Chapter published in:
Typological Hierarchies in Synchrony and Diachrony
Edited by Sonia Cristofaro and Fernando Zúñiga
[Typological Studies in Language 121] 2018
► pp. 217–256

From ergative case-marking to hierarchical agreement

A reconstruction of the argument-marking system of Reyesano (Takanan, Bolivia)

| Laboratoire Dynamique du Language (CNRS & Université Lyon 2)
This paper reconstructs the history of a set of innovated 1st and 2nd person verbal prefixes in Reyesano which manifest the phenomenon of ‘hierarchical agreement’ in transitive clauses, according to a 2>1>3 hierarchy. I argue that these prefixes come from independent ergative-absolutive pronouns which first became case-neutral enclitics in 2nd position in main clauses and then verb prefixes. And I show that the hierarchical effects that the prefixes manifest in synchrony have nothing to do with the working of a hierarchy during the grammaticalization process. In doing so, the paper contributes to the growing body of diachronic evidence against the idea that the person hierarchy is a universal of human language reflecting a more general principal of human cognition.
Published online: 26 July 2018
https://doi.org/10.1075/tsl.121.06gui
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Gildea, Spike & Joana Jansen
2018.  In Typological Hierarchies in Synchrony and Diachrony [Typological Studies in Language, 121], ► pp. 129 ff. Crossref logo

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