Skip Nav Destination
Close Modal
Update search
NARROW
Format
Journal
Date
Availability
1-2 of 2
Rebecca Tollan
Close
Follow your search
Access your saved searches in your account
Would you like to receive an alert when new items match your search?
Sort by
Journal Articles
Publisher: Journals Gateway
Linguistic Inquiry (2022) 53 (3): 459–499.
Published: 06 July 2022
Abstract
View article
PDF
This article presents an account of syntactic ergativity based on the grammaticalization of a processing-based preference for nested as compared with crossing dependencies. We propose that ergative subject extraction restrictions arise because such movement would cross the prior Ā-movement path of the absolutive object and create an illicit crossed dependency. Our account predicts that arguments merged between the A-movement tails of the absolutive DP cannot extract, whereas arguments merged above or below them can. In developing an approach to syntactic ergativity grounded in sentence processing, we highlight the need for deeper conversation among formal, typological, and processing-driven syntax.
Journal Articles
Publisher: Journals Gateway
Linguistic Inquiry (2021) 52 (3): 640–654.
Published: 25 June 2021
Abstract
View article
PDF
This squib discusses environments in which a subject bears ergative case in the absence of an absolutive object, contrasting syntactically ergative languages (e.g., Q’anjob’al) with languages in which the ergative argument cannot be targeted for φ-agreement (e.g., Hindi-Urdu). In these environments, the parallels between Ā-movement and verb agreement with respect to the morphological accessibility hierarchy ( Bobaljik 2008 , Deal 2016 ) break down: in the absence of an absolutive object, syntactically ergative languages allow for extraction of the ergative argument, but in absolutive-only φ-agreement languages, agreement never targets the ergative argument.