Schedule 79. StuTS

This presentation provides an insight into the interplay of core case marking and information structure in Thadou, a Trans-Himalayan language of Northeast India. At first glance, the use of the ergative marker in Thadou seems to be more (though not entirely) obligatory than in other Trans-Himalayan languages. However, it is shown that nonetheless ergativity in Thadou behaves closer to systems of ergativity in related languages than to those found in languages with more canonical systems of ergativity based on grammatical relations. These languages exhibit what is often referred to as ‘optional ergativity’ which is guided by various factors often related to the realm of discourse-pragmatics and information structure. The occurrence of the marker in Thadou too is conditioned by discourse-pragmatic factors. In the data used, switches in referents, contrastive functions, and the marking of direct speech could be identified as the primary environments. Furthermore, it is argued that the often seemingly more obligatory system of ergativity in Thadou, and South Central languages in general, stands in indirect relationship with their shared innovation of person cross-reference on the verb, which pattern accusatively and might have reduced the environments in which free pronouns and noun phrases, which act as host for the ergative, can occur.

Info

Day: 2026-05-16
Start time: 12:10
Duration: 01:00
Room: DOR 24 1.102
Track: Syntax
Language: en

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