[LAGRAM] Léa Nash (UMR7023) | Structures Formelles du Langage

avr.

2016.

14h00
16h00

UPS Pouchet

Léa Nash (UMR 7023 Paris 8 & CNRS)

Person Split is Syntactic (suite du 14 mars 2016)

Many ergative languages exhibit splits based on nominal type of main arguments. The most typical manifestation of such a split involves marking 3^rd person arguments (pronouns and full DPs) according to the ergative case-schema (ERG on transitive subjects, NOM on intransitive subjects) and 1^st and 2^nd person according to the nominative case-alignment (NOM on all subjects).

A number of questions arise with respect to this phenomenon.

Is the case-shift due to different syntactic structures underlying configurations with 3rd person arguments vs 1/2 person arguments ? Is person split a more superficial phenomenon that has no structural source? Is the ergative morphological marking incompatible with certain feature specifications of 1^st and 2^nd arguments? Can person split receive a unitary explanation in languages where it is manifested?

I explore person split in Georgian and show that it is not a morphological phenomenon. 1/2p arguments are assigned the ergative case on par with 3p arguments. However, 1/2p and 3p arguments do not share the same internal structure. While their nominal part is structured alike, 1/2p arguments include a head Pers, the locus of feature bundles which define 1^st and 2^nd persons in the grammar. Pers is a clitic in Georgian and incorporates into T. The ergative case marking appears on the nominal part of the constituent below Pers. Full personal pronouns are not the spell-out of Pers but function as demonstratives in PersP.