In:The Acquisition of Ergativity
Edited by Edith L. Bavin and Sabine Stoll
[Trends in Language Acquisition Research 9] 2013
► pp. 15–34
Ergativity
Some recurrent themes
Bernard Comrie | Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology cand University of California Santa Barbara
Published online: 18 December 2013
https://doi.org/10.1075/tilar.9.02com
https://doi.org/10.1075/tilar.9.02com
The article examines four areas within ergativity that merit further consideration, including with respect to child language acquisition data: (1) syntactic alignment, including in particular the delimitation of semantic alignment from other kinds of alignment with lexical exceptions, and symmetric voice systems; (2) alignment splits, in particular the interpretation of exceptions to generalizations relating to animacy and definiteness; (3) syntactic alignment biases, especially the interpretation of exceptions; and (4) diachronic issues, in particular the decay of ergativity giving rise to idiosyncrasies like horizontal alignment or to conventionalized use of erstwhile ergative morphology.
Cited by (3)
Cited by three other publications
Ioannou, Georgios
Bavin, Edith L.
2018. Features of some ergative languages that impact on acquisition. In Functionalist and usage-based approaches to the study of
language [Studies in Language Companion Series, 192], ► pp. 1 ff.
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