Antifunctionality in Shawi split ergativity, a processing analysis

TY - JOUR

T1 - Antifunctionality in Shawi split ergativity, a processing analysis

AU - Rojas-Berscia, Luis Miguel

AU - Bourdeau, Corentin

AU - Grondelaers, Stef

AU - Seuren, Pieter

PY - 2023/6

Y1 - 2023/6

N2 - In this article, as a follow-up of Rojas-Berscia and Bourdeau (2017), we study morphological ergativity in Shawi (Kawapanan) using a dedicated experimental design. Shawi displays ergative-marking in an opposite direction from Silverstein’s Nominal Hierarchy (NH) (Silverstein 1976). We claim this pattern to be antifunctional, given the lack of internal syntactic cues that explain why ergativity is omitted or completely obligatory in cases where the NH predicts the opposite. To test this hypothesis, we carried out a grammaticality judgment experiment in the field with 47 Shawi participants from four sites. We found a significant overall effect of the Antifunctional Ergativity Constraint Expectation (AECE): sentences that violated this constraint were in general deemed less acceptable. Finally, we provide a tentative hypothesis on the historical origin of this pattern, resorting to discussions on the origins of ergativity in historical syntax (Gildea 2004; Gildea and Queixalós 2010), the reconstruction of Proto-Kawapanan morphosyntax, and antifunctional patterns in language (Seuren and Hamans 2010).

AB - In this article, as a follow-up of Rojas-Berscia and Bourdeau (2017), we study morphological ergativity in Shawi (Kawapanan) using a dedicated experimental design. Shawi displays ergative-marking in an opposite direction from Silverstein’s Nominal Hierarchy (NH) (Silverstein 1976). We claim this pattern to be antifunctional, given the lack of internal syntactic cues that explain why ergativity is omitted or completely obligatory in cases where the NH predicts the opposite. To test this hypothesis, we carried out a grammaticality judgment experiment in the field with 47 Shawi participants from four sites. We found a significant overall effect of the Antifunctional Ergativity Constraint Expectation (AECE): sentences that violated this constraint were in general deemed less acceptable. Finally, we provide a tentative hypothesis on the historical origin of this pattern, resorting to discussions on the origins of ergativity in historical syntax (Gildea 2004; Gildea and Queixalós 2010), the reconstruction of Proto-Kawapanan morphosyntax, and antifunctional patterns in language (Seuren and Hamans 2010).

KW - Split Ergativity

KW - Shawi

KW - Nominal hierarchy

KW - Historical syntax

KW - Amazonian languages

U2 - 10.26512/rbla.v15i1.50748

DO - 10.26512/rbla.v15i1.50748

M3 - Article

SN - 2176-834X

VL - 15

SP - 17

EP - 55

JO - Revista Brasileira de Linguistica Antropológica

JF - Revista Brasileira de Linguistica Antropológica

ER -