Grammatical Relations: The Evidence Against Their Necessity and Universality

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Grammatical Relations : The Evidence against Their Necessity and Universality Theoretical Linguistics (Routledge (Firm)) Shankara Bhat, D. N. Taylor & Francis Routledge 9780203413654 9780585447445 English Grammar, Comparative and general, South Asia-Languages--Grammar. 1991 P151.S47 1991eb 415 Grammar, Comparative and general, South Asia-Languages--Grammar.

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Page i Editorial Statement Theoretical Linguistics Chief Editor Professor John Hawkins, University of Southern California Consultant Editors Professor Joseph Aoun, University of Southern California Professor Bernard Comrie, University of Southern California Dr Teun Hoekstra, University of Leiden Dr Richard Hudson, University of College London Professor James Hurford, University of Edinburgh Professor Douglas Pulleybank, University of Ottowa This series does not specialize in any one area of language study, nor does it limit itself to any one theoretical approach. Synchronic and diachronic descriptive studies, either syntactic, semantic, phonological or morphological, are welcomed, as are more theoretical ‘model-building’ studies, and studies in sociolinguistics or psycholinguistics. The criterion for a work’s acceptance is the quality of its contribution to the relevant field. All texts published advance our understanding of the nature of language in areas of substantial interest to major sectors of the linguistic research community. Traditional scholarly standards, such as clarity of presentation, factual and logical soundness of argumentation and a thorough and reasoned orientation to other relevant work, are also required.

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Page ii Other titles in this series: QUESTIONS OF INTONATION Gillian Brown, Karen L.Currie and Joanne Kenworthy THE SEMANTICS OF DETERMINERS Edited by Johan Van der Auwera BINDING AND FILTERING Edited by Frank W.Heny THIRTY MILLION THEORIES OF GRAMMAR James D.McCawley COMPLEMENTATION IN MIDDLE ENGLISH AND THE METHODOLOGY OF HISTORICAL SYNTAX Anthony R.Warner THE DEVELOPMENT OF WORD ORDER PATTERNS IN OLD ENGLISH Marian C.Bean THE SEMANTICS OF THE MODAL AUXILIARIES Jennifer Coates ANAPHORA AND SEMANTIC INTERPRETATION Tanya Reinhart WORD MEANING AND BELIEF S.G.Pulman HIERARCHIES, TARGETS AND CONTROLLERS: AGREEMENT PATTERNS IN SLAVIC Greville G.Corbett CAUSALITY IN LINGUISTIC THEORY Esa Itkonen THE PASSIVE: A COMPARATIVE LINGUISTIC ANALYSIS Anna Siewierska DEPENDENCY AND NON-LINEAR PHONOLOGY Edited by Jacques Durand BASQUE PHONOLOGY José Ignacio Hualde BASIC WORD ORDER: FUNCTIONAL PRINCIPLES Russell S.Tomlin ANAPHORIC RELATIONS IN ENGLISH AND FRENCH Francis Cornish THE ENGLISH IMPERATIVE Eirlys Davies STYLISTICS AND PSYCHOLOGY: INVESTIGATIONS OF FOREGROUNDING Willie Van Peer ALLOMORPHY IN INFLEXION Andrew Carstairs UNIVERSAL GRAMMAR: 15 ESSAYS Edward L.Keenan THE SYNTAX OF COORDINATION R.R.Van Oirsouw WELSH SYNTAX: A GOVERNMENT-BINDING APPROACH Louisa Sadler EXISTENTIAL SENTENCES: THEIR STRUCTURE AND MEANING Michael Lumsden WORD ORDER RULES Anna Siewierska CONTEXT AND PRESUPPOSITION Rob A.van der Sandt THE PHONOLOGY-MORPHOLOGY INTERFACE Jolanta Szpyra ACCESSING NOUN-PHRASE ANTECEDENTS Mira Ariel OLD HITTITE SENTENCE STRUCTURE Silvia Luraghi

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Page iii Grammatical Relations Grammatical relations and the closely related notion of transitivity are central to almost all models of linguistic theory. If languages are discovered in which neither of these play such a role it will be necessary to reconsider some of the most basic assumptions of these theories. This book examines in detail the grammars of two different Indian languages, Kannada and Manipuri, and shows that grammatical relations are neither necessary nor universal. Languages such as English seem to require grammatical relations like subject and object. Professor Bhat argues that this is due to the fact that the representations of semantic and pragmatic relations in these languages are not distinct. In Kannada they are distinct, and for this reason Kannada does not need grammatical relations when its clause structure is described. Having disposed of the claim that grammatical relations are necessary, Professor Bhat then turns to their universality. It has been argued that even though such relations are not needed in all languages, the basis of these relations—transitivity—can be used in all languages to describe clause structures. Professor Bhat argues that in the case of Manipuri, it is not transitivity but volitionality that plays a central role in the structuring of clauses. In consequence, transitivity cannot adequately describe the language, and grammatical relations cannot even be postulated as abstract entities. The importance of grammatical relations in linguistic theory makes this provocative hypothesis of interest to all linguistic theorists. Many theorists will find their approach addressed, as Professor Bhat has examined grammatical relations from the point of view of several linguistic theories. In addition, logicians and philosophers will find fascinating a re-interpretation of the concept of ‘subject’, and scholars working on Indian languages will find invaluable the new examinations of the two languages which form the core of this study. D.N.S.Bhat is a Professor and UGC Research Scientist at the Central Institute of Indian Languages, Mysore, India. His publications include Sound Change, Pronominalization, Referents of Noun Phrases, Identification, and An Introduction to Linguistics.

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Page v Grammatical Relations The evidence against their necessity and universality D.N.S.Bhat

London and New York

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Page vi First published 1991 by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2003. Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge a division of Routledge, Chapman and Hall, Inc. 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 © 1991 D.N.S.Bhat All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Bhat, D.N.S. (Darbhe Narayana Shankara) Grammatical relations: the evidence against their necessity and universality.—(Theoretical linguistics). 1. Languages. Grammar I. Title II. Series 415 Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Shankara Bhat, D.N. Grammatical relations: the evidence against their necessity and universality/D.N.S.Bhat. p. cm.—(Theoretical linguistics) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Grammar, Comparative and general. 2. South Asia—Languages— Grammar. I. Title. II. Series: Theoretical linguistics P151.S47 1991 415–dc20 90–24329 ISBN 0-203-41365-2 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0-203-31571-5 (OEB Format) ISBN 0-415-06323-X (Print Edition)

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Page vii Contents Preface List of abbreviations 1 Introduction 1.1 Contemporary position 1.2 Two questions 1.3 The need for grammatical relations 1.4 The primacy of transitivity 1.5 Two appendices Part I Evidence against the necessity of grammatical relations 2 The need for grammatical relations 2.1 Differentiating between semantic and pragmatic relations 2.2 Establishment of grammatical relations 2.3 Excluding pragmatic factors 3 Semantics and pragmatics in Kannada 3.1 Preliminaries 3.2 Representation of semantic relations 3.3 Representation of pragmatic relations 3.4 Semantically constrained processes 3.5 Pragmatically constrained processes 3.6 Conclusion Part II Evidence against the universality of grammatical relations 4 Universality of grammatical relations 4.1 Preliminaries 4.2 The notion of transitivity 4.3 Kinds of intransitive and transitive bases 4.4 The notion of verb phrase and of external argument

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6 Appendix 1 Appendix 2

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Transitivity and volitionality in Manipuri 5.1 Preliminaries 5.2 The use of case suffixes 5.3 Changing the relative order of arguments 5.4 Conflicts between transitivity and volitionality 5.5 Evidence against an obligatory external argument Theoretical implications Dative noun phrases as underlying subjects in Kannada Grammatical relations in Malayalam References Index

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Page ix Preface The present study is part of the research work that I have been carrying out as a Research Scientist of the University Grants Commission. It is actually a ‘secondary output’, as my main project has been the writing of ‘An Introduction to Indian Grammars’ in the form of a series of monographs. I had prepared the first monograph entitled Grammatical Relations in Indian Languages as a Fellow of the Central Institute of Indian Languages, Mysore, in 1988; the second one on Wh-Words was completed in 1989, and the third one on Adjectives is nearly complete. While working on the first monograph, I came up with the idea that there would be a need to postulate grammatical relations as abstract entities (for linking form with meaning) only in the case of languages like English in which the representations of semantic and pragmatic relations are not kept distinct, but are combined together in a rather complex fashion. I tried to evaluate this idea through an examination of the various grammars and grammar-related studies of Indian languages. My conclusion was that there would be no need to postulate grammatical relations in the case of at least some of these languages, such as Kannada and Manipuri. Even in the case of others, like those of the Indo-Aryan family, I argued that the use of semantic notions rather than purely grammatical ones might turn out to be superior as had been shown by Panini, the famous grammarian of Sanskrit. The present work is an in-depth examination of the necessity and universality of grammatical relations; it has been based upon a detailed study of two of the Indian languages, namely Kannada and Manipuri. The former language provides convincing evidence against the necessity of these entities, whereas the latter languages provide equally convincing evidence against their universality. The latter also provides the basis for a claim that the notion of transitivity does not play the expected central role in all languages.

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Page x I am grateful to R.M.W.Dixon for suggesting me the general structure for this monograph, to Dwight Bolinger, E.Annamalai and the two publisher’s reviewers, M.H.Klaiman and an unnamed scholar, for their very valuable suggestions for improving this monograph, and to my friend M.S.Ningomba for the most interesting data on Manipuri. D.N.S.Bhat

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Page xi Abbreviations A controller argument of a transitive sentence abs absolutive acc accusative adv adverbial asso associative ben benefactive dat dative dur durative emph emphatic erg ergative F feminine fut future GB Government and Binding gen genitive imp imperative inf infinitive instr instrumental loc locative M masculine N neuter nom nominative non-fut non-future NP noun phrase O affected argument of a transitive sentence perf perfect pl plural pp past participle proh prohibitive PTV Primary Transitive Verb pur purposive

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question particle reciprocal reflexive relative particle relative participle sentence; single core argument of an intransitive S singular spatial suffixes verb phrase first, second, third (person)

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Page 1 1 Introduction 1.1 CONTEMPORARY POSITION Grammatical relations like subject, direct object and indirect object are regarded, either overtly or covertly, as language universal entities by most of the contemporary linguistic theorists (see Dixon 1979, Chomsky 1981, Bresnan 1982a, Perlmutter 1983, Gazdar et al. 1985). Even the few who do not consider them to be language universals do claim that the notion of transitivity or transference which forms the basis of the notion of grammatical relations, plays the central role in the clause structure of all languages. For example, the postulation of the three core arguments, symbolized as S, A and O (or P), as language universal entities, represents such a claim (see Comrie 1981, Foley and Van Valin 1984, Andrews 1985). Grammatical relations are generally postulated as intermediary ‘abstract’ entities whose primary function is to relate semantic roles like agent, patient, experiencer, etc. with their formal representations like case markers (nominative, accusative, dative, etc.) or distinct positions in the sentence. Such intermediary entities are considered to be necessary because the linkage between semantic roles and their formal representations (case roles) has been found to be too complex to state otherwise in most of the familiar languages. It has also been found that the postulation of such intermediary entities is helpful in providing explicit and economical descriptions of the various morphosyntactic processes that occur in these languages. Grammatical relations are also found to be helpful in establishing cross-linguistic generalizations. For example, according to Bresnan (1982b:5), individual languages differ in the ways in which these universal grammatical relations (which she calls grammatical ‘functions’) are encoded; configurational languages like English use constituent structure positions, whereas non-configurational languages like

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Page 2 Malayalam use morphological case features. The use of universal concepts like subject and direct object, according to her, helps us easily to visualize the commonness between such varied uses of formal devices (see also Perlmutter (1983) for a similar opinion). 1.2 TWO QUESTIONS There are two important questions that we might ask in connection with this postulation of grammatical relations as abstract intermediary entities: 1 Are they really necessary for describing the clause structure of all languages? If they are not, why have they become necessary in many of our familiar languages? 2 Is it possible to make use of them while describing the clause structure of all languages (in order to make cross-linguistic generalizations or in order to establish a Universal Grammar) even if they are not actually needed in some of them? That is, does the notion of transitivity, which forms the basis of these grammatical relations, play the central role in all languages, such that the latter notions can be established in all of them without any difficulty? My answers to both these major questions are in the negative. In the first part of this monograph, I point out that there are languages like Kannada which do not need any intermediary entities for describing their clause structure; and in the second part, I point out that there are languages like Manipuri (and also Kannada) in which the notion of transitivity does not play the expected central role. 1.3 THE NEED FOR GRAMMATICAL RELATIONS The crucial point that I will be trying to establish in the first part is that the need to establish grammatical relations as intermediary entities arises in languages like English mainly because the representations of two distinct types of sentential relations, namely semantic and pragmatic, have been mixed together and ‘grammaticalized’ in these languages (see 2.1 and 2.2). For example, English uses the preverbal position for encoding semantic relations like agent, patient, instrument, etc. (in different types of sentences) and also for encoding the pragmatic relation of being the sentential topic. Because of this combined encoding of the two, the actual relationship between form and meaning has become rather complex in the case of semantic relations in this language. Linguists have therefore found it useful to establish

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Page 3 grammatical relations as intermediary entities for describing this relationship. Whereas languages like Kannada use distinct sets of devices for encoding semantic and pragmatic relations, and hence the relationship between form and meaning in either of these two cases is simple and direct. In Kannada, for example, case suffixes and postpositions are used for encoding semantic relations, whereas word order is used for encoding pragmatic relations (see 3.2 and 3.3). There is, therefore, no need to establish any intermediary entities for describing these relationships. In fact, the postulation of such entities would only make the description unnecessarily complex. Languages like English, which jointly encode semantic and pragmatic relations, have been found to use a single set of rules and principles for their various morphosyntactic processes, whereas the ones like Kannada which encode them differently have been found to possess two distinct sets of morphosyntactic processes (of semantic and pragmatic relevance) which use two different sets of rules and principles. It has been found convenient, in the case of the former type of languages, to use grammatical relations for describing the various morphosyntactic processes, whereas in the latter case, such abstract entities are completely unhelpful; one can, rather, use the semantic and pragmatic factors themselves for this prupose (see 3.4 and 3.5). Linguists have generally found it convenient to exclude aspects of pragmatics from their theories of grammar, but in the case of languages like English (called ‘configurational languages’), they have not been able to exclude all the aspects of pragmatics from their theories. This is because some of the aspects of pragmatics, like the sentential topic, have got fused with semantic aspects in these languages as a result of their joint encoding with the latter as mentioned above. Whereas in languages like Kannada (called ‘nonconfigurational languages’) linguists have been able to exclude all the aspects of pragmatics, because these are encoded separately from semantic aspects. This has, however, given rise to certain distortions in the current formulations of linguistic theories, as seen, for example, in the postulation of configurationality for the ‘deep structure’ representation of semantic relations in non-configurational languages in spite of the fact that configurationality is not used overtly by them for this purpose (see 2.3 and also 4.4.1). I also point out in this second chapter that the two major types of case-marking systems that have been generaly recognized by contemporary scholars, namely accusative and ergative, actually represent two different ways in which languages can combine together the encoding of semantic and pragmatic relations (see 2.3.2). However, such systems do

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Page 4 not include languages like Kannada, in which the two are encoded distinctly. In order to illustrate these various claims regarding the necessity (or otherwise) of grammatical relations, I present a detailed description of Kannada clause structure in the third chapter. 1.4 THE PRIMACY OF TRANSITIVITY In the second part of this monograph, I try to show that the notion of transitivity or transference, which forms the basis for the postulation of grammatical relations or of other related concepts like S, A and O, does not play the expected central role in all languages. As pointed out by Hopper and Thompson (1980), transference is only one of several components that co-vary; there are contexts in which two or more of these components (like transference and volitionality) may conflict with one another. My contention is that in such contexts, languages differ from one another in resolving the conflict in favor of one or the other of these components (see 4.2). For example, Kannada resolves such conflicts in favor of volitionality and not transference. Hence, we can only regard volitionality to be playing the central role in Kannada. Secondly, attempts to analyze the single argument of non-volitional verbs as underlying objects (4.3.1) and of certain psychological predicates as underlying subjects (4.3.2) are in conflict with the actual situation as it exists in Kannada. This is also true of the attempt to regard the so-called ‘active’ languages as having a ‘split-S’ system (4.3.3). The failure of such attempts can be regarded as resulting from the fact that the notion of transference does not play a central role in these languages. Whereas the notion of ‘external’ argument (Williams 1984) is shown to be basically a pragmatic notion. It has actually no place in theta-theory. Languages may differentiate between sentences which externalize one of their arguments, on the one hand, and ones which do not on the other hand; this distinction corresponds to the one made by some logicians between categorical and thetic judgements (4.4). In order to illustrate some of these claims about the notion of transitivity and external argument, I present a detailed description of Manipuri clause structure in the fifth chapter. 1.5 TWO APPENDICES There have been two different recent attempts to justify the postulation of grammatical relations in Dravidian languages, both of which are of

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Page 5 direct relevance to this study. They are (a) by Sridhar (1976, 1979), who argues that the dative noun phrases occurring in certain predicates of mental and physical states are to be regarded as underlying subjects in Kannada; and (b) by Mohanan (1982), who argues that the thematic (semantic) roles and case features are to be linked through the intermediacy of grammatical relations in Malayalam (a language which is closely related to Kannada). I propose to examine these two claims in the appendices which immediately follow the second part of this monograph. My contention is that neither of these claims can be regarded as tenable.

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Page 7 Part I Evidence against the necessity of grammatical relations

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Page 9 2 The need for grammatical relations 2.1 DIFFERENTIATING BETWEEN SEMANTIC AND PRAGMATIC RELATIONS Sentences can generally be analyzed as consisting of a set of arguments (noun phrases) and a predicate. There are some exceptions to this general rule in some languages, such as the equational sentences of Kannada, in which there is no predicate, or the ‘weather’ sentences of the same language in which there is no argument (see 3.2.1). The arguments occurring in a sentence have to represent two main types of relations called ‘semantic’ relations and ‘pragmatic’ relations, of which the former relate the arguments with the predicate and the latter with the speech context. Semantic relations deal with the basic ‘conceptual’ meaning of a given sentence. Their number and type is determined by the kind of predicate that occurs in the sentence, or rather by the kind of event or state that the predicate denotes. For example, the verb give would generally require three different semantic relations, namely the giver (agent), the receiver (recipient) and the object given (patient), whereas the verb cry would require only one: the person who cries (agent). Pragmatic relations, on the other hand, deal with an entirely different type of meaning: namely, the way in which these different arguments are related to other arguments that occur in the speech context (for example, the ones occurring in the preceding sentences) and also with the participants themselves of the speech act, such as the speaker and the addressee. This latter type of relation is regarded as dealing with the organization or ‘packaging’ of the arguments concerned (Foley and Van Valin 1984). For example, a given argument may have to refer to an individual or object that is already being talked about in the speech context or to one that is being newly introduced into the conversation; it may have to refer to an individual that needs to be

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Page 10 specifically emphasized or to one that may be left in the background; and so on. The difference between these two types of relations can be seen clearly in the following set of Kannada sentences: (1a) avanu nanage ondu pustaka he-nom me-dat one book-acc gave ‘He gave me a book’ (1b) aː pustakavannu avanu nanage that book-acc he-nom me-dat gave ‘He gave that book to me’ (1c) nanage avanu ondu pustaka me-dat he-nom one book-acc gave ‘He gave me a book’ (1d) avanu nanage ondu pustaka he-nom me-dat gave-it one book-acc ‘It is a book that he gave me’ All these sentences contain the same set of three semantic relations, namely the agent (avanu ‘he’), recipient (nanage ‘to me’) and patient (pustaka ‘book’); they are represented by the same set of case markers in these sentences: the nominative (unmarked), dative (ge) and accusative (annu) respectively. (Notice that the accusative marker is overt, in the case of inanimate nouns, only when the noun is immediately followed by a word or particle other than the verb (as in (1b)) or when it is being emphasized.) However, the four sentences (1a–d) are different from one another in the kind of pragmatic relations that get associated with their arguments; for example, the topic of the sentence (i.e. the argument which connects the sentence with the speech context) is avanu ‘he’ in (1a), pustaka ‘ book’ in (1b) and nanage ‘to me’ in (1c); the whole sentence, exclusive of the argument pustaka ‘book’ is the topic in (1d); in this latter case, the excluded argument receives special emphasis through a syntactic process called ‘clefting’, and functions as the focus. Languages may use two distinct sets of grammatical devices for denoting these semantic and pragmatic relations as seen in the above-mentioned sentences of Kannada, or they may mix them up in different ways and use, mostly, the same set of grammatical devices for denoting both of them. Since the former situation would lead to greater clarity in a speech act, one would normally expect it to be the preferred one, and the latter to be the ‘marked’ one. However, linguists have generally considered the latter situation to be the most common (and ‘unmarked’) one among natural languages. For example, Givón (1984) finds most languages to be shying away from double-marking a nominal argument for semantic and pragmatic

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Page 11 relations; Andrews (1985:63) considers it difficult to provide a coherent account of how the semantic and pragmatic functions are signaled in terms of a direct connection between coding features and the functions they express. The question that I wish to raise here, especially in view of what I have said above, is whether this generalization is factual or whether it has arisen from the language background (or ‘bias’) of the linguists who have produced the grammatical descriptions of the concerned languages. I think this latter point deserves to be examined carefully. Since I consider this distinction between semantic and pragmatic relations to be crucial for an appreciation of the arguments that I am going to put forth in this monograph, I will try to illustrate below the abovementioned two-fold approach of languages to the representations of semantic and pragmatic relations by contrasting English, which combines the two, with Kannada, which keeps them apart. 2.1.1 Agent and topic In the case of transitive sentences, English generally uses the preverbal position for denoting the agent and for differentiating it from the patient, which it denotes by placing the relevant argument in the postverbal position; but in addition to this, it also uses the same preverbal position for denoting the topic of the sentence as well. Example: (2a) Bill praised the man. (2b) The man praised Bill. Notice that the shifting of the noun phrase the man to the preverbal position (as in (2b)) not only has the effect of making that noun phrase function as the topic (i.e. instead of Bill) but also the additional effect of changing its semantic relation from being the patient as in (2a) to that of being the agent as in (2b). Because of this double use of the preverbal position, English has to use a grammatical device called ‘passivization’ in order to bring the patient to the position of the topic (i.e. while maintaining its semantic relation of being the patient unaffected by the change). Example: (3a) The man was praised (by Bill). (3b) Bill was praised (by the man). Notice that the patient of (2a) (the man) has been shifted to the topic position in (3a) through passivization, whereas that of (2b) (Bill) has been shifted in (3b) through the use of the same device. By contrast, in Kannada the representations of these two types of relations are kept distinct. The two semantic relations, agent and

