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Article published In: Linguistics in the Netherlands 2025
Edited by Kristel Doreleijers, Remco Knooihuizen and Eva van Lier
[Nota Bene 2:2] 2025
► pp. 289–303

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TAM splits in conditional argument indexing

 | University of Amsterdam
 | University of Amsterdam
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Available under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at rights@benjamins.nl.

Open Access publication of this article was funded through a Transformative Agreement with University of Amsterdam.

Published online: 31 October 2025
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https://doi.org/10.1075/nb.00034.wit
Abstract
A common type of split ergativity is conditioned by tense and/or aspect in that an ergative-absolutive system occurs in the past tense or perfective aspect and a nominative-accusative system occurs in the non-past tense(s) or imperfective aspect (DeLancey, Scott. 1982. Aspect, transitivity and viewpoint. In Paul J. Hopper (ed.), Tense-Aspect (Vol. 11), 167–183. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar, Payne, Thomas. 2006. Grammatical relations. In Thomas Payne (ed.), Exploring language structure, 210–236. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar). This finding, however, pertains to case marking only. Using a genetically diverse typological sample on conditional argument indexing in 83 languages (Walker, Katherine. 2024. Conditional indexing. Amsterdam: LOT dissertations series. [URL], Walker, Katherine & Eva van Lier. Under review. A cross-linguistic study of conditional argument indexing.), the present study explores if a similar tendency can be found for indexing. Within the database, 22 languages display indexing conditioned by TAM (tense, aspect, mood) factors. Across 17 languages, a clear trend regarding aspect and indexing was found: imperfective, progressive, and non-completive aspect condition a nominative-accusative system while perfective, terminative, and completive aspect condition an ergative-absolutive system. For tense and mood, however, no such clear relationship was found. For the remaining 5 languages, the TAM split applied to a specific person/number value only. We conclude that for aspect, but not for tense and mood, our findings correspond with previous literature on split-ergativity in case marking.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Data and method
  • 3.Results
  • 4.Discussion and conclusion
  • Notes
  • Abbreviations
  • References
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