often felt to lack sufficient empirical substantiation).
Even though proposals and rejections of holistic types are bound
to remain inconclusive for some time to come, such debates need not
remain entirely programmatic. To help transcend the programmatic
level is one objective of this volume, with its empirical focus on
many languages that have so far received insufficient attention from
the point of view of relational typology.
Individually and collectively, the chapters assembled in this
volume thus seek to sharpen the analytic tools suitable for the
description of relational clause structures in natural languages,
to offer empirically adequate descriptions of the relational clause
structures and related parts of the grammar and lexicon of particular
languages, to suggest and possibly justify cross-linguistic descriptive
VIII Preface
generalizations about relational structures, and to suggest, or at
least to prepare the ground for, responsible hypotheses about neces-
sary or preferred connections among individual grammatical (and
perhaps lexical) features, with the expectation that some features will
eventually turn out to be more crucial than others in determining the
character of whole languages.
More incidentally, the contributions to this volume also indicate
further desiderata of future typological research. The principles
of pragmatic clause and discourse structuring still deserve more
comparative attention. Considering their potential typological sig-
nificance, lexical structures too deserve much closer empirical
scrutiny, any deeper appreciation of possible non-trivial cross-
linguistic differences so far having often been prevented by the
customary reliance on supposedly translation-equivalent clauses and
approximate impressionistic paraphrases of predicate meanings.
Lastly, even if crucial empirical information could in principle be
obtained from some more or less accessible source, too much of it
is bound to escape the attention even of conscientious individual
typologists aiming at wider ranging descriptive generalizations, un-
less they are able, and willing, to rely on much improved facilities
for cataloguing large amounts of morphosyntactic and lexical data.
The chapters in this volume represent a selection of the papers
read at a conference at Hannover on January 15-17, 1982 that
was subsidized by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft and the
Ministerium für Wissenschaft und Kunst of Niedersachsen. Also
included are some contributions (those of DeLancey, Frajzyngier,
Givon, Plank and Thompson) that could not be read on that
occasion. It should be noted that some of the contributions were
already available in more or less their present form in the spring or
summer of 1982, while others were not completed until summer or
autumn 1983.
Werner Winter deserves the special thanks of all contributors for
the interest he has shown in this volume.
Frans Plank
Contents
Preface V
List of Contributors XI
Georg Bossong
Markierung von Aktantenfunktionen im Guarani. Zur
Frage der differentiellen Objektmarkierung in nicht-
akkusativischen Sprachen 1
Alice Cartier
Discourse analysis of ergative and non-ergative sentences
in formal Indonesian 31
Scott DeLancey
On active typology and the nature of agentivity 47
Zygmunt Frajzyngier
On two hypotheses regarding stativity 61
Talmy Givon
Ergative morphology and transitivity gradients in Newari 89
Klaus Heger
Akkusativische, ergativische und aktivische Bezeichnung
von Aktantenfunktionen 109
Thomas Herok
Über Sinn und Bedeutung von Prädikaten 131
Michael Job
Ergativity in Lezgian 159
Georgij A. Klimov
Zur kontensiven Typologie 175
Johann Knobloch
Lokalvorstellung, Ergativ und Objektive Konjugation. . . . 191