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Page 12 patient, are denoted by the case markers nominative and accusative respectively, and the pragmatic relation of topic is denoted by the sentence-initial position. Examples: (4a) hari raːjuvannu Hari-nom Raju-acc praised ‘Hari praised Raju’ (4b) raːjuvannu hari Raju-acc Hari-nom praised ‘Raju was praised by Hari’ The topic is Hari in (4a) and Raju in (4b); this pragmatic difference is represented in these sentences by simply changing the order of the two arguments; their case markers remain unchanged and the verb also remains unchanged. Because of this differentiation between the representations of semantic and pragmatic relations, Kannada does not have to use any special device like passivization in order to bring the patient to the topic position, as can be seen in (4b). In fact, the spoken varieties of Kannada do not make use of any ‘personal passive’ construction; they use only an ‘impersonal’ passive construction (see p. 48), whose function is only to suppress the identity of the agent. A personal passive construction, involving changes in the case markings of the agent and the patient, does occur in the written form of Kannada, but the language does not use this construction for denoting pragmatic relations as in English, but instead, for denoting certain changes in the semantic relations that the arguments represent, and these changes directly correspond to the case-marker changes that the arguments undergo in this construction. Further, one can have either the agent or the patient occurring as the topic (i.e. as the sentence-initial argument) even in these personal passive constructions, as shown below (Nadkarni 1981): (5a) hariyinda raːju Hari-instr Raju-nom praised-passive ‘Hari praised Raju’ (5b) raːju hariyinda Raju-nom Hari-instr praised-passive ‘Raju was praised by Hari’ Notice that the shifting of the patient Raju to the topic position in (5b) has been achieved not by passivization as in English, but by word-order change; (5a) and (5b) are both in the passive. 2.1.2 Subjectization English has other types of constructions that can be used for ‘subjectizing’ (i.e. for bringing to the preverbal position) other semantic

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Page 13 roles like the instrument, location, cause, etc., in order to make them the topic of the sentences concerned (see Partee 1965, Fillmore 1968). Examples: (6) The key opened the door. (7) The wind toppled the tree. (8) The garden is swarming with bees. By contrast in Kannada, any such argument can be brought to the topic (sentence-initial) position without making any changes in the case marking of the argument concerned. Examples: (9a) avanu kiːyinda baːgilu tereda he-nom key-instr door-acc opened ‘He opened the door with the key’ (9b) kiːyinda (avanu) baːgilu tereda key-instr (he-nom) door-acc opened ‘He opened the door with the key’ (with key as the topic) Notice, however, that there is some additional meaning difference between (9b) and (6) which has apparently resulted from the fact that in (9b) the agent is not completely suppressed even if the noun phrase concerned (avanu ‘he’) has been left out of the sentence. This is because the personal marker a ‘third masculine singular’ occurring in the verbal form tereda ‘opened’ denotes that argument. Kannada uses the impersonal passive construction, which has a neutral verb, for denoting a meaning that corresponds to (6). Example: (9c) kiːyinda baːgilu tereyalaːyitu key-instr door-acc opened-pur-became ‘The key opened the door’ Notice further, that the non-agents are rarely used in the nominative in transitive (action) sentences in Kannada. Exceptions to this rule are mainly seen in literary or poetic usage, but even here a certain amount of personification would generally be implied by the use of the nominative case. Example: (10a) maravannu wind-nom tree-acc toppled ‘The wind toppled the tree’ (10b) mara wind-dat tree-nom toppled ‘The wind toppled the tree’ The point to be noted here is that in all these cases Kannada maintains the distinction between the representations of semantic and pragmatic relations, whereas English combines them together in various ways.

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Page 14 2.1.3 NP-raising In the case of complex sentences, English has to make use of a grammatical device called NP-raising in order to shift the argument of the complement clause into the preverbal (topic) position of the matrix clause. Example: (11a) It appears that John has left. (11b) John appears to have left. English allows only the preverbal (nominative) noun phrase of the complement clause to be shifted in this fashion. In order to shift other arguments (like the direct object) into this position, English has to first of all shift them into the nominative position through passivization. Example: (12a) Bill is expected to beat Harry. (12b) *Harry is expected Bill to beat. (12c) Harry is expected to be beaten by Bill. In Kannada the situation is rather different. The complement precedes the matrix sentence, and hence there is no need to shift any of the arguments of the former in order to make them function as the topic. However, there does occur the reverse situation in Kannada: namely, the need to shift the arguments of the matrix clause to the sentence-initial position (i.e. to the precomplement position) in order to make them assume the function of the topic. But the language allows these arguments to be shifted freely without making any changes in their case marking. Example: (13a) raːju bandaddannu naːnu harige Raju-nom came-it-acc I-nom Hari-dat informed ‘I informed Hari of Raju’s arrival’ (13b) naːnu raːju bandaddannu harige I-nom Raju-nom came-it-acc Hari-dat informed (13c) harige raːju bandaddannu naːnu Hari-dat Raju-nom came-it-acc I-nom informed ‘I informed Hari of Raju’s arrival’ The topic is Raju’s arrival in (13a) but in (13b) it is naːnu ‘I’ and in (13c) it is Hari. This freedom to shift any of the arguments of the matrix clause to the topic position in Kannada apparently results from the fact that case marking and word order are used for different purposes in this language. 2.1.4 Shifts in case marking Another striking difference between English and Kannada, which reflects, once again, the different ways in which the two languages

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Page 15 represent semantic and pragmatic relations, is that in the former case the shifting of a noun phrase from one case form (or sentence position) to another is not generally correlatable with any specific difference in their denotation of semantic relations, whereas in Kannada most of the shifts in case forms are directly correlatable with specific semantic differences. In English, for example, there are several grammatical processes like passivization, subjectization of the instrument, cause or location, dative shift, NP-raising, etc., which involve changes in case marking or the use of prepositions in that language, but these are considered to have no direct effect upon the semantic relations that are being denoted by the relevant noun phrases. The shifts are generally considered to be ‘grammatical’ in nature. In Kannada, by contrast, comparable shifts in case marking, for example between dative and nominative, dative and accusative, locative (or instrumental) and accusative, etc., do have clearly specifiable and correlatable semantic connotations (see 3.2.3 below for details). As I will be pointing out in detail in the next chapter (see 3.2 and 3.3), there are several other aspects of grammar that can be given in support of my contention that the representations of semantic and pragmatic relations are kept distinct in Kannada. My purpose in specifying some of these instances here is (a) to show how Kannada differs from English on this point, and (b) to illustrate the distinction between semantic and pragmatic relations. In the next section, I will be showing how these two types of relations differ from what has been termed as ‘grammatical’ relations. 2.2 ESTABLISHMENT OF GRAMMATICAL RELATIONS As we have seen in the previous section, arguments (noun phrases) of sentences are required to express two main types of relations, called ‘semantic’ and ‘pragmatic’. The former relate them with the predicate and the latter with the arguments of preceding sentences and also the participants of the speech act itself. There is no need as such to denote or make use of a third set of relations as far as this process of communication is concerned. But grammarians do find it convenient to postulate a third set, called ‘grammatical relations’, while describing some languages. The need for this postulation is also grammatical, as I will be pointing out below. In the case of languages which combine together the representations of semantic and pragmatic relations, the formal aspects like case marking and word order are not always directly correlatable either with the semantic or with the pragmatic relations. In English, for example,

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Page 16 the preverbal position is used for denoting several different combinations of semantic and pragmatic relations, such as the agent and topic as in active transitive sentences, the agent and patient (or recipient) as in passive sentences, and so on. It may even be used for denoting a dummy element, as, for example, in certain existential sentences like the following: (14a) The book is on the table. (14b) There is a book on the table. The preverbal position has been used in (14a) for denoting an argument (the book) which is both the topic as well as the theme; whereas in (14b), that position has been filled by a dummy element (there) because the corresponding argument (a book), being indefinite, can only be the theme but not the topic. This obliteration of direct linkage between the representations of semantic and pragmatic relations on the one hand and the relations themselves on the other, can be regarded as ‘grammaticalization’ of those representations. Languages may differ from one another in showing different degrees of grammaticalization, depending upon the amount of ‘opaqueness’ that has affected the representations in them. Even in English, the opaqueness is not absolute. There do occur some instances in which the above-mentioned relationship is transparent. For example, the preverbal position of the noun phrase can generally be correlated with the notion of the topic; notice, however, that in sentences like (14b), it does not denote that notion. Because of this absence of direct linkage between form and meaning in the case of semantic and pragmatic relations, and also because of the general absence of distinctiveness in the representations of these two types of relations, English and other similar languages are unable to make use of these relations by themselves for controlling (or constraining) the various morphological and syntactic processes that occur in them. They have been actually found to develop a set of grammatical ‘pivots’ for this purpose (Foley and Van Valin 1984). However, in languages like Kannada, in which the two types of representations are highly transparent (because they are generally kept apart, and are not grammaticalized either as in English), the relations themselves are able to function as the controllers of the various morphological and syntactic processes occurring in them. That is, depending upon whether a given process is of semantic or pragmatic relevance, it would be controlled by a semantic or pragmatic factor (relation) respectively. This interesting difference between English and Kannada concerning the control of syntactic processes can be illustrated with the help of the

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Page 17 following two processes of deletion of which the first one (co-referential deletion) is of pragmatic relevance and the second one (deletion in the passive) is of semantic relevance. 2.2.1 Co-referential deletion In English, the noun phrase which is affected by co-referential deletion in co-ordinated sentences is the one which occurs in the preverbal position and has control over verb agreement (Comrie 1981:106): (15a) The stick hit the pot and broke into two. (15b) The pot was hit by the stick and broke into two. As pointed out by Comrie (1981), the former sentence (15a) can only mean that the stick broke into two, whereas the latter one (15b) can only imply that the pot broke into two. The co-referentiality in the corresponding sentences of Kannada is determined by a pragmatic relation, namely the topic, which is the sentence-initial entity in this language, but is not necessarily the one which occurs in the nominative and controls verb agreement. The latter two processes are controlled by semantic factors. Example: (15c) koːlu taːgi aːyitu stick-nom pot-dat hit-pp two piece became ‘The stick hit the pot and (the stick) broke into two’ (15d) koːlu taːgi aːyitu pot-dat stick-nom hit-pp two piece became ‘The stick hit the pot and (the pot) broke into two’ Notice that the deletion in the second clause is controlled by the sentence-initial argument in both these sentences (koːlu ‘stick’ in (15c) and ‘pot’ in (15d)), which is in the nominative in (15c) but in the dative in (15d). 2.2.2 Deletion in the passive Kannada uses an impersonal passive construction whose function is a semantic one, namely the suppression of the agent from a given sentence. In this construction, the agent is obligatorily deleted, and further, the agreement marker occurring in the finite verb is neutralized, i.e. changed uniformly into the third neuter singular form. Example: (16a) raːju aː kareda Raju-nom that boy-acc called (III M sg) ‘Raju called that boy’ (16b) aː kareyalaːyitu that boy-acc called-became (III N sg) ‘That boy was called’

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Page 18 English uses the passive construction in situations of the above type in order to suppress the agent, as can be seen from the glosses given in (16a) and (16b). But there is an interesting difference between these two languages. The constraint for deletion, in the case of English, is that the relevant noun phrase must be a preverbal one (i.e. one which controls verbal agreement) in an active transitive sentence. That is, the controlling argument is the same as the one which occurred in the process of co-referential deletion described earlier, except for some additional conditions (such as the need for the sentence to be active and transitive). By contrast, in Kannada, the constraint is semantic in this case and not pragmatic as in the previous case. The deletion in an impersonal passive construction can occur only if the argument under consideration has ‘control’ over the event or state denoted by the predicate. This point can be exemplified with the help of the following two pairs of sentences: (17a) avaru paːrkinalli they-nom park-loc sang (III MF pl) ‘They sang in the park’ (17b) paːrkinalli park-loc sing-became (III N sg) ‘Singing was done in the park’ (18a) avaru paːrkinalli sattaru they-nom park-loc died (III MF pl) ‘They died in the park’ (18b) *paːrkinalli saːyalaːyitu park-loc die-became (III N sg) The impersonal passive in (17b) is acceptable because the deleted argument avaru ‘they’ can have control over the event, namely singing, whereas in (18b) the construction is unacceptable because the corresponding argument has no such control over the event, namely dying. Kannada differs from English on other points in forming this impersonal passive construction, such as that the process can be used in the case of intransitive sentences as well; but the point to be noted here is that the controller is the same in both these types of deletions in English (preverbal noun phrase) in spite of the fact that they are of pragmatic and semantic relevance respectively, whereas in Kannada, the controller is pragmatic (topic) in the former case and semantic (an argument that controls the action) in the latter case. 2.2.3 Other differences I will be describing, in the next chapter, several other processes of Kannada grammar in order to support my claim that the processes fall into two distinct groups depending upon whether they are of semantic or

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Page 19 pragmatic relevance (see 3.4 and 3.5). English shows an entirely different situation in this regard, as it uses the same set of controllers in both these types of processes. Since this set cannot be identified either with the set of semantic relations or of pragmatic relations, there is clearly a need to postulate a third set called ‘grammatical relations’ (like subject and direct object) in order to describe these processes in an explicit and economical fashion in that language. 2.3 EXCLUDING PRAGMATIC FACTORS I have argued in the previous section that the grammatical relations are only of grammatical relevance even in the case of languages in which they have been considered to be necessary for providing an adequate description (see also Andrews 1985:97). They would not be necessary in the case of all languages. The question as to whether a given language would require them or not for its description can therefore be answered only on the basis of a careful study of the ways in which the language represents the various semantic and pragmatic relations and constrains (or controls) the various morphological and syntactic processes that are connected with those relations. I wish to examine, in this connection, the failure of some of the contemporary theorists to give proper importance to these particular aspects of language in their study of related topics. My claim is that the disputes that have arisen in the case of these topics have resulted directly from such a failure. 2.3.1 Configurationality Consider, for example, the dispute concerning the distinction between the so-called ‘configurational’ and ‘non-configurational’ languages in the contemporary generative approaches to language. It has been claimed that the familiar languages like English are configurational in the sense that their sentence structure can be expressed in configurational terms, i.e. in terms of precedence and dominance. For example, the structure of a sentence like John ate the fruit can be described with the help of a tree-structure (as in the diagram on p. 20) in which the first NP precedes the VP (and both are dominated by the S-node) and the second NP follows the V and is dominated by the VP. It has also been suggested that the various grammatical processes occurring in these configurational languages can be described in configurational terms, as seen in the use of notions like empty categories, NP-movement, WH-movement, trace, etc. in the grammars of English.

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Page 20 This has made it possible to do away with grammatical relations in the sense that they can be reduced to configurational positions, with subject being regarded as [NP, S] (a noun phrase which is directly dominated by S) and direct object as [NP, VP] (a noun phrase which is directly dominated by VP).

However, the so-called ‘non-configurational’ languages like Warlpiri (Hale 1983), Japanese (Farmer 1984), Malayalam (Mohanan 1982), etc. have been rather problematic to these theorists because they appear to go against the general conclusion that the above-mentioned ‘configurational’ approach can be used in the case of all natural languages. Hale (1983) has found, for example, that in Warlpiri (an Australian language), the word order is ‘free’ and the structure of sentences is ‘flat’ rather than hierarchical. The three major elements (NP, V, NP) corresponding to those of the tree-diagram given above, can occur in all possible orders in that language. We cannot therefore define grammatical relations in terms of configurational notions in these languages. Nor can we use notions like empty category, trace, movement, etc. that have been based upon those notions for describing the syntactic processes of these languages. Are we to conclude from this that the rules and principles that are needed for describing the grammar of configurational languages are entirely different from the ones that are needed for describing the grammar of non-configurational languages? This would be an undesirable conclusion because it would go against the generally accepted conception of language acquisition, namely that the child is genetically endowed with a universal set of rules and principles that it uses for developing the rules and principles of a specific language as it is being exposed to the utterances of that language. Hale’s (1983) solution to this problem is to assume that the lexical structure is configurational in both these types of languages with the difference, however, that this configurationality is mirrored in the sentence structure (‘Phrase Structure’) only in the case of configurational languages like English but not in that of non-configurational languages like Warlpiri. That is, he considers the hierarchic dimension of sentence structure to be basically a lexical matter, as evidenced by the

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Page 21 fact that the constituency of sentences is predictable, to a large extent, from the sub-categorizational properties of their verbs (or of noun phrases from those of their head nouns). He also considers it possible to assume that the configurational type constitutes the ‘marked’ member of the configurational—nonconfigurational opposition (Hale 1983:37). However, the general assumption in the theory of Government and Binding is that the s-structure (i.e. the ‘syntactic’ as against the semantic or phonological structure) of both these types of languages is quite similar and that the diversity in the surface word order results through the application of a ‘scrambling rule’ in the derivation of phonological structure from s-structure. This assumption allows the theorists to claim that the s-structures of non-configurational languages are subject to the same conditions and rules as the sstructures of configurational languages (Van Riemsdijk and Williams 1986:322). I wish to point out in this connection that both these approaches to configurationality have generally failed to enquire into the possibility that the characteristic, in the case of languages like English, has developed as a result of the fact that the languages concerned have combined together and grammaticalized the representations of semantic and pragmatic relations, as I have pointed out above. If we can concede this possibility, then the failure of that characteristic to occur in languages like Warlpiri can be explained as resulting from the fact that these latter languages do not combine together and grammaticalize the relevant representations. Notice that the discussions of configurationality, or even of grammars in general, usually set aside pragmatic notions like topic, focus, sentence cohesion, etc. and confine themselves to the study of semantic and grammatical relations (see Mohanan 1982, Gazdar et al. 1985:7, Siewierska 1988:5). Hale (1983:6, fn. 3) concedes, for example, that the Warlpiri word order, even though ‘free’, does influence the ‘interpretation of sentences’, and the role of word order in this latter function is still in need of investigation. It is true that such exclusions of some of the aspects of the topic under study are quite common in scientific studies; they form part of the process of ‘idealization’ (see Bhat 1986) which is necessary for making our ideas about a given topic more explicit and less confusing. But while undertaking this idealization, we must take care that we do not set aside factors that are of direct relevance for our study (see Chomsky 1979:57). My claim is that, in the present situation, the pragmatic factors that have been generally set aside are of this nature. Notice that in the case of configurational languages like English, some of the aspects of pragmatics, such as the representation of topic, have

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Page 22 been combined together with those of semantics, and this combined representation has been further grammaticalized, as I have pointed out above. Because of this grammaticalization, we are forced to include at least some of these aspects of pragmatics in our study of their grammars. By contrast, in the case of non-configurational languages like Kannada, all the aspects of pragmatics can be excluded from our study of their grammars because the representation of pragmatic factors is kept distinct from that of semantic factors. As a result, our comparison of these two types of grammars (i.e. the ones with only some pragmatic factors excluded from them and the others with all pragmatic factors excluded from them) can only provide a distorted view of the actual situation. For example, it has been suggested by de Vries that the notion of topic can be differentiated from that of subject by assuming that the former represents the contextual perspective from which the discourse is organized, while the latter (subject) determines the perspective from which the state of affairs expressed in the predicate is presented (see Siewierska 1988:108). But such a differentiation between two kinds of perspectives (pragmatic factors) would be necessary (or even possible) only in the case of configurational languages like English, in which the representations of some of the aspects of this perspective (the ‘sentential’ ones) are indistinguishable from those of semantic factors. It would not be necessary (or possible) in the case of languages in which the representations of all pragmatic factors are kept distinct from those of semantic factors. Consider, for example, the problem concerning the syntactic process called ‘Pro-Drop’ (which involves the ‘free’ dropping of the subject noun phrase from a given sentence). This process has been found to occur in some languages only but not in others. Chomsky (1981:240) tries to account for its occurrence in languages like Italian and its non-occurrence in others like English and French on the basis of the fact that in the former case there is agreement occurring as part of the verbal inflection which can form the basis of the recovery of the deleted subject, and can therefore function as the controller for the relevant ‘empty’ category. He suggests that in languages that possess a mixed system, permitting subject-drop in some constructions but not others, we might expect to find the inflection to be correspondingly overt in some but not overt in others (Chomsky 1981:241). In Kannada, however, the nominative noun phrase can be left unspecified even in the case of nominalized sentences (such as the ones occurring in clefted sentences) in which the verb fails to show any agreement (see 3.3.2). Further, we also have languages like Manipuri in

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Page 23 which any given noun phrase can be ‘freely’ dropped, in spite of the fact that the finite verb does not show any subject agreement (see 5.1). It appears to me, however, that this process of Pro-Drop is ‘free’ in these languages only in the sense that it cannot be predicted on the basis of any of the aspects of sentence structure. It is not free from the point of view of contextual factors that include the preceding sentences as well, because its occurrence can be predicted on the basis of these latter factors. Since the sentential and extra-sentential pragmatic factors are not differentiated from one another in these latter type of languages, they appear to be exceptions to certain conclusions that have been arrived at on the basis of languages that do make use of such a distinction. The notion of ‘free’ word order is also apparently of this nature. In Kannada, for example, word order is free only in the sense that it is not used for representing semantic relations like agent and patient. It is not free from the point of view of pragmatic relations. There are several constraints which control word order in Kannada, such as sentential cohesion, topicality, definiteness, focus, co-reference, etc., as I will be describing in detail in the next chapter. Since some of these very same factors have been included in the grammars of configurational languages like English (because of the fact that they are practically inseparable from semantic factors), their complete exclusion from the grammar of Kannada has the effect of providing us with a distorted view of that language. It has been suggested, for example, that the surface structure of sentences in these ‘free’ word order languages can be derived through the application of certain ‘scrambling rules’ or rules of ‘random assignment’ of grammatical relations (Chomsky 1981). This suggestion has apparently derived from the assumption that the various possible orders of words do not play any role in the grammars of these languages (and that they do not convey any ‘meaning’ difference) in view of the fact that the pragmatic relations that they represent have been set aside as of no relevance to grammar or ‘semantics’. However, as pointed out by Tirumalesh (1979), this process of ‘scrambling’ achieves more or less the same communicative effect in Kannada as the ‘movement’ rules of English, namely the denotation of focus, presupposition, anaphora, scope of quantifiers, etc. The crucial difference between the two is that the movement affects several aspects of sentence structure such as case marking, denotation of grammatical relations, auxiliary system of the verb and so on, whereas scrambling leaves all these aspects of sentence structure unchanged. That is, we can regard movement as a ‘grammaticalized’ variety of scrambling.

