Belyaev, Oleg: Information Structure Conditions on the Agreement Controller in Dargwa
Much of
the current debate on the syntax of Dargwa is centered around the problem of
gender agreement on auxiliaries. This type of agreement is exceptional in that
it is not exclusively controlled by the absolutive argument, but can be
alternatively controlled by either subject or object in transitive clauses (like
person agreement). In this paper, I investigate discourse conditions on the
choice of agreement controller in Kubachi Dargwa, and provide some new data from
Ashti Dargwa that clarify the status of the agreement controller. I show that
while the hypothesis that the controller of gender agreement is topical is
generally correct in the case of agent agreement, it does not apply to patient
agreement, where the topicality of both core arguments is roughly equal. On the
syntactic side, agreement with the patient seems to promote it to syntactic
pivot status. This suggests an analysis along the lines of Falk (2006), treating
Dargwa as a language where core arguments can receive pivot status independently
of their grammatical function.
December 22, 2022 |
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