Anna Siewierska

From Anaphoric Pronoun to Grammatical Agreement Marker: Why Objects Don't Make It

The endpoint of the historical evolution of agreement marker from anaphoric person pronoun is the loss of referentiality on the part of the person marker and the obligatory presence of the nominal argument with which it agrees. Contrary to what might be supposed, such agreement, which I, inspired by Bresnan & Mchombo (1986, 1987), have termed grammatical, as opposed to anaphoric or ambiguous (grammatical and anaphoric) agreement, is cross-linguistically very rare. Moreover, among the attested instances of grammatical person agreement none involve object as compared to subject agreement. The present paper considers the distribution and formal realization of anaphoric, ambiguous and grammatical agreement markers in a sample of 272 languages and offers some tentative explanations for the existing asymmetry in regard to grammatical agreement. It is suggested that grammatical object agreement does not arise since ambiguous agreement, from which grammatical agreement evolves, is less common with objects than with subjects, and two of the potential sources of grammatical agreement, adherence to a verb-second constraint and phonological attrition are more likely to involve subjects rather than objects

Person agreement and the determination of alignment

The paper explores two issues arising from the extension of the notion of alignment from the domain of monotransitive to ditransitive clauses. The first is, To what extent should other than purely formal patterns of identification be taken into account in determining the ditransitive counterparts of the respective monotransitive alignments, i.e., accusative, ergative, active, etc.? The second issue is, How should conflicts between the formal criteria used in the determination of the alignment of person agreement be resolved? It is argued that only under a purely formal interpretation of alignment is it possible to discern ditransitive counterparts of all the major monotransitive alignments, and that once the notion of neutral alignment is distinguished from absence of agreement, form/order conflicts involving agreement markers can be consistently resolved in favour of phonological form.

Corpora and (the need for) other methods in a study of Lancashire dialect

Abstract This paper is based on a nascent project on Lancashire dialect grammar, which aims to describe the relevant features of this dialect and to engage with related theoretical and methodological debates. We show how corpora allow one to arrive at more precise descriptions of the data than was previously possible. But we also draw attention to the need for other methods, in particular modern elicitation tasks and attitude questionnaires developed in perceptual dialectology. Combining these methods promises to provide more insight into both more general theoretical issues and the exact nature of the object of study, namely Lancashire dialect.

A construction grammar account of possessive constructions in Lancashire dialect: some advantages and challenges

This study investigates reduction of 1SG possessives in possessive–noun constructions in Lancashire dialect. On the basis of a corpus of twenty-six interviews we show that reduction patterns according to (in)alienability. This dialectal evidence runs counter to the normal assumption about English, i.e. that there is no such effect. Following work by Haspelmath (2006b) that reinterprets iconicity effects in terms of frequency, we proceed to show that frequency may indeed underlie alienability/iconicity in our data as well. Relative frequency seems more useful in capturing the correlation with reduction than absolute frequency. For a few [1SG POSS-N] combinations the reduction facts are problematic for the frequency-based account we offer. These difficulties might seem to disappear in the light of the construction grammar notion of schemas, but we point out that this notion itself has serious theoretical problems associated with it. Future theory-driven work on dialect grammar may help resolve these issues.

On nominal and verbal person marking

The existence and nature of formal correspondences between pronominal affixes or clitics marking possessors on nouns and the person affixes or clitics marking arguments on the verb has played a r öle in elaborations ofparallels between the structure of the noun phrase and the clause, in discussions of the nature of possession, in assessing genetic and areal connections between languages, and in diachronic explanations for current alignment Systems, particularly ergative alignment. The present investigation, basedon a sample of!57 languages manifesting both types of marking, is aimedat determining whether there indeed are cross-linguistic regularities with regard to the identity ofthe verbal argument which exhibits formal affinities with thepossessor and, ifso, to what extent these regularities can be attributed to (i) semantic similarities between possessor and possessed and the transitive subject in the case of alienable possession and the object in the case of inalienable possession, (H) doser discourse-pragmatic similarities between possessors and transitive subject s than possessors and object s, and (in) the alignment of the verbal person forms. The results suggest that while there is a relationship between the alienability Opposition and possessor affinities with the transitive subject and object, contrary to previous Claims, the markers of alienable possession cannot be taken to be necessarily derivedfrom those of inalienable possession. No absolute implicational universals are identified linking the nature of possessor affinities with alignment, though a discernable preference is observed for possessor affinities with the transitive subject when verbal forms are aligned ergatively, äs has sometimes been hypothesized.

The status of frequency, schemas, and identity in Cognitive Sociolinguistics: A case study on definite article reduction

Abstract This article contributes to the nascent field of Cognitive Sociolinguistics. In particular, we are interested in how usage-based cognitive linguistics and variationist sociolinguistics may enrich each other. We first discuss some of the ways in which variationist insights have led cognitive linguists such as Gries (e.g. Multifactorial analysis in corpus linguistics: A study of particle placement, Continuum, 2003) and Grondelaers et al. (e.g. National variation in the use of er “there”. Regional and diachronic constraints on cognitive explanations, Mouton de Gruyter, 2008) to pay attention to language-external factors (such as medium, region, and register), thereby greatly enhancing the description and understanding of certain grammatical phenomena. The focus then shifts to cognitive linguistic work (by Hollmann and Siewierska, English Language and Linguistics 11: 407–424, 2007 and Clark and Trousdale, English Language and Linguistics 13: 33–55, 2009) which has implications for sociolinguistic theory. The two usage-based concepts that have proved especially relevant in this connection are frequency effects and schemas. The article explores and illustrates the role of these two factors in relation to linguistic variation by means of a new case study on definite article reduction (DAR) in Lancashire dialect, a variety spoken in the North West of England. A twofold conclusion is drawn: first, a symbiotic relation between cognitive and sociolinguistics seems possible, but second, in order for this relation to be truly mutually beneficial variationists should get involved in the Cognitive Sociolinguistic enterprise much more than is currently the case.

Suppletion in person forms: the role of iconicity and frequency

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