Hostname: page-component-77f85d65b8-v2srd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-04-21T04:52:05.384Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

On ergativity in Bumthang

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2026

Cathryn Donohue  and
Mark Donohue
Cathryn Donohue*
Affiliation:
The University of Hong Kong and The Australian National University
Mark Donohue*
Affiliation:
The Australian National University
*
[cdonohue@gmail.com], [mark@donohue.cc]
[cdonohue@gmail.com], [mark@donohue.cc]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This report investigates the uses of the ergative case marker in transitive clauses in Bumthang, a language of Central Bhutan. We discuss the conditions under which the ergative is required and show that a simple analysis involving multiple influences models the data. Previous studies have shown that variable case marking may be determined by syntactic, semantic, or pragmatic factors, but in Bumthang we see that ALL of these factors play a role in determining the use of the ergative case marker. We hope that our analysis will prove useful for understanding the variable uses of the ergative case marker in Himalayan and other languages as well as providing interesting challenges for formal models of case marking.

Keywords

variable case markingergative casedifferential subject markinginformation structureBumthangBhutanTibeto-Burman

Information

Type
Short Report
Information
Language , Volume 92 , Issue 1 , March 2016 , pp. 179 - 188
Copyright
Copyright © 2016 Linguistic Society of America

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Chelliah, Shobhana, and Hyslop, Gwendolyn (eds.) 2011. Special issue on optional case marking in Tibeto-Burman. Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area 34. 2.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Comrie, Bernard. 1978. Ergativity. Syntactic typology: Studies in the phenomenology of language, ed. by Lehmann, Winfred P., 329–94. Austin: University of Texas Press.Google Scholar
DeLancey, Scott. 1981. An interpretation of split ergativity and related patterns. Language 57. 629–57. DOI: 10.2307/414343.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dixon, R. Μ. W. 1979. Ergativity. Language 55. 59–138. DOI: 10.2307/412519.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dixon, R. Μ. W. 1994. Ergativity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Donohue, Cathryn. 2004. Morphology matters: Case licensing in Basque. Stanford, CA: Stanford University dissertation.Google Scholar
Donohue, Mark. 2008. Semantic alignment systems: What’s what, and what’s not. In Donohue & Wichmann, 24–75.Google Scholar
Donohue, Mark, and Wichmann, Søren. 2008. Semantic alignment: Typological and descriptive studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Du Bois, John W. 1987. The discourse basis of ergativity. Language 63. 805–55. DOI: 10.2307/415719.Google Scholar
Hyslop, Gwendolyn. 2010. Kurtöp case: The pragmatic ergative and beyond. Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area 33.1.1–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
LaPolla, Randy J. 1995. ‘Ergative’ marking in Tibeto-Burman. New horizons in Tibeto-Burman morphosyntax (Senri ethnological studies 41), ed. by Nishi, Yoshio, Matisoff, James, and Nagano, Yasuhiko, 189–228. Osaka: National Museum of Ethnology.Google Scholar
McGregor, William В. 2009. Typology of ergativity. Language and Linguistics Compass 3. 1. 480–508. DOI: 10.1111/j.1749-818X.2008.00118.x.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McGregor, William В. 2010. Optional ergative case marking systems in a typological-semiotic perspective. Lingua 120. 1610–36. DOI: 10.1016/j.lingua.2009.05.010.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mohanan, Tara. 1994. Argument structure in Hindi. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.Google Scholar
Silverstein, Michael. 1976. Hierarchy of features and ergativity. Grammatical categories in Australian languages, ed. by Dixon, R. M. W., 112–71. Canberra: Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies.Google Scholar
Tournadre, Nicolas. 1991. The rhetorical use of the Tibetan ergative. Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area 14. 1. 93–107. Online: http://sealang.net/sala/archives/pdf8/tournadre1991rhetorical.pdf.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
van Driem, George. 1995. Een eerste grammaticale verkenning van het Bumthang, een taal van Midden-Bhutan—met een overzicht van de talen en volkeren van Bhutan [A first grammatical exploration of Bumthang, a language of central Bhutan, with a summary of the languages and peoples of Bhutan]. Leiden: Centrum voor Niet-Westerse Studiën.Google Scholar
van Driem, George. 2015. Synoptic grammar of the Bumthang language. Himalayan Linguistics Archive 6. 1–77. Online: http://escholarship.org/uc/item/6h50n7v5, accessed 12/14/2015.Google Scholar