Source constructions as a key to alignment change

Journal of Historical Linguistics, vol. 11, pp. 248–298

Abstract

Abstract Alignment patterns in the Eastern varieties of modern Aramaic varieties are generally said to originate in an ergative source construction based on the so-called ‘passive’ participleqṭīl- ‘killed’ and the prepositionl- where ergative person markers gradually extended to all intransitive predicates. While various source constructions have been suggested, this article demonstrates that most explanatory power and scope for the complex historical background of the alignment microvariation in Neo-Aramaic is offered by the typology of resultatives. There was instability from the beginning due to the versatile nature of resultatives and the increasing polyfunctionality of the prepositionl-. This, in turn, indicates that the suggested source constructions for ergative alignment need not be mutually exclusive. Moreover, this also points to ergativity as merely one among several outcomes rather than the original source.

Authors 1

1. Paul M. Noorlander corresponding Aachen

   Leiden University · University of Cambridge

   Affiliation as printed

   Leiden University

   University of Cambridge