Deriving Superficial Ergativity in Nias

In this paper, I discuss the case and agreement system of Nias, a language that has been described as a marked-absolutive system by various authors (Donohue and Brown, 1999; Corbett, 2006; Cysouw, 2005; Handschuh, 2008; Wichmann, 2005). I shall argue in particular that the ergativity of this language is highly superficial in nature, showing that hypothesised marked-absolutive arguments fail to display typical subject properties. Extending the linking theory of ergativity by Manning (1994) and Manning and Sag (1999), which assumes an inverse linking pattern for transitive, I shall suggest that Nias transitives are best analysed as a Nominative-Accusative system, attributing the “ergative” split in Nias to an “inverse” linking of intransitives instead. Under this perspective, case, agreement, and word order will receive a natural explanation. 1 Case and Agreement in Nias 1.1 Case marking Nias1 distinguishes mainly two morphological cases in the nominal system: a morphologically zero-marked case, called the Ergative by some authors (Brown, 1997; Donohue and Brown, 1999), and a morphologically marked case, sometimes referred to as the Absolutive.2 Case marking of lexical NPs in Nias is effected by initial segmental alternation (Brown, 2005). With pronominals, marked case is further differentiated into Absolutive and Genitive, the latter being used in possessive constructions and with most prepositions. As depicted in table 1, Nias case marking on consonant initial lexical NPs is signalled by mutation, involving either voicing or trilling. For vowel-initial NPs, marked case is expressed by prefixation of /g/ or /n/, the choice being morphologically (not phonologically) conditioned (Brown, 2005). Case assignment in Nias (Brown, 1997; Donohue and Brown, 1999) has repeatedly been assumed to belong to the ergative type. The main evidence for this †The Nias data cited in this paper and the presentation of the basic empirical facts are based on Léa Brown’s field work on the language, published in a series of papers (Brown, 1997; Donohue and Brown, 1999; Brown, 2005), as well as documented in her University of Sydney dissertation (Brown, 2001). The analysis proposed here has been presented at the 4th Conference on Austronesian Languages and Linguistics, SOAS, London and the 16th Conference on HPSG. I would like to thank to the audiences at these tow venues for their stimulating questions and comments, in particular to Peter Sells, Peter Austin, Bill Palmer, Sebastian Nordhoff, Ileana Paul, Doug Arnold, Olivier Bonami and Ivan Sag. I am particularly indepted to Nikolaus Himmelmann for providing me with detailed comments, suggestions and criticism, and to my colleague Mats Exter for discussing the ideas proposed here already at an early stage. All remaining errors are of course mine. 1Nias is an Austronesian language spoken by over 600,000 speakers on the Barrier islands of Nias and Batu, off the Western coast of Sumatra. 2In more recent work, Brown (2001, 2005) has dropped the terms “absolutive” and “ergative” in favour of the descriptively neutral terms “mutated” and “unmutated”.