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Page 24 1 Consider, for example, the passive movement rule of English. It can be used for topicalizing the indirect object, as seen in the following sentences: (19a) They gave the fruit to Mary. (19b) Mary was given the fruit by them. Kannada uses its scrambling rule for this purpose, as shown below: (19c) avaru siːtege ondu they-nom Site-dat one fruit-acc gave ‘They gave a fruit to Site’ (19d) siːtege avaru ondu Site-dat they-nom one fruit-acc gave ‘Site was given a fruit by them’ Notice that the process of passivization (a movement rule) which has affected (19b) involves a change in verbal agreement in addition to word-order change, whereas the process of scrambling, which has affected (19d), involves only a word-order change. 2 The passive movement rule also has the effect of changing the entailment of a given sentence in English, as shown by the following pair of sentences: (20a) Birds build nests. (20b) Nests are built by birds. These two sentences differ from one another in that the latter is in passive voice; (20a) does not entail that birds are responsible for all nests; (20b) entails it. Similar entailment difference occurs in the following pair of Kannada sentences also, which formally differ, however, only in the relative order of their two noun phrases; i.e. the two sentences involve scrambling only and not movement (Tirumalesh 1979:323): (20c) birds-nom nest-acc build ‘Birds build nests’ (20d) nests-acc birds-nom build ‘Nests are built by birds’ 3 When the subject of a sentence is indefinite, English uses a movement rule in order to shift it to a noninitial (non-topic) position because the topic needs to be a definite noun phrase; it also introduces there as a dummy subject, as seen below: (21a) The tiger is inside the house. (21b) There is a tiger inside the house.

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Page 25 In a corresponding situation in Kannada, there is only a need to use the scrambling rule which involves the shift of the relevant indefinite noun phrase to a non-initial (non-topic) position; there is no need to make any other changes in the sentence. Example (Tirumalesh 1979): (21c) huli ide tiger-nom house-inside is ‘The tiger is inside the house’ (21d) ondu huli ide house-inside one tiger-nom is ‘There is a tiger inside the house’ 4 As we have seen in the previous section (see 2.2.1), English needs to use the passive movement rule in order to carry out the co-referential deletion of a noun phrase other than the subject in the second clause of a co-ordinated sentence; whereas Kannada needs to use only its scrambling rule for this purpose. These and other examples (like the NP-raising rule of English; see 2.1.3) appear to indicate that the movement rules of English are correctable with the scrambling rules of Kannada except for the fact that the former involve grammaticalization, which, as I have argued earlier, is the result of the combining together of the representations of semantic and pragmatic relations in the former language. An adequate description of Kannada grammar (i.e. one which can be properly compared with the currently available descriptions of English grammar) would therefore have to correlate these different aspects of scrambling with the relevant pragmatic factors. The question as to whether an additional set of abstract ‘movement’ rules will have to be postulated for the s-structure or lexical structure of Kannada sentences can be properly answered only on the basis of such a description. 2.3.2 Kinds of grammaticalizations: accusative and ergative systems The second topic that I wish to examine here concerns the distinction between ‘accusative’ and ‘ergative’ systems of case marking and verbal agreement. Linguists have generally regarded this distinction as providing a basis for classifying natural languages into three main types depending upon the fact as to whether they show (a) an accusative system, (b) an ergative system, or (c) a system that combines the two in one of the several possible ways (a ‘mixed’ or ‘split’ system). My claim in this connection is that this accusative-ergative distinction concerns only languages like English which combine together and grammaticalize the representations of semantic and pragmatic relations and not others like Kannada which keep them apart (see 2.1). The

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Page 26 distinction actually represents two (or three, if we include the split system) predominant ways in which such combinations and grammaticalizations can take place in natural languages. I will try to support this claim by showing that the efforts of some linguists to extend this classification to languages of the latter type have been unsuccessful. In order to provide an explicit description of the distinction between accusative and ergative systems, linguists have found it convenient to use three main ‘core’ concepts, which are generally symbolized as S, A and O; of these, S represents the single obligatory argument of intransitive sentences, whereas A and O represent the two obligatory arguments of transitive sentences of which the former (A) is typically the controller of actions and the latter (O) is typically the affected argument (see Dixon 1979, Comrie 1981, Andrews 1985). Examples: (22a) The dog died. S (22b) The man hit the child. A O Some scholars prefer to use the symbol P in place of O, (see Comrie 1981), but in this monograph, I have consistently used O, even while referring to the statements of these latter scholars. Following Dixon (1979), the distinction between accusative and ergative systems can be described as follows: Accusative system Ergative system nominative

A S

ergative

accusative O absolutive Both these systems can be illustrated with the help of Hindi sentences, as shown below, because both of them occur complementarily in that language. That is, Hindi has a ‘split’ system, in which the accusative grouping occurs in sentences containing an imperfective verb and the ergative grouping occurs in sentences containing a perfective verb. (This statement, however, is an extremely simplified one about the Hindi split system; the actual situation is rather complex as described, for example, by Pandharipande and Kachru 1977, Klaiman 1987). Accusative system (imperfective verb) (23a) raam sootaa hai Ram (M sg) sleeps is (M sg) ‘Ram sleeps’ (23b) raam kitaab hai Ram (M sg) book (F sg) reads is (M sg) ‘Ram reads the book’

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Page 27 Ergative system (perfective verb) (23c) raam sooyaa Ram (M sg) slept (M sg) ‘Ram slept’ (23d) raam nee kitaab Ram (M sg) erg book (F sg) read (F sg) ‘Ram read the book’ Notice that the verbal agreement, in the case of sentences with an imperfective verb (23a–b), is with raam (M sg) in both intransitive (23a) as well as transitive (23b) sentences, whereas in the case of sentences with a perfective verb (23c–d), it is with raam (M sg) in the intransitive sentence (23c) and with kitaab ‘book’ (F sg) in the transitive sentence (23d). That is, the grouping is S with A (accusative system) in the former case, and S with O (ergative system) in the latter case. This usage of Hindi can be contrasted with that of English, in which Ram occurs uniformly in the preverbal position and controls verbal agreement in all the four sentences given above, as seen in the glosses of (23a– d); that is, English has the accusative grouping in all the four sentences. Languages may use exclusively either the ergative system as in Dyirbal (an Australian language—see Dixon 1979), or the accusative system as in English, or they may use both of them side by side as in Hindi. In the latter case, different criteria may be used for conditioning the occurrence of these systems, such as: (a) the tense or aspect of the verb as in the Hindi examples given above; (b) the nature of the noun phrase involved (their person (first to third), humanness, animacy, etc., with the ergative system being preferred for noun phrases that are on the positive side of the hierarchy); (c) the nature of the verbal stem (the degree of its transitivity, whether active or inactive, etc., with the ergative system being preferred for sentences that are more transitive than others), and so on. These criteria also provide the basis for grouping languages of this third type into different kinds of ‘split’ systems. Some of these languages have also been found to use the specific grouping of core arguments that they have chosen for controlling some or all of the grammatical processes that occur in them. In Dyirbal, for example, the ergative grouping controls its various syntactic processes like co-ordination, relativization, passive formation (it has an ‘anti-passive’ construction instead of the passive), etc., whereas in English, the corresponding processes are controlled by the accusative grouping. The contrast between these two languages in this regard can be illustrated with the help of the following sentences of Dyirbal (24a) and of English (24b), as pointed out by Dixon (1987):

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Page 28 (24a) marri Jani-ngu bura-n nyina-nyu Mary (abs) (O) John (erg) (A) see (non-fut) sit-down (non-fut) (24b) John saw Mary and sat down. The Dyirbal sentence (24a) can only mean ‘John saw Mary and Mary sat down’, whereas the corresponding English sentence (24b) can only mean ‘John saw Mary and John sat down’. The deletion is controlled by the ergative grouping (O with S) in the former case, and by the accusative grouping (A with S) in the latter case. Dixon (1987) notes, however, that the use of the ergative grouping for the control of syntactic processes occurs ‘only in a handful’ of languages. Generally, the grouping is restricted to morphological processes like case marking and verbal agreement. In Hindi, for example, the various syntactic processes like reflexivization, equi-NP deletion, conjunction reduction, etc. are controlled by the accusative grouping in all the tenses and aspects. If we regard these accusative, ergative and split systems as representing different ways in which languages combine together the representations of semantic and pragmatic relations, as I have suggested above, then the fact that the use of such groupings are extended to the sphere of controlling syntactic processes only in some of these languages can be explained as resulting from the fact that the languages concerned show different degrees of grammaticalization. That is, in those languages in which there is the greatest degree of grammaticalization, the grouping would be controlling the syntactic processes as well, whereas in others, it would have its influence upon certain morphological processes only. Keenan (1976, 1987) has pointed out that there are several semantic factors that can be given as justifications for either of these two groupings. Most importantly, the accusative grouping of S NPs with A NPs can be supported by their sharing of several agent-related properties, such as being the controller of events, having a referent with an independent status, etc., whereas the ergative grouping of S NPs with O NPs can be supported by their sharing of several patient-related properties, such as being the entities that are affected by the events, having the referent (or meaning) determined by the verb (boundedness to the verb), etc. However, in both these types of groupings, semantic justification can be provided only in the case of the ‘typical’ instances of the core arguments; they would not be available in the case of extensions of these groupings to non-typical instances. For example, the single argument of transitive sentences (symbolized as S) represents an agent-like argument in the case of some verbs like run, cry, play, swim, etc. and a patientlike argument in the case of others like die, shine, burn, begin, fall, etc. The

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Page 29 accusative grouping can be justified semantically in the former case, but its extension to the latter types of verbs cannot be justified in that fashion. Similarly, the ergative grouping can be justified semantically in the case of the latter type of verbs, but its extension to the former type cannot be justified in that fashion. And it is the occurrence of this extension in both these types of groupings that needs to be justified, and my claim that it results from the combining together of the representations of semantic and pragmatic relations in these languages provides such a justification or at least an explanation. 2.3.3 Initial and non-initial subjects The attempts of Relational Grammarians (Perlmutter 1978, Perlmutter and Postal 1984) to provide a somewhat different type of explanation for the above-mentioned situation has also been unsuccessful because they too have failed to recognize the connection between the extension of the groupings (accusative or ergative) to cover all intransitive verbs on the one hand and the combining together of the representations of semantic and pragmatic relations on the other. Proponents of this theory of Relational Grammar consider grammatical relations to be unanalyzable primitives in this theory of Relational Grammar. A given nominal can, however, bear different grammatical relations at different syntactic levels (or strata) through advancement (in the same clause), ascension (from an embedded clause to the matrix clause) or demotion (for example, from subject to direct object) (see Harris 1981). Variations existing among languages in their representations of grammatical relations are generally regarded as resulting from the occurrence of one or more of these changes. Thus the distinction between two types of intransitive bases, occurring in some languages but not in others, is accounted for on the basis of the postulation of distinct initial grammatical relations. Intransitive verbs of inactive type, like burn, fall, shine, etc., are regarded as belonging to a class called ‘unaccusatives’ and the ones of active type, like walk, play, swim, etc., as belonging to a class called ‘unergatives’. The former are considered to take only a direct object but not a subject in the initial stratum, whereas the latter are considered to take only a subject but not a direct object in that stratum. In the former case, however, the initial direct object may ‘advance’ to the position of the subject in a later stratum. The establishment of such a distinction between initial and non-initial grammatical relations, however, has actually provided a somewhat

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Page 30 different meaning to the term ‘grammatical relations’ in this theory. For example, Perlmutter and Postal (1984:97) suggest that one can have a ‘Universal Alignment Hypothesis’ such as the one given below: There exist principles of universal grammar which predict the initial relation borne by each nominal in a given clause from the meaning of the clause. Planket and McKeever (1986) suggest the following tentative predictions regarding this relationship between initial grammatical relations and semantic roles: Initial subject: agent, experiencer, cognizer. Initial direct object: patient, stimuli. Initial indirect object: recipient, addressee. That is, this postulation of the notion of ‘initial grammatical relations’ is, in effect, an attempt to establish a small set of abstract ‘semantic’ relations that can be correlated with the ‘grammatical’ relations, while keeping the pragmatic relations separated from them. Whereas the notion of ‘non-initial’ grammatical relations is able to take care of these latter (pragmatic) relations in this theory. It is evident that an effort of this nature would be quite successful in the case of languages like Kannada which keep the representations of these two types of relations apart, but the question to be answered here is whether it would be successful in the case of languages like English which combine together and grammaticalize the two in various ways. An answer to this question has been provided by Rosen (1984), who questions the correctness of the abovementioned Universal Alignment Hypothesis (see also Perlmutter 1984) on the basis of the fact that in the case of some of the languages examined by her there is disparity between semantic relations and initial grammatical relations. For example, intransitive predicates denoting processes whose domain is an animate body, such as ‘snore’, ‘sleep’, ‘hiccough’, ‘sneeze’, etc., are generally considered to take an initial subject, but some of them have been found to behave differently in different languages: the verb ‘blush’ in Italian and Dutch, and the verbs ‘sneeze’ and ‘think’ in Eastern Pomo, take an initial direct object rather than a subject (Rosen 1984:65–6). Thus the establishment of an initial grammatical relation (i.e. one which controls the relevant syntactic processes) cannot, according to her, be determined exhaustively on the basis of semantic factors in these languages. (This conclusion, however, has been questioned by Van Valin (MS) on the basis of the fact that the semantic class of a verb cannot be based solely on the inflectional case marking of its subject).

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Page 31 Even if the above-mentioned piece of evidence provided by Rosen (1984) is acceptable, it could only indicate that the occurrence of a particular set of syntactic processes (i.e. the ones that have been assigned to an ‘initial’ grammatical relation) is not statable in terms of any specific semantic relation in the case of the above-mentioned languages. This can only form the basis of the claim that the establishment of grammatical relations as distinct from semantic and pragmatic relations at one or more levels of syntax is necessary in the case of these specific languages. It should not prevent the remaining languages from having their syntactic processes being stated in terms of semantic and pragmatic relations only, without resorting to any additional (and irrelevant) grammatical relations (see DeLancy 1985).

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Page 32 3 Semantics and pragmatics in Kannada 3.1 PRELIMINARIES I have argued in the previous chapter that there do occur languages like Kannada in which (a) the representations of semantic and pragmatic relations are kept distinct, and, because of this, (b) the semantic and pragmatic relations themselves are used for controlling the various grammatical processes that occur in the language, depending on whether they are of semantic or pragmatic relevance respectively. There is no need therefore to establish a separate set of abstract entities called ‘grammatical relations’ in these languages either for relating form to meaning, or for having a set of entities that can function as the controllers or ‘pivots’ of grammatical processes. In support of this contention, I propose to examine the structure of Kannada in detail in the present chapter. I will be pointing out below how the semantic and pragmatic relations are represented by distinct devices in this language and how the grammatical processes fall into two distinct groups, and are controlled directly by semantic and pragmatic relations. Kannada is a Dravidian language spoken by about 27 million persons (according to the 1981 census) primarily in the state of Karnataka, India. It has extensive literature dating back to about the eighth century A.D. It is currently being used as the medium of administration, education and of other forms of communication in the state of Karnataka. I have used the standard, written variety of this language as the basis of my present analysis (see Bhat 1978), but being a speaker of one of the coastal dialects of Kannada (called the ‘Havyaka’ dialect), some of my illustrations may show influences of the coastal dialects. When my examples are clearly dialectal, however, I have specifically noted that point.

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Page 33 Kannada uses its case markers (consisting of two case suffixes and a few postpositions) for representing semantic relations and the relative order of arguments, stress, and also certain lexical markers for denoting pragmatic relations. These two aspects of language are kept distinct from one another and because of this, it is quite possible to deal with them separately, as I propose to do in the following two sections (3.2 and 3.3). 3.2 REPRESENTATION OF SEMANTIC RELATIONS There are three different case forms: namely, the nominative, the accusative and the dative, of which the first one is unmarked, and the remaining two are marked by the suffixes annu and ge respectively. (The latter has ke as an alternant.) Examples: Nominative unmarked raːju Accusative annu raːjuvannu Dative ge raːjuvige In addition to these three case forms, Kannada also has a few postpositions, such as the locative alli, instrumental inda and associative These are added to the genitive forms of the relevant noun phrases. The traditional grammars (and also the more recent ones) do not make any distinction of this nature between case suffixes and postpositions (apparently due to their use of Sanskrit grammar as their model), but the following paradigm indicates the correctness of this distinction: Noun Gloss Accusative Genitive Instrumental mara ‘tree’ maravannu marada maradinda ‘forest’ kaːdannu kaːdina kaːdininda ‘two’ eradannu eradara eradarinda tudi ‘top’ tudiyannu tudiya tudiyinda The distinction is also of syntactic relevance in that the essential or ‘core’ arguments are generally denoted by case forms containing one of these suffixes (or by the unmarked form), whereas the ones containing postpositions are generally used for denoting the non-essential or peripheral arguments. In order to understand properly the way in which these case forms can be directly correlated with semantic relations in Kannada, it is necessary to have a general understanding of the structure of its sentences. The following is a brief introduction to this topic.

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Page 34 3.2.1 Structure of sentences As I have pointed out in the previous chapter (see 2.3.2), linguists generally consider it possible to describe the structure of the major sentences of natural languages with the help of three distinct ‘core’ arguments, which are generally symbolized as S, A and O. They generally base this claim on the assumption that the verbs in all natural languages can be divided into two major classes, namely intransitives and transitives, of which the former have S as their core argument and the latter have A and O. I will be arguing, in the second part of this monograph, however, that this assumption is mistaken; my argument will be based upon the fact that the notion of ‘transference’ (i.e. the transfer of the effect of an action from one participant to another), which forms the basis of this transitive-intransitive distinction, does not play a central role in all natural languages. There are at least some languages in which some other distinction, like the volitional-non-volitional one, plays the central role instead, and in such languages, one would need a different set of ‘core’ arguments for describing the sentence structure. Kannada is one such ‘exceptional’ language. The major division of its verbs is into action and non-action predicates, both of which can be either transitive or intransitive. The core arguments that need to be established for describing these verbs are (a) actor, (b) undergoer, and (c) experiencer and not S, A and O. Actually, the sentences of Kannada fall into two main groups, namely verbal and non-verbal, of which the latter generally have a nominal element as their predicate; however, if meaning distinctions connected with time, aspect and mood are to be indicated, the latter can take the ‘helper’ verb iru ‘to be’, either alone or with the past participial form of aːgu ‘to become’. Examples: Verbal predicates (1) raːju manege hoːda Raju-nom house-dat went ‘Raju went home’ (2) naːnu avanannu I-nom him-acc pushed ‘I pushed him’ Non-verbal predicates (3) aː that worm-dat two heads (are) ‘That worm has two heads’ (4) aː mara that tree-nom big-become-pp-is ‘That tree is big’

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Page 35 As I mentioned earlier, the verbal predicates can be divided into two major groups: namely, action predicates and non-action predicates. The former may have as their core arguments (i) an actor only, (ii) an actor and an undergoer, or (iii) an actor and an experiencer. The actor occurs in the nominative (unmarked) case form, whereas the undergoer and the experiencer occur in the accusative (annu) and the dative (ge) case forms respectively. Examples: Group (i): actor only (5) raːju Raju-nom ran ‘Raju ran’ (6) hakki haːruttade bird-nom flies ‘The bird flies’ Group (ii): actor+undergoer (7) naːnu avanannu karede I-nom him-acc called ‘I called him’ (8) avanu ondu pustaka bareda he-nom one book-acc wrote ‘He wrote a book’ When the undergoer refers to an inanimate entity (especially an indefinite one), the relevant noun phrase may have a ‘zero’ marking instead of annu, as in (8), but this marking (covert accusative) needs to be distinguished from the ‘unmarked’ nominative because in the former case the noun phrase would take the marker overtly when it is emphasized or shifted to a position other than the one immediately to the left of the verb; it also differs from the nominative in not having the verb agree with it for person, gender and number. Examples: (8a) aː pustakavannu avanu bareda that book-acc he-nom wrote ‘That book was written by him’ (8b) avanu ondu pustakavannuː bareda he-nom one book-acc-too wrote ‘He wrote a book also’ Group (iii): actor+experiencer (9) naːnu avanige namaskariside I-nom him-dat saluted ‘I saluted him’ (10) raːju harige buddhi Raju-nom Hari-dat advice said ‘Raju advised Hari’ The non-action predicates may have as the core argument an undergoer only (group iv), an experiencer only (group v) or an

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Page 36 undergoer as well as an experiencer (group vi). The undergoer is left unmarked (nominative) in both (iv) and (vi), whereas the experiencer is marked by the dative case suffix in both (v) and (vi). It is also possible for a non-action predicate (like miñcu ‘to have lightning’ and ‘to thunder’) to have no core arguments in the sentence structure (group vii). Examples: Group (iv): undergoer only (11) pot-nom broke ‘The pot broke’ (12) raːju satta Raju-nom died ‘Raju died’ Group (v): experiencer only (13) avanige samśayavaːyitu him-dat doubt-became ‘He doubted’ (14) raːjuvige dukkha bantu Raju-dat sadness came ‘Raju became sad’ Group (vi): undergoer+experiencer (15) avanige pustaka sikkitu him-dat book-nom got ‘He got the book’ (16) avanige sangiːta him-dat music-nom like-became ‘He liked music’ Group (vii): no core arguments (17) ninne raːtri yesterday night thundering-was ‘There was thunder yesterday night’ (18) miñcuttaː ide lightning is ‘It is lightning’ The core arguments that occur with nominal predicates are somewhat different from the ones which occur with verbal predicates. We can differentiate between three main types of core arguments: namely, theme (unmarked), location (marked by the locative postposition alli ‘in’ or by other postpositions like ‘between’, sutta ‘around’, ‘inside’, etc.) and related element (marked by the dative suffix ge). All these predicates take only a single obligatory argument. Examples: Group (viii): with a location (19) avaralli maduve they-loc marriage ‘There is a marriage in their place’

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Page 37 Group (ix): with a theme (20)

she-nom white ‘She is white’ Group (x): with a related element (21) avanige koːpa him-dat anger ‘He is angry’ Sentences containing group (viii) predicates, however, are rather problematic because the distinction between argument and predicate is rather difficult to establish in them. The location appears to be the argument in (19), whereas in the following example (22), the opposite seems to be the case: (22) raːju iːga maysuːralli Raju-nom now Mysore-loc ‘Raju is now in Mysore’ The question as to which noun phrase takes the sentence-initial position is determined, in these cases, by pragmatic factors like topicality, as I will be pointing out below (see 3.3.1). Sentences of this type frequently occur with a helper verb (one of the finite forms of the verb iru ‘to be’) and in such structures one might even regard them as having two core arguments: namely, a theme and a location. Example: (22a) raːju iːga maysuːralli iddaːne Raju-nom now Mysore-loc is ‘Raju is now in Mysore’ Two other types of sentences (groups (ix) and (x)) can also take different forms of the verb iru ‘to be’ in this fashion for denoting different temporal distinctions. Examples: (20a) she-nom white is ‘She is white’ (21a) avanige koːpa ittu him-dat anger was ‘He was angry’ Lastly, Kannada also has a set of equational sentences in which two different arguments (noun phrases), both in their nominative (unmarked) case form, are juxtaposed. It is not possible, in these sentences also, to identify a predicate. Example: (23) raːju iː Raju-nom this village-gen leader-nom ‘Raju is the leader of this village’

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Page 38 The problem is that either of the two noun phrases occurring in these sentences can be placed in the sentence-initial position depending upon certain pragmatic factors like topicality, and further, when these sentences are embedded into the position of an undergoer, both the noun phrases take the accusative case marker. Examples: (23a) iː raːju this village-gen leader-nom Raju-nom ‘The leader of this village is Raju’ (23b) raːjuvannu iː maːdiddeːve Raju-acc this village-gen leader-acc-become done-have ‘We have made Raju the leader of this village’ Kannada makes a basic distinction between existential and equational sentences with the former taking the negative verb illa ‘does not exist’ and the latter the verb alla ‘is not identical’. Most of the sentences with a nominal predicate can show either of these two negations, and can therefore be regarded as being ambiguous in this regard. Examples: (21b) avanige koːpa illa him-dat anger is not (existential) ‘He is not angry’ (21c) avanige koːpa alla him-dat anger not (equational) ‘He is not angry’ (but sad) Equational sentences like (23) given above can only take the negative verb alla, whereas sentences with a verbal predicate (groups (i)–(vii)) can only take the negative verb illa (see 5a below). The latter, however, can be changed into equational sentences by using a nominal form of the predicate, in which case, they would take the equational negative alla (see 5b below): (23c) raːju iː alla Raju-nom this village-gen leader-nom not (equational) ‘Raju is not the leader of this village’ (5a) raːju Raju-nom run-not (existential) ‘Raju did not run’ (5b) raːju Raju-nom run-it-nom not (equational) ‘Raju did not run’ (He only walked) All these possibile sentence types of Kannada can be summarized in the form of Table 3.1.

