In:Variations on Polysynthesis: The Eskaleut languages
Edited by Marc-Antoine Mahieu and Nicole Tersis
[Typological Studies in Language 86] 2009
► pp. 185–200
Tracking topics
A comparison of topic in Aleut and Greenlandic discourse
Published online: 8 April 2009
https://doi.org/10.1075/tsl.86.12tra
https://doi.org/10.1075/tsl.86.12tra
This paper presents some preliminary thoughts on comparative discourse structure between Greenlandic and Aleut. Greenlandic is a typical ergative–absolutive language, with coindexing of participants on the verb and typical patterns of information flow which allow topic tracking across clauses (as described in Berge 1997). In Aleut, however, topics are not tracked via case marking on nouns or pronominal inflection on verbs. Instead, Aleut uses a combination of anaphoric marking, passive constructions, and underspecificity in texts which is quite unique in the Eskimo–Aleut language family.
Keywords: Aleut, discourse structure, Greenlandic, topic tracking
Cited by (2)
Cited by two other publications
Berge, Anna
2016. Chapter 11. Insubordination in Aleut. In Insubordination [Typological Studies in Language, 115], ► pp. 283 ff.
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