This paper presents the first-ever processing experiment on relativization in Avar, an ergative language with prenominal relatives. The results show no processing difference between the ergative subject gap and the absolutive object gap. The absolutive subject gap, however, is processedmuch faster. We propose a principled explanation for this result. On the one hand, Avar has a subject preferen...

Centering Theory is applied to a narrated film retelling in Kaqchikel Mayan in order to better understand discourse constraints on the form of referring expression. It is shown that Backwards Looking Centers are very often encoded by zero pronouns, and that center Shifts more often employ full pronouns and full noun phrases than do center Continues and Retains. Preverbal pronouns and full noun ...

Case in Lotha, (a Tibeto-Burman language spoken Wokha District of Nagaland) is marked by suffixes that appear to the right noun it marks. In Lotha ergative marker can combine with both nouns and pronouns, however, nominative markers only occur pronouns. has aspectual split ergativity which word class (noun vs. pronoun), aspect, tense are determining factors. The occurs mainly A argument a trans...

This paper describes a number of verbal argument marking patterns found in the world’s languages and provides HPSG analyses for them. In addition to commonly-occurring variations of morphosyntactic alignment (e.g. nominative-accusative, ergative-absolutive), this paper also presents analyses of more complex phenomena, including ergativity splits, Austronesianstyle focus-case systems, and direct...