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Page 39 Table 3.1 Sentence types I Predicational sentences (a) verbal, action predicates Group (i) actor only (nom) Group (ii) actor+undergoer (nom+acc) Group (iii) actor+experiencer (nom+dat) (b) verbal, non-action predicates Group (iv) undergoer only (nom) Group (v) experiencer only (dat) Group (vi) undergoer+experiencer (nom+dat) (c) verbal, non-argument predicates Group (vii) no arguments (d) non-verbal predicates Group (viii) location only (loc) Group (ix) theme only (nom) Group (x) related only (dat) II Equational sentences No predicate NP+NP (nom+nom) 3.2.2 Fluidity in the grouping of predicates There is some amount of ‘fluidity’ regarding the group to which a given predicate may belong, or rather the kind of arguments that it can take, but the variations found in this respect are always correctable with a corresponding variation in the meaning of the predicates under consideration (see Bhat 1978 for details). This is one of the important aspects of Kannada sentence structure which supports my claim that the relation between case markers and semantic relations is simple and direct in this language. Shifts between groups (ii) and (iii) There are certain verbs, like bayyu ‘to scold’, aːśiːrvadisu ‘to bless’, ‘to deceive’, etc., which can take an undergoer or an experiencer as the second core argument (i.e. in addition to the actor) depending upon whether the actor is being viewed as ‘affecting’ the concerned referent or as providing an ‘experience’ to it. Verbs of hitting, such as ‘to beat’, guddu ‘to box’, ‘to pinch’, ‘to bite’, etc., also belong to this class of shifting verbs. Examples: (24a) naːnu avanannu bayde I-nom him-acc scolded ‘I scolded him’

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Page 40 (24b)

naːnu avanige bayde I-nom him-dat scolded ‘I scolded him’ (in his presence) (25a) naːyi avanannu dog-nom him-acc bit ‘The dog bit him’ (affected patient) (25b) naːyi avanige dog-nom him-dat bit ‘The dog bit him’ (experienced patient) The verb duːru ‘to blame’ contrasts with bayyu ‘to scold’ given above in this respect. The former activity is generally carried out in the absence of the victim, and hence, the person concerned is being regarded as the affected (undergoer) rather than as the experiencer, whereas the latter action (‘scolding’) can be carried out either in the victim’s presence or in his/her absence and hence it can take both these types of arguments as shown above (undergoer in 24a and experiencer in 24b). Shifts between groups (ii) and (iv) Verbs like mare ‘to forget’, meccu ‘to approve’, oppu ‘to agree’, turisu ‘to itch’, etc. can take either an actor and an undergoer (group (ii)), or an experiencer and an undergoer (group (iv)), depending on whether the event concerned is seen as an action (where the person involved is ‘responsible’ for it) or a non-action. Example: (26a) avanu kate mareta he-nom story-acc forgot ‘He forgot the story’ (did not try to memorize it) (26b) avanige kate maretitu him-dat story-nom forgot ‘He forgot the story’ (couldn’t help forgetting) I have regarded the noun kate ‘story’ occurring in both these types of sentences as showing the semantic relation of being the undergoer, but in the former case it has the accusative (covert) case form, whereas in the latter case it has the nominative (unmarked) case form. It is also possible to view them as representing distinct semantic relations because the undergoer in the accusative invariably has the effect of an event produced upon it by a non-action, whereas in the nominative, it may have the effect produced by its own initiative. There is actually a small class of verbs consisting of only two members, namely ‘to appear’ and ‘to hear’, which takes undergoers of the above two types as its two arguments. Examples: (27) naːnu avanannu I-nom him-acc saw ‘I saw him’

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Page 41 Notice that the effect of the event upon the first argument (in the nominative) is produced by its own initiative, whereas the one upon the second argument (in the accusative) has been produced by the initiative of the first argument. However, even in the former case, the actual event (of seeing) is not being regarded as a volitional activity. Shifts between groups (i) and (v) Verbs like ‘to tremble’, bevaru ‘to sweat’, hedaru ‘to fear’ jaːru ‘to slip’, etc. can take either an actor or an experiencer as the core argument depending on whether the event concerned is being seen as an action, or a non-action, as in the previous shift. Example: (28a) avanu he-nom trembled (volitional) ‘He trembled’ (28b) avanige him-dat trembled (non-volitional) ‘He trembled’ Shifts between groups (i) and (iv) Verbs like ‘to fall’, ‘to sink’ jaːru ‘to slip, slide’, etc. can take either an actor (group (i)) or an undergoer (group (iv)) as their core argument. Since both these semantic relations are denoted by the nominative case form, sentences containing these verbs appear to be ambiguous. That is, these are exceptions to the generalization that I had made at the beginning of this section (3.2.2), namely that the relation between case markers and semantic relations is simple and direct in Kannada. Example: (29) avanu bidda he-nom fell (i) ‘He fell down (non-volitional)’ (ii) ‘He fell down (volitional, as in a drama)’ The verb jaːru ‘to slip, slide’ is rather interesting in this context, because it shows a three-way shift between groups (i), (iv) and (v) depending upon whether the relation between the event and its victim is being regarded as that of an actor, undergoer (non-volitional) or experiencer. Example: (30a) avanu jaːrida he-nom slipped ‘He slipped/slided’

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Page 42 (30b)

avanige jaːritu him-dat slipped ‘He slipped (experiencer)’ Shifts between groups (viii) and (x) There are some nominal predicates, like matsara ‘envy’, samśaya ‘doubt’, dhayrya ‘courage’, etc., which can take either a location argument (in the locative) or a related argument (in the dative) as the core argument. Example: (31a) avanalli dhayrya ide him-loc courage is ‘There is courage in him’ (31b) avanige dhayrya ide him-dat courage is ‘He has courage’ The two usages differ in their meaning, however, in that the former (31a) denotes only the location of a characteristic in the individual concerned, whereas the latter provides a characterization. This distinction is made evident by the fact that in the case of situations in which only characterization can be thought of, we can only have a related argument and not a location. Examples: (32a) iː pustakakke ide this book-dat demand is ‘There is demand for this book’ (32b) *iː pustakadalli ide this book-loc demand is (33a) aː jvara ide that boy-dat fever is ‘That boy has fever’ (33b) *aː jvara ide that boy-loc fever is Shifts between core and non-core arguments The use of a noun phrase in the accusative indicates that the concerned referent, as an entity, has been affected by the event, whereas its use in the dative or locative indicates that it has only been the goal or location of that event. Because of this difference, the alternation between accusative (core argument) and dative or locative (non-core argument) in the case of some verbs provides the holistic-partitive meaning distinction (i.e. in addition to the meaning distinctions conveyed by these case markers). Examples:

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Page 43 (34a) avanu nadiyannu iːjida he-nom river-acc swam ‘He swam the river’ (went to the other side swimming) (34b) avanu nadiyalli iːjida he-nom river-loc swam ‘He swam in the river’ (at a particular point) (35a) avanu mara(vannu) hattida he-nom tree-acc climbed ‘He climbed the tree’ (from the bottom) (35b) avanu marakke hattida he-nom tree-dat climbed ‘He climbed to the tree’ (from a wall or a terrace) Notice that both (34a) and (35a) provide holistic meanings as far as the undergoers are concerned (swimming across the river and climbing the tree all the way from the bottom) because of the occurrence of the undergoers in the accusative, whereas both (34b) and (35b) provide only partitive meaning because of their occurrence in the locative and dative respectively. These various shifts of case forms and the corresponding shifts in the denotation of semantic relations can be summarized as in Table 3.2. Table 3.2 Shifts in case forms and semantic relations Predicate groups Case forms Semantic relations (ii) and (iii) acc to dat affecting to experiencing (absence) to (presence) (ii) and (iv) nom to dat responsible to not responsible acc to nom instigated to not instigated (i) and (v) nom to dat action to non-action (i) and (iv) no change action to non-action (viii) and (x) loc to dat location to characterization —— acc to loc holistic to partitive —— acc to dat holistic to partitive Except in the case of the double use of the unmarked (nominative) case form for denoting the actor as well as the undergoer (or theme), the relation between case forms and semantic relations is simple and direct in all the instances of case-marker shifts given above. 3.2.3 Meaning of case markers Since the actual number of semantic relations that need to be indicated in a language is quite large, and since there are only three distinct case forms (and a few postpositions) for carrying out this function in

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Page 44 Kannada, as I have pointed out above, it is evident that each one of these case forms will have to represent a number of semantic relations. Kannada uses the device of grouping together different closely related semantic relations (‘microroles’) into sets called ‘macroroles’ (see Foley and Van Valin 1984), and of having each one of its case forms represent one such set in a consistent manner, for resolving this problem. It differs rather markedly from English on this point. The relationship between core arguments and semantic relations is considered to be rather complex in English. For example, Quirk et al. (1972:358) provide a table in which an attempt has been made to summarize the semantic relations that can be assigned to different core arguments in that language. As is evident from this table, there is a need to use several factors such as the nature of the verb (whether intransitive, intensive, monotransitive, complex transitive or ditransitive), nature of the accompanying arguments (whether there is an agent, instrument, affected argument, temporal adjunct and so on), the type of clauses used (whether finite or non-finite), etc. in order to ‘predict’ the semantic basis of its formal characteristics. It is this complexity of the form-meaning relationship in the case of core arguments that has induced the English grammarians to regard them as having only ‘grammatical’ relevance in the language as against the non-core arguments containing prepositions; these latter arguments are considered to be directly relatable with meaning. However, in Kannada semantic relations can directly be correlated with different case forms in the case of core arguments as well. For example, the accusative case form can be consistently correlated with the undergoer of an action and the dative case form with the goal (which includes the recipient, beneficiary, experiencer, related entity and also the location towards which something has been moved or directed); only the unmarked (nominative) case form has two distinct and rather unrelated meanings to convey, namely that of denoting the actor in the case of action predicates and the undergoer (or theme) in the case of nonaction predicates. As I have pointed out above, we can even differentiate between the nominative and the accusative undergoers in that the use of the latter always implies that there had been the instigation of some other argument that had produced the relevant effect upon it. No such implication occurs in the use of the former (nominative) undergoer. This meaning distinction persists even when the actor argument is completely removed (or suppressed) from the sentence, as can be seen from the following contrastive uses of personal and impersonal passive constructions:

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avaru raːjuvannu they-nom Raju-acc pushed ‘They pushed Raju’ (36b) raːju Raju-nom push-suffered (personal passive) ‘Raju got pushed’ (36c) raːjuvannu Raju-acc push-pur-became (impersonal passive) ‘Raju was pushed’ The personal passive construction (36b) involves a change in the case form of the undergoer, from accusative to nominative, and also a corresponding change in the connotation of the sentence; it does not specifically say whether or not there had been an actor who had carried out the activity of ‘pushing’. By contrast, in the impersonal passive construction (36c), there is no change in the case form of the undergoer, and correspondingly, there is also no change in the connotation of the sentence, except for the fact that the identity of the actor has been suppressed through its obligatory non-specification in the sentence, and also through the use of the neutralized form of the finite verb (i.e. in its third person neuter singular form). This claim about the occurrence of a direct relationship between case forms and semantic relations in Kannada can be supported through an examination of some of the syntactic processes which involve changes in case marking. In languages like English, such changes are generally considered to be of ‘grammatical’ relevance because they are not directly correctable with any corresponding changes in meaning, whereas in Kannada, such changes can invariably be correlated with corresponding changes in the semantic relations. The following are some of the syntactic processes of this nature which show this direct correlation between change in case forms with change in semantic relations. Use of the infinitive In English, the subject of an infinitive construction takes an oblique form, as seen in the following pair of sentences: (37a) He will go home. (37b) I want him to go home. The change of he (37a) to him (37b) is generally explained as ‘resulting’ from the grammatical fact that the infinitive verb (to go) is tenseless. By contrast, in Kannada a similar change in the case form of the actor of an infinitive (purposive) clause can be correlated with a semantic

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Page 46 factor. Actually, such infinitive clauses can have the relevant noun phrase either in the nominative or in the dative (or in the accusative) depending upon whether the speaker views the individual concerned as having control over the concerned event or not. Example: (38) avanu manege hoːda he-nom house-dat went ‘He went home’ (38a) nanage avanu manege hoːga beːku me-dat he-nom house-dat go-pur want ‘I want him to go home’ (38b) naːnu avanige manege hoːgalu I-nom him-dat house-dat go-pur told ‘I asked him to go home’ (38c) naːnu avanannu manege hoːgalu I-nom him-acc house-dat go-pur told ‘I asked (for) him to go home’ In (38a) the first noun phrase of the embedded purposive clause (avanu ‘he’) occurs in the nominative because the control for the action is still with its referent (i.e. the person concerned is still being regarded as the actor); the absence of control in the case of the matrix argument (manage ‘to me’) is indicated by its use in the dative case form (i.e. experiencer of the relevant desire). However, in (38b) and (38c) the first noun phrase of the embedded clause has been shifted to dative and accusative respectively because the control is now with the argument of the matrix clause (and this latter argument has been shifted to the nominative for this purpose); the first noun phrase of (38b) differs from that of (38c) in that the referent of the former has actually been spoken to by the actor of the matrix sentence, whereas that of the latter might or might not have been spoken to. This allows the speaker to view the former as an experiencer and the latter only as an undergoer, as shown by the use of the case forms, dative and accusative respectively. Causative constructions When an action sentence is causativized, the actor argument is generally changed into its instrumental (or some other postpositional form) as it loses its control over the relevant action; its earlier (nominative) case form is taken over by the newly introduced argument, the causer, which has control over the new action of causing the event. Examples: (39a) raːju raju-nom ran ‘Raju ran’

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Page 47 (39b)

naːnu raːjuvina kayyalli I-nom Raju-gen by run-caused ‘I made Raju run’ (40a) raːju tinda Raju-nom fruit-acc ate ‘Raju ate the fruit’ (40b) naːnu raːjuvina kayyalli tinniside I-nom Raju-gen by fruit-acc eat-caused ‘I made Raju eat the fruit’ It is also possible, however, to change the actor argument into its accusative or dative form in the case of some verbs, if the corresponding semantic relation (affected by the action or being the experiencer respectively) is to be denoted by them. Examples: (39c) naːnu raːjuvannu I-nom Raju-acc run-caused ‘I chased Raju’ (40c) naːnu raːjuvannu tinniside I-nom Raju-acc eat-caused ‘I forced Raju to eat (the fruit)’ (40d) naːnu raːjuvige I-nom Raju-dat fruit-acc ‘I fed the fruit to Raju’ The use of the accusative in both (39c) and (40c) indicates that Raju was physically affected by the relevant causation (action), whereas the use of the dative in (40d) indicates that he was the experiencer (or beneficiary) of feeding. Notice that the earlier undergoer, namely ‘fruit’, cannot be used in (40c) because the earlier actor has been shifted to that position. In the case of non-action sentences also, the undergoer changes its case form from nominative to accusative, because in the causativized construction it denotes an undergoer that has been affected by the action of the causer. Examples: (41a) koːlu muriyitu stick-nom broke ‘The stick broke’ (41b) koːlannu naːnu muride stick-acc I-nom broke ‘I broke the stick’ (42a) avanige pustaka sikkitu him-dat book-nom got ‘He got the book’ (42b) avanige pustakavannu naːnu sigicide him-dat book-acc I-nom get-caused ‘I got the book for him’

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Page 48 Notice, however, that the argument in the dative remains unchanged in both these sentences because its meaning is unaffected by the process of causativization. There is an interesting contrast between the addition of a cause into the sentence on the one hand, and of a causer (as described above) on the other. In the former case, there would be no change in the semantic relations of the arguments occurring in the sentence, and hence no change affects the case markers of these arguments, whereas in the latter case the actor (causee) loses its control and becomes an undergoer or experiencer, and the undergoer becomes one which is affected by the action of an actor. Hence both these latter arguments undergo the relevant changes in their case markers. Examples: (43a) cloth-nom dried ‘The cloth dried’ (43b) bisilige cloth-nom sunlight-dat dried ‘The cloth dried in the sun’ (43c) naːnu cloth-acc I-nom dry-caused ‘I dried the cloth’ Passive constructions As I have mentioned earlier, at the beginning of this section (see examples (36b) and (36c), Kannada makes use of two distinct types of passive constructions, called ‘impersonal’ and ‘personal’. In the former case, there is no change in the case forms of the arguments occurring in the sentence (except that one of them, the actor, is to be obligatorily deleted), and correspondingly, there is no change in the semantic relations that are being denoted by it. Example: (44a) naːnu avanannu manege I-nom him-acc house-dat sent ‘I sent him home’ (44b) avanannu manege him-acc house-dat sent-pur-became ‘He was sent home (by somebody)’ Notice that the construction involves only the complete suppression of the identity of the actor, but not of the fact that the concerned event has been instigated by an actor. The personal passive construction does involve changes in the case forms of some of the arguments occurring in the sentence, and correspondingly, it also involves changes in the semantic relations that

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Page 49 are being denoted by it. Its finite verb takes ‘to suffer’ as an auxiliary (this is added to the purposive form of the main verb), and its actor argument changes its case form from nominative to instrumental (or to some other form with a postposition). This actor argument may also be optionally deleted from the sentence. Further, its undergoer argument changes its case form from accusative to nominative. Example: (45a) raːju aː naːyiyannu konda Raju-nom that dog-acc killed ‘Raju killed that dog’ (45b) (raːjuvininda) aː naːyi (Raju-instr) that dog-nom kill-pur-suffered (passive) ‘That dog was killed (by Raju)’ The two changes in the case forms of arguments occurring in this construction also have correlatable changes in the denotation of semantic relations. The use of a form with a postposition (like the instrumental instead of the nominative) in the case of the actor has the effect of removing the specific sense that the person concerned had volitionally carried out the relevant activity; in (45b), for example, Raju was only ‘instrumental’ in the killing of the dog. Similarly, the use of the nominative instead of the accusative in the case of the undergoer also has the effect of removing the responsibility of its killing from one specific actor. It is quite possible, for example, to use (45b) in a context in which the dog had been killed in an accident. However, such a usage would not be available for a corresponding impersonal passive construction such as the one given below: (45c) aː naːyiyannu kollalaːyitu that dog-acc kill-pur-became ‘That dog was killed (by someone)’ The use of the undergoer argument in its accusative case form in (45c) implies clearly that the killing was done by a specific actor, even though the actual identity of that individual has been completely suppressed in this sentence. Abstract predicates There are a number of abstract nouns, denoting physical or mental characteristics, that can be used either (a) with the helper verb aːgu ‘to become’ in order to denote a process (that leads to the characteristic), or (b) with the ‘to suffer’, ‘to do’ or with the causative suffix isu, in order to denote an action. They take a dative noun phrase in the former case and a nominative one in the latter case. Examples:

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avanige him-dat much difficulty-became ‘He suffered a lot’ (46b) avanu he-nom much difficulty suffered ‘He struggled hard’ (47a) avanige aː pustaka him-dat that book-nom like-became ‘He liked that book’ (47b) avanu aː pustakavannu he-nom that book-acc like suffered ‘He liked (desired) that book’ Notice that the above-mentioned distinction in the case form of the first argument can be correlated with a distinction in the semantic relations that are being denoted by it. The person concerned is only viewed as an experiencer in (46a) and (47a), whereas in the other two sentences ((46b) and (47b)), he is regarded as someone who is in control of attaining the relevant characteristic. Unreal possibility Sentences denoting possibility can be changed into ones denoting unreal possibility by attaching the past form of the verb iru ‘to be’ to the finite form of the main verb (see Giridhar 1987). In these constructions, the noun phrase denoting the actor is shifted from nominative to dative since the referent is no more being regarded as having any control over the action. The use of the dative case form implies that the person concerned is the goal of the desired (unreal) possibility. Example: (48a) avanu beːgane barabahudu he-nom early come-pur-possible ‘He may come early’ (48b) avanige beːgane barabahudittu him-dat early come-pur-possible-was ‘He could have come early’ Accidental occurrence The vector verb hoːgu ‘to go’ is used, in some dialects of Kannada, in order to indicate that the occurrence of a given action was accidental (see Bhat 1979). The actor of such a sentence is shifted from nominative to dative since he or she is not being regarded as controlling the concerned event, but only as ‘experiencing’ it. However, the undergoer in the accusative does not change its case form. Example:

