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The Origin of NP Split Ergativity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 March 2026

Andrew Garrett
Andrew Garrett*
Affiliation:
Harvard University and University of Texas, Austin
*
Department of Linguistics, Calhoun Hall 501 University of Texas, Austin, TX 78712-1196
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Abstract

The Anatolian branch of Indo-European is characterized by a split-ergative case-marking system in which neuters inflect ergatively and common-gender nouns inflect accusatively; its ergative case originated via the reanalysis of an unproductive neuter instrumental marker in null-subject transitive clauses. A development from instrumental to ergative also occurred in the prehistory of the Gorokan languages of Papua New Guinea, and it is suggested that this process is a general mechanism for the development of split ergativity of this type. The well-known NP hierarchy discovered by Silverstein receives a natural interpretation as a hierarchy of instrumentality.

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Type
Research Article
Information
Language , Volume 66 , Issue 2 , June 1990 , pp. 261 - 296
Copyright
Copyright © 1990 by Linguistic Society of America

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Footnotes

*

Parts of the work reported here were presented at the December 1987 LSA meeting in San Francisco, at the April 1988 Conference on the Theory and Practice of Historical Linguistics in Chicago, and at Harvard and Yale Universities and the University of Texas, Austin; I would like to thank audience members for their comments. I am also very grateful to Harry Hoffner for the opportunity to consult the Chicago Hittite Dictionary's lexical files, and for generous assistance and numerous references and suggestions I am indebted to John Haiman, Mark Hale, Craig Melchert, Sally Thomason, Calvert Watkins, Jeffrey Wills, and two anonymous referees. Remaining infelicities are of course my own. All cited personal communications date from 1988 or 1989.

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