Review article
Miranda Levanat-Peričić
Abstract
This paper gives an outline of researches conducted by three authors we found most relevant
for description of so-called active syntactic construction.
Since it seems to be universally accepted, we start from Dixon's distinguishing split-S and
fluid-S patterns as two basic types of the split systems caused by the semantic nature of the verb.
Second part of the paper refers to the Johanna Nichols's research into global typology.
Starting from the Klimov's observation that certain features cluster together and are associated
with certain types, she has tested correlations among clause alignment, morphological marking
type, morphological complexity and word order, as well as correlations between these and the other
categories. On the big sample of the world languages she follows distribution of these language
features with an aim to find some statistically significant pattern which could confirm areal
or typological correlations between these features. Correlation chain of head-marking morphology,
lower complexity and split-S type of alignment, as well as correlation chain of dependent-marking
morphology, higher complexity and fluid-S type of alignment, we found the most stimulating for
the subject of this paper, because it confirms basic typological differences among languages with
split-S and fluid-S patterns.
Third part of the paper presents Marianne Mithun's work. Although everyone emphasizes semantic
bases of these syntactic patterns, only Mithun researches rich variety of semantic distinctions
underlying different construction. It leads her to detection of two systems: first one which is
based primarily on the lexical aspect of the verb she calls active/stative or active and the other one
which is based on the semantic features of the participants (actor and undergoer) she calls agent/
patient or agentive.
Finally, in the light of presented works, we give an conclusion mostly regarding differences
between split-S and fluid-S types of constructions. Although these constructions show certain formal
similarities, they are basically different in terms of what they grammaticalize: Dixon's split-S
and Mithun's active patterns are motivated by verbal semantics, as it grammaticalizes lexical categories
on verbs, whereas Dixon's fluid-S and Mithun's agentive are motivated by nominal semantic,
as it codes nominal semantic roles.
Keywords
ergativity; active syntactic construction; holistic approach; semantic approach
Hrčak ID:
13495
URI
Publication date:
25.9.2006.
Visits: 1.968 *