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avanu aːkeyannu he-nom her-acc looked ‘He looked at her’ (49b) avanige aːkeyannu hoːyitu him-dat her-acc look-pp went ‘He looked at her accidentally’ Completed action The past form of the verb aːgu ‘to become’ is used in some dialects of Kannada in order to indicate that a given action has already been completed. The noun phrase denoting the actor of such sentences is also shifted from nominative to dative, since the concerned individual is no longer in possession of any control over the action; he or she is only left with the relevant experience and this point is being denoted by the use of the dative case form. Example: (50a) naːnu tinde I-nom fruit-acc ate ‘I ate the fruit’ (50b) nanage tindu aːyitu me-dat fruit-acc eat-pp became ‘I have finished eating the fruit’ Notice that, in this case also, the undergoer noun phrase in the accusative ( ‘fruit’) continues to be in the same case form as the semantic relation denoted by it is not affected by any change. These various changes of case forms, and the corresponding changes in the semantic relations that are being denoted by them, can be summarized in the form of Table 3.3. Table 3.3 Changes in case forms and semantic relations Original relation Change in case form Change in relation (a) use of the infinitive actor (i) no change no change (ii) nom to dat to experiencer (iii) nom to acc to undergoer (affected from outside) (b) use of causative suffix actor (i) nom to instr to loss of control (ii) nom to dat to experiencer (iii) nom to acc to undergoer (affected from outside) undergoer nom to acc to undergoer (affected from outside) experiencer no change no change (c) personal passive actor nom to instr to experiencer (loss of control) undergoer acc to nom to undergoer that is not affected from outside

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Page 52 All the remaining processes—abstract predicates, unreal possibility, accidental occurrence and completed action—involve the change of the actor argument from nominative to dative and a corresponding loss of control over the concerning action. 3.3 REPRESENTATION OF PRAGMATIC RELATIONS As I mentioned earlier, pragmatic relations are represented in Kannada with the help of devices like the relative order of arguments (‘configurationality’), placement of stress, postposing, and the use of certain words and particles. These devices, however, are kept distinct from the ones which are used for representing semantic relations, namely the case suffixes and postpositions, which I have described in the previous section. The study of pragmatic relations and of the devices that are used for representing them is only in its initial stage both in Kannada grammar as well as in the general theoretical writings on language. This is mainly because, as I pointed out in the previous chapter (see 2.3), the tendency among linguists has been to exclude pragmatic factors as of no direct relevance for their study of the ‘grammars’ of natural languages. It will not therefore be possible for me to give as detailed (and definite) a description of Kannada pragmatic relations in this section as the one that I gave of Kannada semantic relations in the previous section. I will only be able to indicate some of the most prominent aspects of their representation. This will, however, be sufficient to justify my main contention of this chapter: namely, that the devices used for this purpose are quite distinct from the ones that are used for representing semantic relations in this language. Pragmatic relations deal primarily with the way in which the arguments in a sentence are organized or ‘packaged’ by its speaker (see 2.1). They involve factors like the following: 1 Topic: The argument which relates the sentence with the previous utterances or with the external speech context, and also the one about which the rest of the sentence can be regarded as providing the ‘comment’. 2 Focus: The argument which provides the most salient (noticeable and also projected) piece of information. 3 After-thought: The argument which was left unspecified in the sentence proper, but was specified immediately after it for the sake of clarity or disambiguation. 4 Indefiniteness: The argument whose referent is being newly introduced into the speech context. I have restricted myself to the study of pragmatic factors that are

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Page 53 directly concerned with the organization of arguments in a sentence because my purpose here is to contrast their representation in Kannada with that of semantic relations which the arguments are expected to represent. There are apparently other pragmatic factors, such as the ones which deal with the organization of parts of arguments like modifiers, quantifiers and specifiers, and parts of predicates like auxiliaries and complements. These are yet to be studied in order to find out how the semantic-pragmatic dichotomy extends to these areas. The four pragmatic factors that I have chosen for my study here are also not uniform in their nature. For example, the notion of focus, unlike the other three, is gradable, with the arguments showing different degrees of salience or prominence; two or more arguments of a sentence can have relations (like coreference) with arguments occurring in previous sentences, even if the sentence is to be viewed as commenting on only one of them. This former aspect of topic (co-reference) is related to the notion of indefiniteness in that a topic cannot be indefinite (see 3.5). In view of these differences, one might perhaps argue that the pragmatic factors cannot provide us with a compact picture of argument structure like the one provided by semantic factors, and therefore, the use of the same term ‘relations’ in both these situations is unwarranted. However, it is also possible that this disparity is only due to the fact that our study of pragmatic factors is only in its initial stage, and further, there is the additional possibility that languages might differ from one another in giving prominence either to semantic or to pragmatic factors (or to both of them equally) in their structuring of sentences. The semantic relations also show some amount of disparity and overlapping. For example, an actor may also be an experiencer (with the former role being given greater importance in the representation of roles), and an experiencer may also be an undergoer. The notion of volitionality or of control over the action is common to both actors and causers, and that of having outside control is common to experiences and some undergoers (and also perhaps some actors as well—see 3.4). One can also think of gradation in the case of some of these aspects of semantic relations, such as the notion of affectedness or of control. If some of our familiar languages are able to iron out these discrepancies in their representation of semantic relations, there is no reason why some of the non-familiar ones cannot do the same in the case of pragmatic relations. It is necessary to recognize this possibility because, sometimes only the recognition of a possibility allows us to become aware of its existence in a particular situation. Kannada appears to give greater importance to semantic relations than to pragmatic ones in its organization of sentences, as is shown by its

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Page 54 use of overt case markers for the former purpose. Pragmatic relations are generally expressed by the relative order of arguments as mentioned above, i.e. through devices that are morphologically covert; they are denoted by overt (lexical) markers only when there is a need to place special emphasis upon them. I propose to describe in the following sub-sections the representation of the four pragmatic relations mentioned above. The constraints which affect them will be described in a later section (3.5), where it will be shown that they are all pragmatic in nature. 3.3.1 Denoting the topic Kannada uses the sentence-initial position for denoting the topic. Any given argument in the sentence can be brought to this position to make it function as the topic. This ‘shifting’ involves no change in the case marking, verbal agreement (which depends upon case marking), auxiliary structure (or tense-mood-aspect marking of the verb), etc. Examples: (51a) raːju hoːgiddaːne Raju-nom shop-dat gone-is ‘Raju has gone to the shop’ (topic: Raju) (51b) raːju hoːgiddaːne shop-dat Raju-nom gone-is (topic: shop) (52a) raːju karedidda Raju-nom teacher-acc called-was ‘Raju had called the teacher’ (topic: Raju) (52b) raːju karedidda teacher-acc Raju-nom called-was (topic: teacher) (53a) naːnu hoːgutteːne I-nom tomorrow go-fut ‘I will go tomorrow’ (topic:I) (53b) naːnu hoːgutteːne tomorrow I-nom go-fut (topic: tomorrow ) The pairs of sentences given above illustrate the shifting of a location (51b), undergoer (52b) and a temporal argument (53b) to the topic position. Notice that none of these sentences involve any change in their structures other than this word-order change which affects the relative position of their arguments. Similar shifts of arguments to the sentence-initial (topic) position can be carried out in complex sentences also. As I pointed out in the second chapter (see 2.1.3), the need in Kannada is to shift a matrix argument to the left of the complement clause because, unlike in English, the complement occurs to the left of the matrix clause in Kannada.

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Page 55 It is also possible to shift arguments to the sentence-initial position from the second (or a later) clause of a participially conjoined sentence (see 3.4.4, below, for details), i.e. to the left of the first (participial) clause. Examples: (54a) niːnu avanige you-nom said-it him-dat heard ‘What you said has been heard by him’ (topic: what you said ) (54b) avanige niːnu him-dat you-nom said-it heard ‘He has heard what you said’ (topic: he) (55a) avanu maysuːrige hoːgi raːjuvannu he-nom Mysore-dat went-pp Raju-acc met ‘He went to Mysore and met Raju’ (topic: he) (55b) raːjuvannu avanu maysuːrige hoːgi Raju-acc he-nom Mysore-dat went-pp met ‘Raju was met by him by going to Mysore’ (topic: Raju) The experiencer of the matrix clause has been shifted to the left of the complement clause for the purpose of topicalizing it in (54b), whereas in (55b) the undergoer of the second conjoined clause has been shifted to the left of the first conjoined clause for the same purpose. Neither of these two shifts involve any change (other than the shift) in the sentences concerned, whereas in the corresponding English sentences, there is a need to make several additional changes, as shown by the glosses given above. Since the topic functions as the argument about which the rest of the sentence provides a comment (or a characterization), it has become possible to use this device of shifting an argument to the topic position for expressing certain distinctions of entailment as seen in the following pair of sentences (see Bhat 1978): (56a) iruttave Australia-loc kangaroos-nom are ‘There are kangaroos in Australia’ (56b) iruttave kangaroos-nom Australia-loc are ‘The kangaroos are in Australia’ As shown by the glosses, (56b) implies that the kangaroos are confined to Australia, whereas (56a) has no such implication. It only mentions their presence in that country (see also p. 24). 3.3.2 Denoting the focus Kannada uses the preverbal position for denoting the focus of a verbal sentence (i.e. the argument which provides the most salient piece of

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Page 56 information in that sentence). Any argument occurring in the sentence can be shifted to this position for assigning salience to it. Examples: (57a) avanu nimma nanage he-nom your umbrella-acc me-dat gave ‘He gave me your umbrella’ (focus: me ) (57b) avanu nanage nimma he-nom me-dat your umbrella-acc gave (focus: your umbrella ) (57c) nanage nimma avanu me-dat your umbrella-acc he-nom gave (focus: he) (58a) raːju maysuːrininda baruttaːne Raju-nom Mysore-instr tomorrow come-fut ‘Raju will come from Mysore tomorrow’ (focus: tomorrow ) (58b) raːju maysuːrininda baruttaːne tomorrow Raju-nom Mysore-instr come-fut (focus: Mysore) (58c) maysuːrininda raːju baruttaːne tomorrow Mysore-instr Raju-nom come-fut (focus: Raju) Notice that the focus position has been filled by different arguments in these different sentences, such as the experiencer in (57a), undergoer in (57b), actor in (57c, 58c), temporal argument in (58a) and location (source) in (58b). In the case of equational sentences (i.e. sentences which contain two arguments only and no finite verb), the second argument functions as the focus. Examples: (59a) muːraneya pustaka nannadu third-gen book-nom my-it-nom ‘The third book is mine’ (focus: mine ) (59b) nannadu muːraneya pustaka my-it-nom third-gen book-nom ‘Mine is the third book’ (focus: third book) The above two sentences show the possibility of using either of the two arguments of an equational sentence as its focus. By contrast, in the case of sentences which contain a non-verbal predicate (such as the ones belonging to groups (viii), (ix) and (x)), the sentence-final element, whether an argument or a predicate, appears to function as the focus. (As I pointed out earlier (3.2.1), however, it is rather difficult to differentiate between arguments and predicates in some of these sentences.) Examples: (60a) avanige nimma meːle koːpa him-dat your on anger ‘He is angry with you’ (focus: anger) (60b) nimma meːle koːpa avanige your on anger him-dat (focus: he) (60c) avanige koːpa nimma meːle him-dat anger your on (focus: with you)

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Page 57 Notice that the predicate koːpa ‘anger’ functions as the focus in (60a), whereas in the remaining two sentences, the focus position is occupied by one of the two arguments of that sentence. There are three other devices that Kannada can use for marking the focus of a given sentence: namely, (a) shifting the relevant argument to the sentence-final position through the use of the ‘focus construction’; (b) marking the argument with stress; and (c) marking it with a particle like uː ‘also’, eː ‘emphatic’, ante ‘it seems’ taːne ‘confirmative’, alla ‘not’, etc. Use of focus constructions These are formed by nominalizing the verb and by shifting one of the arguments to the sentence-final position. This latter argument functions as the focus of such sentences. Examples: (61a) raːju ivattu ondu Raju-nom today one pot-acc broke ‘Raju broke a pot today’ (61b) ivattu ondu raːju today one pot-acc broke-it Raju-nom (focus: Raju) (61c) raːju ondu ivattu Raju-nom one pot-acc broke-it today (focus: today ) (61d) ivattu ondu today Raju-nom broke-it one pot-acc (focus: one pot) It is also possible to use sentences with non-verbal predicates and also the ones without any predicates (like equational sentences) for forming focus constructions by introducing nominalized forms of the verbs iru ‘to be’ and aːgu ‘to become’. Examples: (62a) aː that boy-nom white ‘that boy is white’ (62b) aː iruvudu that boy-nom is-it white (focus: white) (62c) iruvudu aː white is-it that boy-nom (focus: that boy) (63a) raːju iː Raju-nom this village’s leader-nom ‘Raju is the leader of this village’ (63b) iː aːgiruvudu raːju this village’s leader-nom become-pp-is-it Raju-nom (focus: Raju) (63c) raːju aːgiruvudu iː Raju-nom become-pp-is-it this village’s mukhanda leader-nom (focus: leader of this village)

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Page 58 It appears that the device of shifting an argument to the preverbal position, mentioned earlier, is used only in the case of simple sentences. It is not used for shifting arguments across clause boundaries in complex or conjoint sentences. In these latter type of sentences, Kannada uses the focus construction as shown below: (64a) avanu nimage he-nom you-dat beat-that said ‘He said that (he) would beat you’ (64b) *avanu nimage he-nom beat-that you-dat said (64c) avanu nimage he-nom beat-that said-it you-dat ‘It is you that he said he would beat’ (65a) avanu maguvige banda he-nom ball-acc baby-dat gave-pp came ‘He gave the ball to the baby and came (back)’ (65b) *avanu maguvige banda he-nom baby-dat gave-pp ball-acc came (65c) avanu maguvige bandaddu he-nom baby-dat gave-pp came-it ball-acc ‘It is the ball that he gave to the baby and came’ The unacceptability of (64b) and (65b) is due to the fact that an argument has been shifted from the first clause to the preverbal position of the second one; (64c) and (65c) are acceptable because the shift is to the sentence-final position, and this has been established through the use of the focus construction device. Use of stress Arguments other than the preverbal one (including the sentence-initial one) can be made to function as the focus of a given sentence by placing extra emphasis (stress) upon it. Example: (66) avanu marakke hattisida he-nom boy-acc tree-dat climb-caused ‘He helped the boy climb the tree’ It is possible to place extra stress upon any of the three arguments occurring in (66) and thereby make it function as the focus of that sentence. In the case of focus constructions described above also, it is possible to use extra stress rather than postposing as the device for marking the focused argument. Example: (67a) avanu hattisiddu marakke he-nom boy-acc climb-caused-it tree-dat ‘It is to the tree that he helped the boy climb’

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avanu marakke hattisiddu he-nom boy-acc tree-dat (stressed) climb-caused-it The extra stress has been placed on marakke ‘to the tree’ in (67b) and because of this it is focused in spite of the fact that it has not been postposed as in (67a). Use of particles There are certain particles like uː ‘also’ and e: ‘emphatic’, which can be used after one of the arguments in a given sentence for providing the relevant meaning, but in addition to this, such a usage also has the effect of placing the focus upon that argument. Examples: (68a) avanuː raːjuvannu manege kareda he-nom-also Raju-acc house-dat called ‘He too called Raju to (his) house’ (68b) avanu raːjuvannuː manege kareda he-nom Raju-acc-too house-dat called ‘He called Raju also to (his) house’ (68c) avanu raːjuvannu maneguː kareda he-nom Raju-acc house-dat-too called ‘He called Raju to (his) house also’ Tirumalesh (1979) pointed out that certain sentence-final particles like ante ‘it seems’, taːneː ‘isn’t it’ and the equational negative marker alla ‘not’ can be used after the arguments of focus constructions in order to indicate that the focus falls on them, even when they have not been postposed. Examples: (69a) raːju taːneː nimmallige bandaddu? Raju-nom isn’t-it your-there came-it ‘It is Raju who came to your place, isn’t it?’ (69b) raːju nimmallige taːneː bandaddu? Raju your-there isn’t-it came-it ‘It is to your place that Raju came, isn’t it?’ Notice that the shifting of taːneː ‘isn’t it’ to the right of the two arguments Raju and your place in (69a) and (69b) respectively makes them function as the focus of these sentences. 3.3.3 Denoting an argument as an ‘after-thought’ It is possible to leave unspecified any of the arguments of a given sentence while uttering that sentence, but to specify it immediately afterwards as an ‘after-thought’. This kind of argument packaging would be used by a speaker in situations (a) in which he is too eager to

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Page 60 state the salient part of a given idea or piece of information, or (b) in which he feels, to begin with, that the part which he is not specifying is readily recognizable from the speech context, but realizes very soon (from his addressee’s facial expression) that this might not actually be the case (see Tirumalesh 1979). Examples: (70a) raːjuvannu Raju-acc much praised headmaster-nom ‘He praised Raju very much, the headmaster did’ (70b) raːjuvannu headmaster-nom much praised Raju-acc (71a) naːnu ondu ninne I-nom one radio-acc purchased yesterday ‘I bought a radio, yesterday’ (71b) ninne ondu naːnu yesterday one radio-acc purchased I-nom The arguments that have been postposed as afterthoughts in these sentences include an actor in (70a) and (71a), an undergoer in (70b) and a temporal noun in (71b). It is also possible to postpose a complement functioning as an independent argument from the sentenceinitial (topic) position to the sentence-final (postverbal) position (see Tirumalesh 1979:300). Example: (72) raːju hari bandiddaːnendu Raju-nom informed-is Hari came-is-that ‘Raju has informed that Hari has come’ This postposing of an argument as an afterthought is quite different from the one discussed earlier, namely the postposing of a focused argument, in that the latter involves nominalization of the main verb whereas the former (afterthought) does not. Example: (73a) ninne tandidda, raːju yesterday radio-acc brought Raju-nom ‘(He) had brought a radio yesterday, Raju has’ (73b) ninne tandaddu raːju yesterday radio-acc brought-it Raju-nom ‘It is Raju who brought a radio yesterday’ Notice that the finite verb remains unchanged in its finite form in (73a) but not in (73b). There are also other differences between the two, such as that the former cannot affect a focussed or indefinite noun phrase as I will be pointing out in a following section (see 3.5.4). In the case of non-verbal sentences also, a distinction can be noticed between sentence-final arguments functioning as the focus and post-sentential ones functioning as afterthoughts because of the fact that in

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Page 61 the former case the stress falls on the final argument whereas in the latter case it falls on the penultimate one (or on any of the preceding ones that functions as the focus). Example: (74a) nimma meːle koːpa raːjuvige your on anger Raju-dat ‘It is Raju who is angry with you’ (focus: Raju) (74b) nimma meːle koːpa, raːjuvige your on anger Raju-dat ‘He is angry with you, Raju is’ (focus: anger, and afterthought: Raju) 3.3.4 Denoting indefiniteness The referential identity of a given argument may be recoverable from the speech context itself, in which case it is called ‘definite’, and alternatively, the identity may have to be newly established (or assumed) by the addressee, for example when the speaker is introducing a new entity into the speech act, in which case the argument concerned is called ‘indefinite’ (see Bhat 1981). We can regard this distinction as of pragmatic relevance because it deals with the position of arguments in a speech act and not with the semantic relations that they show with a predicate. Arguments showing any of the various semantic relations can be either definite or indefinite. Martin (1983) has pointed out that the development of a definite article (the) out of demonstratives like this, and an indefinite article (a, an) out of the numeral one, has made it necessary for a speaker of English to inform the addressee as to whether the individual or object that is referred to is recoverable or not from the speech context every time a noun phrase is used. Most languages, according to him, do not force this distinction when common nouns are used, though personal pronouns, demonstratives and names are commonly available to code a referent as recoverable, and numeratives to code one as new. Kannada is a language of this latter type, as it does not make it obligatory for the speakers to specify the definiteness or indefiniteness of a given argument every time it is used in a sentence. One may use, however, the numeral ondu ‘one’ to denote indefiniteness, and the demonstrative aː ‘that’ or iː ‘this’ to denote definiteness. Examples: (75a) avanu pennannu meːjina meːle irisida he-nom pen-acc table’s on kept ‘He kept the pen on the table’ (75b) avanu ondu pennannu meːjina meːle irisida he-nom one pen-acc table’s on kept ‘He kept a pen on the table’

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avanu tinda he-nom fruit-acc ate ‘He ate a/the fruit’ (76b) avanu aː tinda he-nom that fruit-acc ate ‘He ate that fruit’ The undergoer ( ‘fruit’) of (76a) is ambiguous between definite and indefinite connotations (it is also ‘ambiguous’ between singular and plural connotations), but the use of aː ‘that’ in (76b) before it makes that argument unambiguously definite as it now refers to an entity which is identifiable in the speech context. The use of ondu ‘one’ for denoting indefiniteness can also lead to ambiguity because it can also indicate ‘one’ as in ‘one of’. This ambiguity can be removed by placing stress on that word for unambiguously denoting its latter (numeral) meaning, and by placing the stress on the following noun for unambiguously denoting the former (indefinite) meaning. Notice, however, that both these usages involve indefiniteness. Examples: (77a) avanige ondu pustaka sikkide him-dat one (stressed) book-acc got is ‘He has got one of the books’ (77b) avanige ondu pustaka sikkide him-dat one book-acc (stressed) got-is ‘He has got a book’ 3.3.5 Purposefulness of word-order change As is evident from the preceding discussion of the representation of pragmatic relations in Kannada, the reordering of arguments is used for certain very specific purposes in this language, such as the denotation of the topic (shifting to the sentence-initial position), focus (shifting to the preverbal position of a verbal sentence and to the sentence-final position of a non-verbal sentence), and afterthought (shifting to the post-sentential position). The general tendency among linguists is to use terms like ‘scrambling’ or ‘free’ word order while describing these so-called non-configurational languages. These terms are rather misleading, because they fail to indicate the relevance of any of the acceptable word orders, and further, they also fail to account for the possibility of some of the irrelevant word orders being regarded as unacceptable by the native speakers. Consider, for example, the following complex sentence: (78) raːju bandaddannu naːnu harige Raju-nom came-it-acc I-nom Hari-dat informed ‘I informed Hari of Raju’s arrival’

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Page 63 As I mentioned earlier (2.1.3), either of the two arguments occurring in the matrix clause, namely naːnu ‘I’ and harige ‘to Hari’, can be shifted to the sentence-initial position in order to make them function as the topic. (See 2.1.3, sentences (13b) and (13c) for examples). The third possibility regarding the topic is the use of the complement itself in the topic position as seen in (78). Correspondingly, there are three possible reorderings as far as the focus is concerned, namely the placing of one of the two arguments of the matrix clause in the preverbal position of that clause, and the placing of the complement in that position; (78) above exemplifies the use of harige ‘to Hari’ as the focus, and the following two sentences exemplify the other two possibilities: (78a) raːju bandaddannu harige naːnu Raju-nom came-it-acc Hari-dat I-nom informed (focus: I) (78b) harige naːnu raːju bandaddannu Hari-dat I-nom Raju-nom came-it-acc informed (focus: Raju’s arrival) It is also possible to shift any of these three items to the postverbal position in order to denote them as afterthoughts as shown below: (78c) raːju bandaddannu naːnu harige Raju-nom came-it-acc I-nom informed Hari-dat (78d) raːju bandaddannu harige naːnu Raju-nom came-it Hari-dat informed I-nom (78e) harige naːnu raːju bandaddannu Hari-dat I-nom informed Raju-nom came-it-acc Lastly, it is also possible to shift the three items to the sentence-final position in focus constructions, as follows: (78f) raːju bandaddannu naːnu harige Raju-nom came-it-acc I-nom informed-it Hari-dat ‘It is Hari that I informed Raju’s arrival’ (78g) raːju bandaddannu harige naːnu Raju-nom came-it-acc Hari-dat informed-it I-nom ‘It is I who informed Hari of Raju’s arrival’ (78h) harige naːnu raːju bandaddannu Hari-dat I-nom informed-it Raju-nom came-it-acc ‘It is Raju’s arrival that I informed Hari’ There are apparently some additional combinations of these four possible reorders (namely for topic, focus, afterthought and focus construction), but the point to be noted here is that these are very specific purposes for which reorderings are effected by the speakers. Speakers are not ‘free’ to use any order that they like in a given situation.

