Discourse Pressure, Genre and Grammatical Alignment — After Du Bois

This study adds a genre dimension to the findings of Du Bois (1987) concerning the discourse basis of grammatical patterns. Although Du Bois' and other studies have ascertained that a pressure toward ergative patterning exists even in nominative-accusative languages, I hypothesized that this pressure is a function of narrative discourse, which was the focus of those studies; and that a different genre may motivate a different grammatical alignment as new information is introduced. This study tests the hypothesis in the context of an orally-delivered paramedical training session.