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Page 64 3.4 SEMANTICALLY CONSTRAINED PROCESSES The morphosyntactic processes of Kannada can be grouped into two distinct sets depending on whether they are of semantic or pragmatic relevance. In the former case, the processes would be controlled by semantic relations like actor, undergoer and experiencer, whereas in the latter case they would be controlled by pragmatic relations like topic, focus and definiteness. Since these two sets of processes are quite distinct from one another in this language, I propose to deal with them under two separate sections as I have done earlier in the case of the representations of semantic (3.2) and pragmatic (3.3) relations. I will be describing the processes of semantic relevance in this section and those of pragmatic relevance in the next section (3.5). The former include the following: 3.4.1 The addition of a new argument into the sentence structure. 3.4.2 Suppression of an existing argument. 3.4.3 Combining together (co-reference) of two arguments, either wholly or in part. 3.4.4 Conjoining of sentences (and its effect upon the arguments). 3.4.5 Use of purposive complements. 3.4.6 Use of vector verbs. 3.4.7 Agreement marking in the verb. 3.4.8 Use of durative constructions. 3.4.9 Use of modal constructions. In the case of all these processes, the constraints are statable in terms of semantic relations, as can be seen from the following description. 3.4.1 Addition of a new argument The addition to a given sentence of a core argument like the causer, or a non-core argument like the cause, instrument or beneficiary is conditioned by the type of argument structure that occurs (or can occur) in that sentence. Addition of a causer In order to use the causer as an additional argument in a given sentence, Kannada makes use of the process of causativization, in which the suffix isu is added to the verb. The constraints which affect this process are all concerned with the semantic relations that occur in the sentence.

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Page 65 First of all, verbs denoting events that cannot be caused volitionally by an individual (i.e. verbs which cannot take a causer) do not undergo this process of causativization. These include (a) natural events like ‘to thunder’, miñcu ‘to have lightning’, etc.; (b) involuntary acts like ‘to sprain’, kemmu ‘to cough’, etc.; and (c) mental states like oggu ‘to feel suitable’, heːsu ‘to be disgusted’, etc. Example: (79a) avana kaːlu his leg-nom sprained ‘He sprained his leg’ (79b) *naːnu avana kaːlannu I-nom his leg-acc sprain-caused ‘I caused his leg to sprain’ Secondly, verbs like tinnu ‘to eat’, ‘to drink’, ‘to wear’, kali ‘to learn’, etc., which have a person who eats, drinks, etc. as the actor in the normal use, and as the experiencer in the causative use, also have the causer functioning as the actor in this latter use (see pp. 46–8). Example: (80a) raːju haːlu Raju-nom milk-acc drank ‘Raju drank milk’ (80b) jaːnaki raːjuvige haːlu Janaki-nom Raju-dat milk-acc drunk-caused ‘Janaki fed milk to Raju’ Thirdly, certain verbs like ‘to cross’, oːdu ‘to read’, ‘to play’, etc., which have the person who crosses, reads, etc. as the actor in the normal use, and as the undergoer in the causative use, also have the causer functioning as the actor in this latter use. The original undergoer is left unspecified in this latter use because its place has been taken over by the original actor (see pp. 46–8). Example: (81a) raːju kate oːdida Raju-nom story-acc read ‘Raju read a story’ (81b) naːnu raːjuvannu oːdiside I-nom Raju-acc read-caused ‘I made Raju read a story’ (through my physical involvement) Kannada makes a distinction between a causer who functions as an actor (i.e. one who is physically involved in the action) and one who is only controlling the action from a distance. The occurrence of this distinction depends upon the kind of semantic relation that can be assigned to the actor of the original (noncausativized) sentence in its causativized form. For example, if this actor can be viewed as having the function of the undergoer, then the causer can be viewed as the actor of the causativized sentence. Example:

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raːju muːru maylu Raju-nom three mile ran ‘Raju ran three miles’ (82b) hari raːjuvannu muːru maylu Hari-nom Raju-acc three mile run-caused ‘Hari chased Raju for three miles’ (82c) hari raːjuvina kayyalli muːru maylu Hari-nom Raju-gen by three mile run-caused ‘Hari made Raju run for three miles’ The actor of (82a), namely Raju, has been shifted to the position of the undergoer in (82b) as he has been affected by the action (chasing) of Hari; whereas in (82c) it has been shifted to a postpositional case form as it continues to remain as the ‘actor’ even though it has lost its control over the action of running. Addition of a cause A sentence can take an argument in the dative in order to specify the cause of the event that it denotes, provided that there is no actor (or causer) argument in the sentence. The dative case marker indicates the direction of causation. Example: (83a) avanu neneda he-nom rain-dat drenched ‘He got drenched by the rain’ (83b) avanu neneda he-nom rain-loc drenched ‘He drenched himself in the rain’ (volitional) (84a) bisilige sunlight-dat cloth-nom dried ‘The cloth got dried by the sun’ (84b) *bisilige avanu sunlight-dat he-nom cloth-acc dry-caused ‘He dried the cloth by the sun’ The use of a cause in the dative, as in (83a), rather than merely a location, as in (83b), makes the former necessarily a non-action sentence; and the use of the cause along with the causer makes (84b) an unacceptable sentence. The dative cause cannot occur with an actor or a causer, apparently because the direction of causation needs to be towards the actor or causer in the latter case. There is also a distinction of volitionality between the uses of causer and cause as new arguments. Consider, for example, the following pair of sentences: (85a) avana dhvani aːkeyannu his voice-nom her-acc attracted ‘His voice attracted her’

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Page 67 (85b)

avana dhvanige aːke his voice-dat she-nom attracted-became ‘She got attracted to his voice’ The use of dhvani ‘voice’ as a causer (in the nominative) in (85a) implies personification, and is generally found in poetry, whereas its use as a cause (in dative) in (85b) has no such implication. The use of clauses ending in the word ‘cause’ for denoting the cause of a given event also appears to show the same kind of constraint as the one shown by the cause argument in the dative mentioned above. Sentences denoting the cause are attached to this word in their relativized form as shown below: (86) beːgane hoːda early went-rp cause ‘Because (he) went early…’ The constraint is that such clauses are not generally attached to sentences that contain an actor or a causer as one of their core arguments. The general tendency is to use the corresponding sentences with an experiencer as shown below: (86a) beːgane hoːda avanige bassu sikkitu early went-rp cause him-dat bus-nom got ‘He got the bus because he went early’ (86b) *beːgane hoːda avanu bassu early went-rp cause he-nom bus-acc caught ‘He caught the bus because he went early’ The second sentence is unacceptable because its main clause has an actor as one of its core arguments. Addition of an instrument or beneficiary The occurrence of an instrument (with the postposition inda ) or of a beneficiary (with the postposition oːskara ) as a non-core argument in a sentence is constrained by the fact that the sentence must have an actor or a causer as one of its core arguments. Example: (87a) avanu aː kallininda he-nom that pot-acc stone-instr broke ‘He broke that pot with a stone’ (87b) *kallininda aː stone-instr that pot-nom broke ‘A stone broke that pot’ The unacceptability of (87b) is due to the fact that an instrument has been used in a non-action sentence. The use of an instrument in the actor (nominative) position in Kannada (as in (87c) below) would imply that

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Page 68 the instrument is being personified, and therefore such a usage is restricted to poetry. However the suppression of the actor from sentences like (87a) can be attained through the use of the impersonal passive (see 3.4.2, below). Examples: (87c) kallu stone-nom pot-acc broke ‘The stone broke the pot’ (87d) kallininda stone-instr pot-acc break-pur-became ‘The pot was broken with a stone (by somebody)’ The following pair of sentences exemplifies the need to have an actor in the sentence for using beneficiary as a non-core argument: (88a) nimagoːskara naːnu iː pustaka tande your-sake I-nom this book-acc brought ‘I brought this book for your sake’ (88b) *nimagoːskara nanage iː pustaka sikkitu your-sake me-dat this book-nom got ‘I got this book for your sake’ The unacceptability of (88b) results from the fact that the main sentence contains only an experiencer in the dative (nanage ‘to me’) and not an actor in the nominative as in (88a). 3.4.2 Suppression of an argument Any of the arguments (core or non-core) occurring in a verbal sentence can be left unspecified in Kannada either because the relevant information for its identity can be readily obtained from the speech context or because the speaker wishes to leave that identity unspecified in the sentence. However, because of the occurrence of personal terminations in the finite verb, which agree with the actor in action sentences and the undergoer in non-action sentences, the identity of neither of the two arguments can be completely suppressed from a sentence (i.e. for the latter purpose) by merely avoiding specifying those arguments. Kannada uses the syntactic process of forming an impersonal passive construction for completely suppressing the actor argument. This process involves the use of the auxiliary verb aːgu ‘become’, which is attached to the purposive form of the main verb. The auxiliary verb occurs in its third person neuter singular form (which functions as a ‘neutral’ form for agreement) and the actor argument is obligatorily deleted from the sentence. Example: (89a) avaru nimmannu karediddaːre they-nom you-acc called-is ‘They have called you’

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nimmannu kareyalaːgide you-acc call-pur-became-is ‘You have been called (by someone)’ Such impersonal passive constructions can be formed from both transitive as well as intransitive sentences (see below). There are two constraints on this formation, both of which depend upon the notion of semantic relations. 1 In the case of intransitive sentences, the process can occur only if there is at least one additional argument (i.e. other than the one that gets deleted). Example: (90a) avaru yugaːdiya divasa hattidaru they-nom new-year’s day hill-dat climbed ‘They climbed the hill on New Year’s day’ (90b) yugaːdiya divasa hattalaːyitu new-year’s day hill-dat climb-pur-became ‘The hill was climbed (by someone) on New Year’s day’ (91a) avaru hoːdaru they-nom went ‘They went’ (91b) *hoːgalaːyitu go-pur-became The unacceptability of (91b) is due to the fact that the sentence does not contain an additional (second) argument; whereas (90b) is an instance of the process affecting an ‘intransitive’ sentence. 2 Sentences which do not contain a controlling argument (actor or causer) cannot be used in such constructions. Example: (92a) raːju paːrkinalli Raju-nom park-loc sang ‘Raju sang in the park’ (92b) paːrkinalli park-loc sing-pur-became ‘Singing was done (by someone) in the park’ (93a) avanu apaghaːtadalli satta he-nom accident-loc died ‘He died in an accident’ (93b) *apaghaːtadalli saːyalaːyitu accident-loc die-pur-became The verb saːyu ‘to die’ takes an undergoer and not an actor and hence the suppression of the argument avanu ‘he’ in (93b) through the use of this construction has made that sentence an unacceptable one.

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Page 70 3.4.3 Co-reference of arguments There are two different processes that are used in Kannada for denoting that the referents connected with two different semantic relations in a given sentence are identical. One of them, called ‘reflexive’, deals mainly with the complete co-reference between two arguments, whereas the other one, called ‘anaphoric’, deals with both complete as well as partial co-references (i.e. between two arguments or between an argument and the ‘possessor’ of another argument). The former is a verbal device and the latter a pronominal device, and because of this, the two can co-occur in a given sentence. Reflexive device The reflexive verb is formed by adding the suffix (which has the past form and is historically relatable to the verb ‘to take’) to the past participial form of the main verb. Generally, one of the two arguments that are denoted by it as being co-referential is left unspecified in the reflexive sentence. Examples: (94a) avaru hañcidaru they-nom children-dat sweet-acc distributed ‘They distributed sweets to children’ (94b) avaru they-nom sweet-acc distribute-pp-refl ‘They distributed sweets among themselves’ (95a) naːnu raːjuvannu duːride I-nom Raju-acc blamed ‘I blamed Raju’ (95b) naːnu nannanneː I-nom me-acc-emph blame-pp-refl ‘I blamed myself’ In (94b) the use of the reflexive verb has the effect of establishing co-reference between the actor and the experiencer, whereas in (95b) it has the effect of establishing co-reference between the actor and the undergoer. The undergoer has been retained in (95b) because there is an emphatic particle eː occurring after it. When used for this purpose of establishing co-reference between two arguments, the reflexive device has a constraint, namely, that the retained argument can only be an actor or a causer (i.e. one which has control over the action denoted by the verb). However, it also has some extended uses, such as one in which it denotes that the activity or event was carried out (or ‘suffered’) by the concerned referent without any outside help or influence, and in such an extended usage, the device can

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Page 71 also occur in a sentence that contains an undergoer (see Bhat 1977). Examples: (96a) magu nintide baby-nom standing-is ‘The baby is standing’ (96b) magu baby-nom stand-pp-refl ‘The baby is standing on its own’ (97a) aː marada gellu muridide that tree-gen branch-nom broken-is ‘The branch of that tree has broken’ (97b) aː marada gellu that tree’s branch-nom broke-pp-refl ‘The branch of that tree has broken of its own accord’ In (96b), the reflexive verb has been used for denoting that the actor (baby) has carried out the relevant activity without anybody’s help, whereas in (97b) it has been used for denoting that the undergoer (branch) has suffered the event concerned without any specific actor being responsible for it. This latter construction can be used, for example, when the breaking has been caused by some internal weakness or decay of that branch. However, the undergoer that can occur in reflexive constructions of this latter type can only be the nominative one, i.e. a case form which indicates that the argument has not been affected by the action of some other argument (agent). In the former usage also, the retained argument is always the nominative one (actor or causer) that can carry out the activity on its own. Kannada shows a shift between an undergoer in the nominative and an experiencer in the dative in the case of some predicates (see p. 41), and the reflexive device can be used in this extended meaning only when such predicates occur with a nominative undergoer and not when they occur with a dative experiencer. Examples: (98a) avanu bevata he-nom sweated ‘He sweated’ (98b) avanu bevatukonda he-nom sweat-pp-refl ‘He sweated of his own accord’ (98c) avanige bevatitu him-dat sweated ‘He sweated (due to external cause)’ (98d) *avanige him-dat sweat-pp-refl Since (98c) differs from (98a) in the occurrence of an external cause (or

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Page 72 agency) for sweating, it cannot take the reflexive device, as shown by the unacceptability of (98d). Similarly, when the actor argument is shifted from nominative to instrumental (or some other postpositional form) as in a causative construction (see p. 66) in order to denote that the concerned referent is no more in control of the action that it is performing, the controller of the reflexive device would be the causer in the nominative and not the ‘actor’ in its postpositional form. Examples: (99a) naːnu raːjuvige I-nom Raju-dat beat ‘I beat Raju’ (99b) naːnu nanageːneː I-nom me-dat-emph beat-pp-refl ‘I beat myself’ (99c) hari nanninda Hari-nom me-instr beat-cause-pp-refl ‘Hari made me beat him (Hari)’ In (99b), the reflexive device helps us to denote co-reference between the person who beats and the one who gets beaten, but in (99c), we can only have co-reference between the causer (who instigates someone to beat) and the one who gets beaten. The impossibility of having the former type of co-reference in a reflexive causative construction can be exemplified with the help of the following unacceptable sentence: (99d) *hari nanninda nanageːneː Hari-nom me-instr me-dat-emph beat-cause-pp-refl ‘Hari made me beat myself’ The point to be noted here is that all the constraints which affect the use of the reflexive device appear to be statable directly in terms of semantic relations. Anaphoric device The anaphoric device makes use of a ‘special anaphoric pronoun’, namely taːnu ‘self’ (see Bhat 1977), which can indicate co-reference between two different arguments of a sentence as in (100b) below, or between an argument and the possessor of another argument as in (101b) below: (100a) raːju hariyannu duːrida Raju-nom Hari-acc blamed ‘Raju blamed Hari’ (100b) raːju tannannu duːrikonda Raju-nom self-acc blame-pp-refl ‘Raju blamed himself’

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raːju hariya duːrida Raju-nom Hari’s brother-acc blamed ‘Raju blamed Hari’s brother’ (101b) raːju tanna duːrida Raju-nom self’s brother-nom blamed ‘Raju blamed his own brother’ The co-reference in (100b) is between two different arguments, whereas in (101b) it is between an argument and the possessor of another argument. The occurrence of this special anaphoric device appears to be constrained by a hierarchy of semantic relations. If there is an actor or a causer in the nominative, the antecedent of taːnu ‘self’ must necessarily be the actor or the causer; otherwise, it would be an undergoer in the nominative, experiencer in the dative, and an undergoer in the accusative, in that order (see appendix I.1). Examples: (102) avanu tanna sabhyateyinda ellariguː hattiravaːda he-nom self’s gentleness-instr all-dat near-became ‘He became close to all due to his gentleness’ (103) avanige tanna rucisalilla him-dat self’s cooking-nom-emph taste-cause-not ‘He did not find even his own cooking tasty’ (104) avarannu tamma tamma patniyarondige satkarisalaːyitu them-nom self’s self’s wives-instr honoured ‘They were honoured along with their wives’ The antecedent of taːnu ‘self’ is (a) the undergoer in the nominative (and not the experiencer in the dative) in (102); (b) the experiencer in the dative (and not the undergoer in the accusative) in (103); and (c) the undergoer in the accusative in (104). None of these sentences, however, has an actor or a causer in the nominative. As I will be pointing out below (see 3.5.7), the use of this special anaphoric pronoun is also of pragmatic relevance to a certain extent, in that it helps a speaker to differentiate between pragmatic and anaphoric coreferences; apparently because of this pragmatic relevance, its use is also affected by an interesting pragmatic constraint, namely that the pronoun can only have a third person antecedent. 3.4.4 Conjoining of sentences Kannada makes use of two different types of processes for conjoining two or more sentences, namely (a) that of using mattu ‘and’ as a conjunction; and (b) that of changing all finite verbs other than that of the last sentence into their participial forms. Examples:

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avanu hoːda mattu ondu sinemaː he-nom town-dat went and one cinema-acc saw ‘He went to town and saw a cinema’ (105b) avanu hoːgi ondu sinemaː he-nom town-dat went-pp one cinema-acc saw ‘He went to town and saw a cinema’ Two different sentences have been conjoined through the use of the conjunction mattu ‘and’ in (105a), whereas in (105b) the conjoining has been established through the use of the participle hoːgi. There are, however, certain reasons to claim that the participial constructions do not simply conjoin the two (or more) sentences, but rather embed the participial ones into the last sentence, i.e. the one which ends in a finite verb. For example, the tense markers of the former are relative to those of the latter in these participial conjoinings, whereas in the case of conjoinings with mattu ‘and’, the tense markers of both the clauses are relative to the speaker and the speech act. Because of this difference, one cannot use temporal arguments like ninne ‘yesterday’ which denote speech-act-related time in a participial clause if they conflict with the tense markers of the finite clause, whereas in the case of clauses conjoined by mattu ‘and’, such conflicts can easily be allowed. Examples: (106a) raːju ninne maysuːrige hoːgidda mattu ivattu Raju-nom yesterday Mysore-dat went-was and today allinda ondu tiːvi tandiddaːne there-instr one TV-acc brought-is ‘Raju had gone to Mysore yesterday and has brought a TV from there today’ (106b) *raːju ninne maysuːrige hoːgi ivattu allinda Raju-nom yesterday Mysore-dat went-pp today there-instr ondu tiːvi tandiddaːne one TV-acc brought-is Notice that (106a), which contains the conjunction mattu ‘and’, allows the use of ninne ‘yesterday’ in the first clause, in spite of the fact that it conflicts with the tense marker (and temporal argument) of the second clause; whereas (106b), which involves participial conjoining, does not. The point to be noted here is that the participial conjoining involves a closer link between the two conjoined clauses, with the non-finite clause functioning as a subordinate of the finite clause. Further, in several instances, the participial clause also functions as one of the non-core arguments of the main clause in that it may denote the cause of the finite clause. Examples: (107) avanu beːgane bandu namage tondare aːyitu he-nom early came-pp us-dat trouble became ‘We were troubled by his arriving early’

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Page 75 (108) maradinda haːri avanu kaːlu tree-instr below jumped-pp he-nom leg-acc broke-pp-refl ‘He broke his leg by jumping down from the tree’ Notice that in both of these sentences the participial clause indicates the cause of the main (second) clause. We can therefore regard this participial conjoining as of semantic relevance in Kannada, and thereby provide an explanation for the fact that its occurrence is constrained by a semantic factor, as described below. When both the clauses that have been participially conjoined contain an actor or causer as one of their core arguments, the two must also have an obligatory co-reference between the two arguments. That is, a participial clause containing an actor or causer cannot be conjoined with a finite clause (or another participial clause) if the latter contains a different (non-co-referential) actor or causer. Examples: (109a) raːju akki tandu beːyisida Raju-nom rice-acc brought-pp cooked ‘Raju brought rice and cooked (it)’ (109b) *raːju akki tandu hari beːyisida Raju-nom rice-acc brought-pp Hari-nom cooked ‘Raju brought rice and Hari cooked (it)’ (109c) raːju akki tanda mattu hari beːyisida Raju-nom rice-acc brought and Hari-nom cooked ‘Raju brought rice and Hari cooked (it)’ (110a) raːju aː naːyiyannu kollisida Raju-nom that dog-acc caught-cause-pp kill-caused ‘Raju had that dog caught and had it killed’ (110b) *raːju aː naːyiyannu hari kollisida Raju-nom that dog-acc caught-cause-pp Hari-nom kill-caused (110c) raːju aː naːyiyannu mattu hari kollisida Raju-nom that dog-acc caught-caused and Hari-nom kill-caused ‘Raju had that dog caught and Hari had it killed’ The unacceptability of (109b) and (110b) is due to the fact that the non-co-reference of actors and causers respectively is disallowed in participial conjoining; whereas the acceptability of (109c) and (110c) is due the fact that it is allowed in mattu ‘and’ conjoining. Notice that (109a) and (110a) have participial conjoining with the actor and causer co-references respectively. It is possible, however, to use participial conjoining without the required co-reference if the two clauses do not contain an actor or a causer, and also if only one of them has an actor or causer. Examples: (111) mara biddu muriyitu tree-nom fell-pp roof-nom broke ‘The tree fell and the roof broke’

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raːju bobbe haːki maguvige eccaravaːyitu Raju-nom shout put-pp baby-dat awake-became ‘Raju shouted and the baby woke up’ In (111) the two participially conjoined clauses contain non-co-referential undergoers in the nominative, whereas in (112) the two non-co-referential arguments are an actor in the nominative and an experiencer in the dative. 3.4.5 Use of purposive complements There are certain matrix predicates in Kannada which take purposive clauses as complements. We can divide these into three distinct classes: Class ‘to say’, aːjñaːpisu ‘to order’, vinantisu ‘to request’, etc. 1: Classprayatnisu ‘to try’, bayasu ‘to desire’, oppu ‘to agree’, etc. 2: Class ‘to like’, saːdhya ‘to be possible’, manassu ‘to desire’, etc. Predicates of this third 3: class are all of the non-verbal type (see 3.2.1). 1 Matrix predicates belonging to the first class have the actor argument of the complement clause shifted from nominative to accusative (i.e. changed from actor to undergoer). Example: (113a) avanu manege hoːda he-nom house-dat went ‘He went home’ (113b) naːnu avanannu manege hoːgalu I-nom him-acc house-dat go-pur told ‘I asked him to go home’ Notice that the actor of (113a), avanu ‘he’, has been changed into an undergoer in (113b). These predicates do not allow co-referential complements as shown by the following unacceptable sentence: (114) *naːnu manege hoːgalu vinantiside I-nom house-dat go-pur requested ‘I requested (for myself) to go home’ 2 However, the predicates belonging to the second class have the actor of the complement clause coreferential with the actor of matrix clause. Example: (115a) avanu horage hoːgalu prayatnisida he-nom outside go-pur tried ‘He tried to go outside’ (115b) *avanu nannannu horage hoːgalu prayatnisida be-nom me-acc outside go-pur tried ‘He tried for me to go outside’

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Page 77 The unacceptability of (115b) is due to the fact that the arguments of the two clauses (he and I) are nonco-referential. 3 Predicates belonging to the third class also take complements whose actor is co-referential with the experiencer of the matrix clause. Example: (116a) avanige manege hoːgalu him-dat house-dat go-pur like ‘He likes to go home’ (116b) *avanige naːnu manege hoːgalu ista him-dat I-nom house-dat go-pur like ‘He likes me to go home’ For providing this latter type of meaning, Kannada has to use a nominalized complement instead of the purposive one as shown below: (116c) avanige naːnu manege hoːguvudu him-dat I-nom house-dat going-it like ‘He likes my going home’ 4 Predicates of all these three classes are affected by a general constraint: that the sentences occurring as their complements must have had an actor (or a causer) as one of the core arguments in their original form. The unacceptability of the following sentence (117b) exemplifies this constraint: (117a) adu bittu it-nom below fell ‘It fell down’ (117b) *adakke biːlalu saːdhya (ide) it-dat below fall-pur possible (is) ‘It is possible for it to fall down’ 3.4.6 Use of vector verbs There are a few verbs in Kannada, called ‘vector verbs’, which, while occurring after the past participial form of the main verb in a sentence, are able to impart certain aspectual connotations to the verb (see Bhat 1979). The use of some of these vector verbs is constrained by the fact that the main verb to which they are attached must have an actor or a causer as one of their core arguments. The following verbs belong to this class:

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< previous page Page 78 Vector verb aːgu ‘to hoːgu ‘to ‘to ‘to ‘to ‘to haːku ‘to Examples: (118a)

become’ go’ play’ release’ give’ see’ put’

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Aspectual connotation completion (dialectal) accidental occurrence (also dialectal) doing continuously completing with effort do for someone else’s sake test by doing do objectionably

avanu marakke hattida he-nom tree-dat climbed ‘He climbed the tree’ (118b) avanu marakke hatti he-nom tree-dat climb-pp released ‘He succeeded climbing the tree’ (118c) avanu marakke hatti he-nom tree-dat climb-pp saw ‘He tested climbing the tree’ (119a) naːnu raːjuvannu I-nom Raju-acc pushed ‘I pushed Raju’ (119b) nanage raːjuvannu hoːyitu me-dat Raju-acc push-pp went ‘I pushed Raju accidentally’ As mentioned earlier (see pp. 50–1), the shift of the actor from nominative to dative in (119b) is due to the fact that the person concerned cannot be regarded as having had any control over the action of pushing in that sentence. Some of these vector verbs can also be used with main verbs that do not take an actor or a causer, but in such cases their aspectual connotations would be different from the ones given above. Example: (120a) kere battitu tank-nom dried ‘The tank dried’ (120b) kere batti hoːyitu tank-nom dried-pp went ‘The tank dried up completely’ Notice that the vector verb hoːgu ‘to go’ has the sense of completeness in (120b) which contains a nonaction main verb, whereas in (119b) with an action verb, it has the sense of accidental occurrence.

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Page 79 3.4.7 Agreement marking in the verb The finite verb of a sentence is marked for person, number and gender through the use of a set of nine different personal terminations in Kannada. These terminations make a three-fold person distinction (first, second and third), a two-fold number distinction (singular and plural), a three-fold gender distinction in the third person singular (masculine, feminine and neuter) and a two-fold gender distinction in third person plural (non-neuter (MF) and neuter). As mentioned earlier (see 3.4.2), the third person neuter singular form is also used as a ‘neutralized’ form for agreement. Examples: (121a) raːju manege hoːda Raju-nom house-dat went (III M sg) ‘Raju went home’ (121b) siːte manege Site-nom house-dat went (III F sg) ‘Site went home’ (121c) naːnu manege hoːde I-nom house-dat went (I sg) ‘I went home’ The terminations which mark the person-number-gender of the actor in (121a), (121b) and (121c) are and e respectively, which occur at the end of the finite form of the verb hoːgu ‘to go’. In any given sentence, this verbal agreement would be controlled by the noun phrase occurring in the nominative case form. It would be the causer in a causative sentence, actor in an active sentence, and the undergoer in a non-active sentence of the groups (iv) and (vi) (see 3.2.1). In the remaining types of sentences (for example, in those of groups (v) and (vii), the verb gets neutralized for agreement, by taking the third person neuter singular termination. Even in the case of the nominative undergoer, there is a tendency, especially in the spoken form of the language, to use this neutralized form when the referent is inanimate and is not overtly marked for number. Examples: (122) avana hattira naːlku pustaka ide his near four book-nom is ‘There are four books with him’ (123) nanage muːru sikkitu me-dat three fruit-nom got ‘I got three fruits’ Notice that the above two sentences have non-action verbs with the nominative undergoers denoting plural objects; but still the verbs occur with the third person neuter singular termination.

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Page 80 As is evident from the preceding description, the process of marking verbal agreement in this language is determined by the argument structure of sentences, i.e. the kind of semantic relations that get expressed in them. 3.4.8 Use of durative constructions There are two types of durative constructions in Kannada which are derived (a) by using the durative participle of the main verb, and (b) by adding (past form of ‘to take’) to the past participle of the main verb. Both these can be used for denoting an action that occurs simultaneously with the one denoted by the matrix sentence. We can also regard them as denoting a temporal argument of the main (finite) verb. Examples: (124) avanu haːlu kaːyisida he-nom sing-dur milk-acc boiled ‘He boiled milk singing’ (125) kate she-nom stand-pp-dur story-acc told ‘She told a story standing’ Both these types of durative constructions, however, can only be used with sentences that contain an actor or a causer as one of their core arguments, and further, the durative clauses themselves must have such an argument in order to occur in these constructions. Examples: (126a) mañcada meːle avanu oːdida cot’s on lie-pp-dur he-nom read ‘He read (something) lying on the cot’ (126b) *mañcada meːle avanige hasivaːyitu cot’s on lie-pp-dur him-dat hunger-became ‘He became hungry (while) lying on the cot’ (127a) nelada meːle avanu atta ground’s on fall-dur he-nom cried ‘He cried falling on the ground’ (127b) *nelada meːle ground’s on fall-dur pot-nom broke ‘The pot broke (while) falling on the ground’ The unacceptability of (126b) is due to the fact that the second (matrix) clause does not contain an actor argument but only an experiencer argument, whereas that of (127b) is due to the fact that both the durative construction as well as the matrix clause contain only an undergoer. In the case of (127a), however, the verb ‘to fall’, occurring in the durative clause can be interpreted as denoting an action (‘volitional falling’) and in this particular interpretation, it is an acceptable sentence.

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Page 81 3.4.9 Modal constructions Some of the modal constructions like imperative, prohibitive and unreal possibility, are constrained by the fact that the sentences which occur in these constructions must have an actor or a causer as one of their core arguments. Examples: Imperative (128) niːnu manege hoːgu you-nom house-dat go-imp ‘Go home!’ (129) niːnu maradinda you-nom tree-instr fall-imp ‘*Fall from the tree!’ The verb biːlu ‘to fall’ can be used either with an actor or with an undergoer, but in (129) it can only have the former usage. The imperative construction can also be used with an undergoer in some contexts, as shown below in (130), but the sense conveyed by such a usage is that of warning rather than ordering, and further, there is also an implication of volitionality provided by a preceding clause: (130) niːnu oːdade feːlaːgu you-nom lesson-acc read-not-pp exam-loc fail-be-imp ‘*Fail in the exam by not reading the lessons!’ Prohibitive (131) niːnu allige hoːga you-nom there go-pur don’t ‘Don’t go there!’ The use of this construction, containing the purposive participle of the main verb, is restricted to sentences containing an actor (or a causer) in second person; for actors in third person, the prohibitive is formed by adding the negative word to the nominalized form of the main verb. This latter construction, however, can be used in the case of sentences that do not contain an actor or causer also, but in such a usage it denotes a negative wish rather than a negative order. Example: (132a) *ninage siga you-dat money-nom get-pur don’t ‘*Don’t get money!’ (132b) avanige siguvudu him-dat money-nom get-it don’t ‘Let him not get money’

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Page 82 The unacceptability of (132a) is due to the fact that the prohibitive construction with the purposive form of the main verb has been used in a non-action sentence; whereas in (132b), the construction has a nominalized verb and hence it is acceptable in spite of the fact that the sentence does not contain an actor. Unreal possibility As mentioned earlier (see p. 50), this construction is formed by adding the past form of the verb iru ‘to be’ to sentences denoting a possibility. It is constrained by the fact that the sentences which participate in it must have an actor (or a causer) in their original form. As shown below (133b), this actor argument shifts from nominative to dative in these constructions because of the loss of control over the action of the concerned referent. Examples: (133a) maddu tinna bahudu she-nom medicine-acc eat-pur possible ‘She may take the medicine’ (133b) maddu tinna bahudittu her-dat medicine-acc eat-pur possible-was ‘She could have taken the medicine’ (134a) avanige siga bahudu him-dat money-nom get-pur possible ‘He may get money’ (134b) *avanige siga bahudittu him-dat money-nom get-pur possible-was ‘He could have got money’ The unacceptability of (134b) is due to the fact that the sentence had originally an experiencer and not an actor as shown by (134a). It is possible, however, to make it acceptable by inducing volitionality into it as follows: (134c) prayatna avanige siga bahudittu effort suffer-be-if him-dat money-nom get-pur possible-was ‘He could have got money if he had tried’ The distinctions occurring in modal constructions of the above type are generally considered to be separable from the argument structure (or case structure) of sentences, and since the former make use of the speaker-hearer distinction, and also of other aspects of the speech act, they are generally considered to be ‘pragmatic’ in nature. However, Kannada appears to regard them as of semantic relevance, as is evident from the fact that the constraints which affect them are semantic in nature. One of these constructions, namely the formation of unreal

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Page 83 possibility, also affects the argument structure of sentences, as I have pointed out above. Further, these processes also appear to be unaffected by notions like topic and focus, which I have grouped under the heading ‘pragmatic relations’ in this monograph. Example: (135a) niːnu hoːgu you-nom market-dat go-imp ‘Go to the market!’ (topic: you; focus: market) (135b) niːnu hoːgu market-dat you-nom go-imp ‘Go to the market!’ (topic: market; focus: you) Notice that the word-order change, which affects the representation of topic and focus, leaves the representation of modality distinctions unchanged. 3.4.10 Summary The various semantically relevant processes that I have given above, along with the constraints which affect them, can be summarized as in Table 3.4. Table 3.4 Syntactic processes and their semantic constraints Processes Constraints 1 adding an argument: (i) causer causer-taking verbs only (ii) cause non-action verbs only (iii) instrument with actor or causer (iv) beneficiary with actor or causer 2 suppressing the nominative: actor or causer only 3 co-reference of arguments: (i) reflexive device with actor, causer or uncontrolled undergoer (ii) anaphoric device hierarchy of arguments 4 participial conjoining: actor must be co-referential 5 purposive complement: actor or causer with co-reference restrictions 6 vector verbs with actor or causer 7 verbal agreement with actor, causer or uncontrolled undergoer 8 durative constructions with actor or causer 9 modal constructions with actor or causer 3.5 PRAGMATICALLY CONSTRAINED PROCESSES I propose to examine, in this section, some of the syntactic processes of Kannada which are of pragmatic relevance in order to show that they

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Page 84 are constrained by pragmatic factors like topic, focus and definiteness, and not by semantic factors like actor, undergoer and experiencer. The processes that I will be describing in this section are the following: 3.5.1 Relative-clause formation. 3.5.2 Answering wh-questions. 3.5.3 Contrastive conjoining. 3.5.4 Reordering of arguments. 3.5.5 Pronominal co-reference. 3.5.6 Use of certain medial and final particles. 3.5.7 Use of special anaphoric pronoun. 3.5.8 Co-reference in conjoining. The last two of these processes can be of both semantic as well as pragmatic relevance, and, accordingly, they have been found to show both these types of constraints; however, it will be shown that these constraints derive directly from their respective relevances in the case of both of these processes. 3.5.1 Relative-clause formation We can regard the process of relative-clause formation (‘relativization’) as of pragmatic relevance because it involves the selection of one of the arguments of a given sentence as the topic, and the use of the rest of the sentence as a comment upon it, with the latter part restricting or modifying the reference of the former part. That is, relativization is a way of ‘packaging’ a given idea. In Kannada the process of relativization involves (a) changing the finite verb into its relative participle, and (b) shifting the relevant argument to the right of this participle in order to make it function as the head noun and to make the rest of the clause function as its modifier. Example: (136a) boy-nom carpenter-dat money-acc gave ‘The boy gave money to the carpenter’ (136b) carpenter-dat money-acc gave-rp boy ‘the boy who gave money to the carpenter’ There is no restriction in Kannada as to which argument can be shifted to the position of the head in this fashion. That is, this process is not constrained by the kind of semantic relation that is being denoted by the argument. Example:

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boy-nom money-acc ‘the carpenter to whom the boy gave money’

gave-rp

carpenter

boy-nom carpenter-dat gave-rp money ‘the money that the boy gave to the carpenter’ However, the process does get constrained by a pragmatic factor: namely, that the head cannot be an indefinite noun phrase. What happens is that, when relativized, an indefinite noun phrase is changed into a definite one because its referent is identified by the modifying relative clause. Example: (137a) raːju ondu pustaka baredidda Raju-nom one book-acc wrote-was ‘Raju had written a book’ (137b) raːju baredidda pustaka Raju-nom wrote-was-rp book ‘the book that Raju had written’ Kannada also makes use of a pronominal relative clause in which a wh-word functions as the relative pronoun. In this construction also, the head occurring at the end of the clause will have to be definite; in fact, it generally takes a demonstrative particle aː ‘that’ in that position. Example: (137c) raːju yaːva pustakavannu barediddanoː aː pustaka Raju-nom which book-acc wrote-was-rel that book ‘the book which Raju had written’ Notice that the second occurrence of pustaka ‘book’, which is the head, takes aː ‘that’ as the definiteness marker in (137c). 3.5.2 Answering wh-questions In the case of a question-answer situation, the argument which corresponds to the questioned element can be regarded as the most salient part of the sentence that functions as the answer. Such an argument can only occur in the preverbal (focus) position in Kannada. Examples: (138a) raːju ninne ellige hoːgidda? Raju-nom yesterday where went-was ‘Where had Raju gone yesterday?’ (138b) avanu ninne maysuːrige hoːgidda he-nom yesterday Mysore-dat went-was ‘He had gone to Mysore yesterday’ (138c) *maysuːrige ninne avanu hoːgidda Mysore-dat yesterday he-nom went-was

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maysuːrige ninne yaːru hoːgiddaru? Mysore-dat yesterday who went-was ‘Who had gone to Mysore yesterday?’ (139b) maysuːrige ninne raːju hoːgidda Mysore-dat yesterday Raju-nom went-was ‘Raju had gone to Mysore yesterday’ The unacceptability of (138c) as an answer to (138a) is due to the fact that the answering argument, maysuːrige ‘to Mysore’, does not occur in the preverbal position; the questioned argument is different in (139a) and, correspondingly, the argument that needs to be used in the preverbal position in its answer is also different, as shown by (139b). Wh-words are also generally placed in the preverbal position in Kannada. However, they can be shifted to other positions in a sentence, especially in focus constructions, but the arguments that correspond to them in the answer can only occur in the preverbal position. Even in focus constructions these answering arguments generally occur in the penultimate position only (see Bhat 1989). Examples: (140a) ellinda avanu bandaddu? where-instr he-nom came-it ‘Where is it that he came from?’ (140b) avanu maysuːrininda bandaddu he-nom Mysore-instr came-it ‘It is from Mysore that he came’ (140c) *maysuːrininda avanu bandaddu Mysore-instr he-nom came-it (141a) avanu bandaddu ellinda? he-nom came-it where-instr ‘Where is it that he came from?’ (141b) ?avanu bandaddu maysuːrininda he-nom came-it Mysore-instr ‘It is from Mysore that he came’ The unacceptability of (140c) is due to the fact that the answering argument occurs in the topic position; notice that the corresponding wh-word in (140a) does occur in that position. This wh-word has been shifted to the sentence-final position in (141a), but still the corresponding answering argument cannot be shifted to that position as shown by the doubtful acceptability of (141b) as an answer to (141a); one would generally prefer to use (140b) as an answer to (141a) as well. 3.5.3 Contrastive conjoining A similar constraint affects the contrastive conjoining of two different arguments in pairs of clauses, of which one is negative and the other affirmative. Example:

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avanu raːjuvige harige he-nom fruit-acc Raju-dat give-not Hari-dat gave ‘He didn’t give the fruit to Raju, but to Hari’ Arguments denoting any given semantic relation can be contrasted in this fashion, but there is a pragmatic constraint: namely, that the contrasted arguments must occur in the preverbal (focus) position of their respective clauses. This constraint has apparently resulted from the fact that, as in the previous case of answering arguments, the contrasting arguments function as the most salient ones in their respective clauses. Examples: (142b) *avanu raːjuvige harige he-nom Raju-dat fruit-acc give-not Hari-dat gave ‘He didn’t give Raju a fruit, but to Hari’ (142c) avanu raːjuvige kallu he-nom Raju-dat fruit-acc give-not stone-acc gave ‘He didn’t give a fruit to Raju, but a stone; (142d) *avanu raːjuvige kallannu he-nom fruit-acc Raju-dat give-not stone-acc gave ‘He didn’t give the fruit to Raju, but the stone’ In (142a), the contrasting arguments are Raju and Hari; both of these occur in the preverbal position and hence the sentence is acceptable. This is also true of (142c), in which the two contrasting arguments, namely fruit and stone, occur in the preverbal position. By contrast, in (142b) and (142d), the contrasting arguments, namely Raju and Hari in the former case, and fruit and stone in the latter case, do not occur in the preverbal position and because of this, both these sentences are unacceptable. 3.5.4 Reordering of arguments The process of reordering the arguments is very clearly of pragmatic relevance in Kannada, as it is used for denoting the topic (shifting an argument to the sentence-initial position), focus (shifting to the preverbal position in verbal sentences and to the sentence-final position in others), and afterthought (shifting to the postsentential position) (see 3.3 for details). It is unaffected by the kind of semantic relations that are being expressed by the arguments concerned, but it is affected by the nature of pragmatic functions that are performed by them. 1 For example, the process of shifting an argument to the sentence-initial (topic) position is constrained by the definiteness factor. An indefinite noun phrase cannot be shifted to this position apparently

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Page 88 because, a topic is crucially an argument which relates the sentence to the speech context, whereas an indefinite noun phrase is one whose referent is being newly introduced into the speech context. The latter cannot perform the ‘linking’ function of the topic. Because of this constraint, equational sentences in which one of the noun phrases is indefinite can only have that phrase as the second (focus) argument. Example: (143a) aː obba vidyaːrthi that boy-nom one student-nom ‘The boy is a student’ (143b) *obba vidyaːrthi aː one student-nom that boy-nom ‘*A student is that boy’ 2 It is possible, however, to use such indefinite noun phrases in the sentence-initial position if the word ondu occurring in them denotes the numeral ‘one’, i.e. ‘one of a definite set’ rather than simply the indefinite ‘a’ or ‘an’, apparently because a contextual definiteness is implied by this usage as a numeral. Example: (144) ondu pustaka meːjina meːle ide one book-nom table’s on is ‘One of the books is on the table’ 3 Indefinite noun phrases cannot also be used as afterthoughts in the postverbal (or postsentential) positions. The reason for this constraint is apparently similar to the previous one. While using an indefinite noun phrase, the speaker is asking the addressee to make note of a new referent that is being introduced into the speech context (see Bhat 1981); he or she cannot therefore relegate it to the position of an afterthought. Example: (145) *naːnu ninne ondu sinemaː I-nom yesterday saw-was one cinema ‘*I had seen (it) yesterday, a cinema’ The above sentence would be unacceptable as an afterthought construction; it can, however, be used for providing certain special connotations, for example, that the visit to the cinema was not all that important or worth mentioning. 3.5.5 Pronominal co-reference The establishment of antecedents for demonstrative pronouns like avanu ‘he, that man’, ivanu ‘this man’, etc. is constrained by the relative

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Page 89 order of arguments in Kannada. The following sentences illustrate this point: (146a) raːjuvina avana maganige Raju’s brother-nom his son-dat beat ‘Raju’s brother beat his son’ (146b) raːjuvina maganige avana Raju’s son-dat his brother-nom beat ‘Raju’s son was beaten by his brother’ In both these sentences, the antecedent of the pronoun avana ‘his’ can be Raju (it can also be the brother in (146a) and son in (146b)). The point to be noted here is that the control for co-reference is with the argument (or its possessor) which precedes the pronoun irrespective of the semantic relation (actor or experiencer) that it represents. A similar constraint affects the co-reference of pronouns with noun phrases that occur in the preceding sentence; in this latter situation, the sentence-initial (topic) argument determines the antecedent. Example: (147a) raːju hariyannu kareyalilla yaːkendare, avanu Raju Hari-acc call-not because he-nom late-became-pp bandidda came-was ‘Raju didn’t call Hari because he (Raju) had come late’ (147b) hariyannu raːju kareyalilla yaːkendare, avanu Hari-acc Raju-nom call-not because he-nom late-became-pp bandidda came-was ‘Raju didn’t call Hari because he (Hari) had come late’ The pronoun avanu ‘he’ of the second sentence refers to Raju in (147a) and to Hari in (147b), because in the former case the topic is Raju whereas in the latter case it is Hari. 3.5.6 Use of certain medial and final particles Kannada makes use of two sets of particles of which one is sentence-medial and the other sentence-final. The former includes particles such as uː ‘also’ and eː ‘emphatic’, and the latter includes several, such as ante ‘it seems’, taːne: ‘isn’t it?’ (tag question), oː ‘is it?’ (yes-no question), alla ‘not’ (equational negation), etc. The use of both these types of particles is constrained by the notion of focus. 1 The medial particles are attached to arguments in order to indicate the relevant meanings, but they can occur only once in a simple sentence. The marked argument functions as the sentence focus. Example:

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raːju maneguː hoːda Raju-nom house-dat-too went ‘Raju went to the house also’ (focus: house) (149) raːjuveː manege hoːguttaːne Raju-nom-emph house-dat go-fut ‘Raju himself will go to the house’ (focus: Raju) When they occur with an initial argument as in (149), it is possible that the argument functions both as the focus as well as the topic, but in such sentences, another argument cannot be used as the focus. The two particles can co-occur in a given sentence (i.e. with different arguments), and in such a situation the emphatic particle is attached to the focus of the sentence. Example: (148a) raːjuvuː manegeː hoːda Raju-nom-too house-dat-emph went ‘Raju also went to the house itself’ (focus: house) 2 The sentence-final particles generally occur at the end of a sentence, but in the case of focus constructions, they can also be attached to one of the arguments that occur medially in the sentence. Tirumalesh (1979) argues that these are actually attached to postposed (focus) arguments, which are then shifted to the medial position along with the particles attached to them. Examples: (149a) raːju maysuːrige hoːdaddu ninne taːneː? Raju-nom Mysore-dat went-it yesterday isn’t it? ‘It is yesterday that Raju went to Mysore, isn’t it?’ (149b) raːju ninne taːneː maysuːrige hoːdaddu? Raju-nom yesterday isn’t-it Mysore-dat went-it Notice that in (149b) ninne ‘yesterday’ has been shifted to the sentence-medial position along with the particle taːneː . The medial particle uː ‘also’, mentioned earlier, can co-occur with any of the final particles with the two being attached to different arguments, and in such a situation also, the latter particle is attached to the focus argument. Example: (150) raːju manegante hoːguvudu Raju-nom tomorrow-too house-dat-it-seems go-it ‘It seems Raju is going to the house tomorrow also’ However, none of the final particles can co-occur with the emphatic particle eː. Example: (151) *raːjuveː manegante hoːdaddu Raju-nom-emph house-dat-it-seems went-it ‘It seems Raju himself went to the house’

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Page 91 Similarly, none of the final particles can co-occur with another final particle. The equational negative alla ‘not’ can occur with the yes-no question particle oː (or eː), but the two together perform a different function, namely that of denoting a tag question. Example: (152) raːju manegallavoː hoːdaddu? Raju-nom house-dat-not-Q went-it ‘Raju went to the house, isn’t it?’ 3.5.7 Use of special anaphoric pronoun As I mentioned above (pp. 72–3), the special anaphoric pronoun taːnu ‘self’ has semantic as well as pragmatic relevance in Kannada. Semantically, it helps to indicate the co-reference of two different case roles, and pragmatically it helps to differentiate between anaphoric (intra-sentential) and pragmatic (intersentential or contextual) antecedents. Consider, for example, the following pairs of sentences: (153a) raːju avana duːrida Raju-nom his brother-acc blamed ‘Raju blamed his brother’ (153b) raːju tanna duːrida Raju-nom self’s brother-acc blamed ‘Raju blamed his own brother’ The antecedent of the ordinary pronoun avana ‘his’ in (153a) can be either Raju (anaphoric) or any other contextually determined person, whereas the antecedent of tanna ‘self’ in (153b) can only be Raju. The pragmatic relevance of this pronoun is reflected in a constraint which affects its usage: namely, that it can only have a third person antecedent. Example: (153c) *naːnu tanna duːride I-nom self’s brother-acc blamed ‘I blamed my own brother’ The unacceptability of (153c) is due to the fact that the antecedent of tanna ‘self’s’ cannot be naːnu ‘I’ (as it has to be of third person), whereas it must have an antecedent inside the sentence itself. Since the ambiguity between anaphoric and pragmatic antecedents mentioned above affects only third person pronouns, the special anaphoric pronoun has to carry out its pragmatic function of disambiguation only in the case of third person referents. This can be the explanation for the occurrence of the abovementioned constraint on its usage (see Bhat 1977).

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Page 92 3.5.8 Co-reference in conjoining Participial conjoining can also be regarded as having semantic as well as pragmatic relevance in Kannada (see 3.4.4 above). The fact that it conjoins two different sentences can be used for claiming that it is of pragmatic relevance, whereas the fact that it embeds the participial clause and therefore allows it to function as an argument of the finite clause in at least some usages can be used for claiming that it is of semantic relevance. I pointed out earlier (3.4.4) that the latter aspect has given rise to certain semantic constraints on its usage. The following pragmatic constraint has apparently resulted from the former aspect. In a co-ordinated sentence, the co-referentiality between a deleted noun phrase (of the second clause) and its antecedent (in the first clause) is determined not by the semantic relation of the antecedent noun phrase, but by the pragmatic factor of being the topic of the sentence. Example: (154a) nanna kaːlu avana talege taːgi rakta bantu my leg-nom his head-dat hit-pp blood-nom came ‘My leg hit his head and blood came (in my leg)’ (154b) avana talege nanna kaːlu taːgi rakta bantu his head-dat my leg-nom hit-pp blood-nom came ‘His head was hit by my leg and blood came (in his head)’ The location of bleeding is leg in (154a) and head in (154b), apparently because these two function as the topics of the respective sentences. The fact that the former is the undergoer and the latter is the location (goal) in both of these sentences has apparently no effect upon this co-reference (see p. 17 for an additional example of this constraint). Similar constraint occurs in the case of sentences that have been conjoined through the use of mattu ‘and’ also, as shown below (155a–b). This supports my claim that the present constraint has been induced by the pragmatic relevance of conjoining in the former case also. Notice that a sentence which involves conjoining with mattu ‘and’ does not show any semantic relevance of the type shown by the corresponding sentence which involves participial conjoining. Example: (155a) hañcina meːle bittu mattu bottle-nom tile’s on fell and two piece-became ‘The bottle fell on the tile and (the bottle) broke into two’ (155b) hañcina meːle bittu mattu tile’s on bottle-nom fell and two piece-became ‘The bottle fell on the tile and (the tile) broke into two’ The implication in (155a) is that the bottle broke into two, whereas in (155b) the implication is that the tile broke into two. That is, the

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Page 93 implication (or co-reference) is connected with the topicality of the preceding argument and not with its semantic relation (nominative undergoer vs oblique location). 3.5.9 Summary We can summarize these various pragmatically relevant processes, and the constraints which affect them, in the form of Table 3.5. Table 3.5 Syntactic processes and their pragmatic constraints Processes Constraints 1 head of a relative clause definite 2 answering argument focus (preverbal) 3 contrasting argument focus 4 reordering of arguments (a) sentence-initial definite (b) post-sentential definite 5 pronominal co-reference preceding; topic 6 medial or final particles focus 7 special anaphoric pronoun third person 8 co-reference in conjoining topic 3.6 CONCLUSION Bresnan (1982a) argues, while commenting upon the possibility of eliminating grammatical relations (called by her grammatical ‘functions’) by reducing them to semantic notions (or other such non-syntactic notions), that the correspondence between the two must be shown to be explanatory rather than arbitrary. She writes (1982:286a): In other words, the syntactic properties of grammatical functions—such as their roles in reflexivization, causativization, passivization, and control—should not be arbitrarily associated with the proposed semantic definitions, but should be shown to follow from the appropriate semantic characterizations. Unless this is done, syntactically primitive grammatical functions will not have been eliminated by these definitions, but only renamed. This is exactly what I have done in this chapter. I have not only shown that the representations of semantic and pragmatic notions are simple and direct in Kannada, but also that the constraints which affect the various processes that occur in connection with the representations of

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Page 94 these notions can be stated meaningfully by using these very same notions. There is no need therefore to establish an intermediary set of notions, called grammatical relations or functions, in order to describe either of these two aspects of this language. Bresnan (1982a) has referred to causativization as one of the natural-language processes that exemplify her claim that there is a need to regard grammatical relations as primitive notions, i.e. entities that are not reducible to semantic or pragmatic notions. In languages like Malayalam, for example, she points out that the subject of an intransitive base verb behaves syntactically like the object of the causativized verb, but the subject of a transitive base verb behaves syntactically like an oblique instrumental of the causative verb. Her claim, apparently based on Mohanan (1982), is that the semantic properties of the causative subjects are the same regardless of whether they function syntactically as objects or oblique instrumentals. She considers the distinction between intransitive and transitive subjects to be reflected only in their syntactic behavior but not in any semantic properties that can be assigned to them. (See Appendix 2 for a disconfirmation of this claim about Malayalam.) In the case of Kannada, however, a comparable distinction in the grouping of verbs does get reflected in the semantic properties of the arguments concerned, as I have shown above (see pp. 46–8). Whether an actor argument is changed in a causative construction from nominative to instrumental, or from nominative to accusative or dative, is meaningful in this language; the former implies only loss of control over the action, whereas the latter implies further that the concerned argument cannot even be regarded as an ‘actor’. That is, the situation in Kannada fully satisfies the condition that Bresnan puts forth for eliminating grammatical relations.

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Page 95 Part II Evidence against the universality of grammatical relations

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Page 97 4 Universality of grammatical relations 4.1 PRELIMINARIES In the second part of this monograph, I wish to present arguments and evidence in support of my contention that grammatical relations cannot be regarded as language universal notions. It is necessary to argue this notion afresh, because in spite of my claim, put forth in the first part of this monograph, that the grammatical relations need not be postulated for describing the grammars of some languages like Kannada, some scholars might argue that they might still be postulated for the underlying structures of all languages, for some reason or the other. Consider, for example, the argument put forth by Williams (1984) in support of his claim that ‘verb phrases’ as distinct s-structure entities might be postulated for all languages, even if they are not actually needed for the grammars of some of them. His contention is that there are certain facts related to language-acquisition occurring in configurational languages like English, which cannot be accounted for unless we assume that the notion of verb phrase is a language universal concept (i.e. as one which the human child has been genetically endowed with). His argument in support of this contention runs as follows: If verb phrase is a universal part of s-structure, then there would be nothing to learn, and hence speakers of non-configurational languages (who do not actually need it) should not have any problem. Whereas if verb phrase is not a universal part of s-structure, then it is difficult to see how a language learner could infer the existence of verb phrase, as in a configurational language like English, where it does exist by all accounts (Williams 1984:651). Williams considers this notion of verb phrase to be part of his theta-theory, and the notion of ‘external’ argument (i.e. the argument which stays outside the verb phrase) to be distinct from that of ‘subject’ (see 4.3. below). However, the argument put forth by him is illustrative of the

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Page 98 kind of argument that can be forwarded for postulating abstract entities even in the case of languages in which they have been shown to be unnecessary. One important point that has been missed by scholars who put forth abstract entities like grammatical relations for all languages is that the entities are necessary, even in the case of languages like English, only for the linguist who is trying to produce an explicit grammar of the language concerned; this need arises as a result of the fact that our brain can manipulate only a small number of factors at this explicit level as a result of the fact that its functioning at that level is constrained by the limitations of consciousness (see Bhat 1986:17). However, the actual functioning of language occurs at the implicit level of the brain, and at this latter level the brain is able to cope simultaneously with millions of factors, i.e. even those factors which are only remotely connected with the relation under consideration. Hence, establishing a direct link between form and meaning even in the case of languages like English, which appear to be rather too complex for our explicitly functioning brain (or mind), would be of no complexity whatsoever for the same brain functioning at the implicit level. Similarly, since language acquisition takes place at this implicit level of our brain (we are not ‘aware’ of the rules that we formulate while acquiring the knowledge of the various sentence structures), the problem mentioned above by Williams would actually be no problem at all as far as our acquisition of the knowledge of language is concerned. Even in our explicit study of the grammar of a given language, arguments of the type given above would be acceptable only if the postulation of abstract entities like grammatical relations or verb phrases does not conflict with the general structure of its grammar. Thus, it would be even more problematic to account for a surface structure which shows major conflicts with a postulated deep structure. My contention regarding the postulation of grammatical relations as language universal entities is exactly of this nature. I find that the generalizations which need to be made regarding the structure of natural language sentences, in order to claim that the above-mentioned entities are common to all of them, are in conflict with generalizations that need to be made while describing some of them, like Kannada and Manipuri. For example, the notion of transitivity (or transference) forms the basis of the notion of grammatical relations or of other related concepts like hierarchic dominance or verb phrase in almost all the current approaches to linguistic theory. All of them assume, either overtly or covertly, that this notion of transitivity would be the central notion in the structuring of sentences in all natural languages. Are we justified in

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Page 99 making this assumption, or does it simply reflect our familiar-language bias? Similarly, the postulation of three different ‘core’ arguments (symbolized as S, A and O), which is, once again, based upon the assumption that transitivity is the central notion in all languages, conflicts with the situation existing in languages like Kannada, in which we need to postulate an entirely different set of core arguments, namely actor, undergoer and experiencer. It does not appear to be feasible to correlate or ‘reduce’ these three latter entities into the former ones in order to maintain that the former are the universal core arguments. I will be discussing these and other related aspects of sentence structure in the following sections of this chapter, and will be exemplifying my position regarding two main points, namely (a) the centrality of the notion of transitivity, and (b) the relevance of the notion of verb phrase (or of external argument), on the basis of a detailed description of the relevant aspects of Manipuri grammar in the next chapter. 4.2 THE NOTION OF TRANSITIVITY Grammatical relations are considered to be definable in terms of the notion of transitivity which, according to most linguists, plays the central role in the organization of sentences in all languages. For example, Andrews (1985:98) points out that a category called ‘Primary Transitive Verb’ (PTV) occupies the central position in his terminology, and implicitly at least, in most others. His contention is that ‘in all languages, PTV’s are the semantic category of verbs which receives the most uniform grammatical treatment, and which is most widely used as a grammatical model of verbs of other semantic categories’. According to Dixon (1979:83, 102), all languages work in terms of universal syntactic functions A, O and S, and syntactic rules in every grammar are framed in terms of them. Since these core functions are to be established on the basis of the notion of transitivity (the single obligatory argument of intransitive verbs is to be symbolized as S and the two obligatory arguments of transitive verbs as A and O—see 2.3.2 for details), this is in effect a claim about the centrality of the notion of transitivity as well. Dixon (1979:68) defines transitivity on the basis of a distinction between activities that necessarily involve two participants and the ones which only necessarily involve one participant. All languages, according to him, have classes of transitive and intransitive verbs to describe these two classes of activity. In the case of transitive verbs, i.e. two-participant

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Page 100 verbs, the noun phrase whose referent can initiate and control the activity (if any of the two can) is recognized as being the A function, and the one whose referent cannot be the controller is taken to be in O function. Dixon (1979:106) suggests that the ‘central meaning’ of transitive verbs is the description of actions (like ‘cut’, ‘throw’, ‘give’, ‘eat’, etc.) which are controlled by a human or animate being. But individual languages may allow different types of semantic extensions, either with an animate (but not controlling) participant, or with an inanimate one (which is not even potentially controlling) for the A function. These different kinds of participants are recognized as being in A function because of culturally perceived similarities to some variety of controllable event. Such extensions are considered to differ from language to language. Dixon (1979:70, 107) also points out that the single participant (S) of intransitive verbs might either be the controller of action (as in jump, speak, run, etc.) and therefore resemble the A function of transitive verbs, or it might have no control over the action (as in break, die, yawn, etc.) and therefore resemble the O function of transitive verbs. The occurrence of two distinct types of case-marking systems called ‘accusative’ and ‘ergative’ (see 2.3.2) is considered to reflect this possibility of semantically sub-grouping the single participant of intransitive verbs either with A or with O. Dowty (1982) has also used this distinction between single-participant verbs and double-participant verbs as his basis for differentiating between intransitive and transitive bases. He makes use of Montague’s idea of regarding the transitive verb as denoting a function which, by applying to one individual, gives rise to a new function; this latter function, according to him, can be regarded as identical with that of an intransitive verb, because both of them can apply to an individual to form a sentence. Dowty also considers it possible to derive sentences containing verbs which take three or more arguments in a similar fashion; i.e. by attaching such verbs to one argument at a time, different derived functions can be obtained, and these can be identified with other (non-derived) functions. Dowty does not find it necessary, however, unlike Dixon (1979), to regard two-participant verbs with a controlling argument (agent) as representing the ‘central’ meaning as far as the notion of transitivity is concerned; because, he considers it possible to account for the selection of subject (or of the A function) in the domain of lexical semantics (Dowty 1982:110). His claim is that languages follow a set of systematic principles which determine the kind of relations that are lexicalized as

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Page 101 verbs. For example, the lexicalization, in the case of a relation like ‘find’ would be ‘x found y’ rather than the other way round (‘y was found by x’). One of the basic assumptions of this ‘participant-number’ approach to transitivity is the contention that in the case of all languages, sentences containing a single participant can all be grouped together into a class called intransitives, and the ones containing two (or more) participants can all be grouped together into another class called transitives. Dowty (1982:112) does find the ‘infamous class of psychological verbs’ containing items like seem, surprise, disappoint, frighten, anger, please, etc. to be rather problematic, because they fall between these two expected lexicalizations, namely that of (a) having the causer as the subject and (b) having the perceiver as the subject. There is also the problem of the so-called ‘middle’ or ‘semi-transitive’ verbs having meanings such as ‘believe’, ‘trust’, ‘help’, ‘serve’, etc., which in some languages behave like intransitives in spite of their taking two obligatory participants (Siewierska 1984:13), and also of verbs like endure in which the instigator is selected for the O function rather than for the A function. But such cases, according to Dixon (1979:107), can be regarded as exceptional or idiosyncratic. Hopper and Thompson (1980) also make a similar claim about the notion of transitivity. Their arguments, however, have been based upon a somewhat different aspect of this notion, namely the occurrence of a set of co-varying features that can be regarded as the ‘components’ of this transitivity notion. They consider it possible to characterize sentences as being more or less transitive depending upon the number of such covarying components that occur in their positive form in those sentences. They have been able to isolate ten different components of this nature, which include the following which are of particular relevance to the present study: 1 number of participants (two or more versus one); 2 kinesis (action versus non-action); 3 volitionality (volitional versus non-volitional); 4 affectedness (totally affected object versus unaffected object); 5 individuality (individuated object versus non-individuated object). Hopper and Thompson point out that in all the languages that they have examined, these components were found to co-vary. Further, whenever an obligatory pairing of two of them occurred in the morphosyntax of a clause, they were always on the same side of the high-low transitivity scale.

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Page 102 For example, in Chukchee (as reported by Comrie 1973), a sentence containing an individuated object is highly transitive in that the verb has a transitive marking and the two arguments occurring in it (symbolized as A and O) have ergative and absolutive markings respectively, whereas a corresponding sentence containing an unindividuated object (i.e. one which has been incorporated into the verb stem) is low in transitivity in that the verb has an intransitive marking and the A argument has the nominative case marking. Hopper and Thompson (1980) argue that the traditional concept of transitivity, namely that of carrying over or transferring an action from one participant to another is at the heart of this co-variation. The abovementioned components, according to them, represent different facets of the ‘effectiveness or intensity with which the action is transferred from one participant to another’. They point out, for example, that there can be no transfer unless there are two or more participants; actions can be transferred more easily than states; telic actions (i.e. the ones with an end-point) can be transferred more easily than atelic actions; and the effect on the participant can be seen more easily in the case of purposive (and hence volitional) actions than in others. These and other such correlations have been given in support of their claim that the notion of transitivity or transference is at the heart of this co-variance. It appears to me, however, that such a conclusion might not be warranted by the above-mentioned covariance or correlation. After all, having two different participants and having one of them affect the other, are only two of the several components that form part of this co-variance. Further, correlations of the type given above can easily be established while regarding other components like volitionality or kinesis as the central components. For example, participation of two different entities in a given event, or the occurrence of a purposeful event, would be easier to visualize when there is a volitional participant in that event, rather than when the participants are only non-volitional. Hence the question as to whether the notion of transference forms the central notion in all languages or not cannot be determined by merely observing that it co-varies with several other components in all languages. There would apparently be contexts in which these co-varying components conflict with one another and it is only by asking the question as to whether in such contexts all languages resolve the conflict in favor of the same component, namely transference, or whether different languages favor different components, that the centrality (or otherwise) of transference can be established as a language universal characteristic.

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Page 103 My claim, in this connection, is that in the case of conflicting contexts of the type mentioned above, it is not the case that all languages favor the same component. English and several other familiar languages have been claimed to favor the notion of transference, but there are other languages like Kannada (see below) and Manipuri (see 5.4) which favor volitionality as against transference. Hence the basic claim of Hopper and Thompson (1980) about the centrality of the transference component cannot be conceded as a universal characteristic. I have described in the third chapter (see 3.4) a number of morphosyntactic processes of Kannada which have semantic relevance in the language. The constraints which affect these processes have all been found to be semantic in nature. Most of these constraints involve the notion of volitionality (i.e. the occurrence of a participant which has control over the concerned action) as I have pointed out above, and in the case of all such constraints we can find situations in which the notion of volitionality conflicts with that of transitivity. Kannada resolves all such conflicts in favor of volitionality; that is, irrespective of whether a given sentence contains one participant or two participants, and whether it involves the transfer of the action’s effect from one participant to another or not, the processes affect the sentence depending upon the occurrence (or non-occurrence) of a participant which controls the action or event concerned. We can conclude from this, I believe, that the notion of transitivity does not function as the central component in Kannada grammar. For example, in the case of causativization, the general tendency among familiar languages is to change intransitive bases into monotransitives and monotransitive bases into bitransitives, as pointed out by Comrie (1985:337). But in Kannada, an argument may be shifted from nominative to accusative (or dative) irrespective of whether it is of an intransitive verb (S) or of a transitive verb (A), provided that the concerned argument can be viewed as completely losing its control of the action concerned (direct causation); otherwise it is shifted to a postpositional form (see pp. 47 and 65 for examples). The reflexive device is generally considered to affect transitive sentences in order to indicate that the two participants involved in it are referentially one and the same (see Bhat 1977), but in Kannada, the device is used in both transitive as well as intransitive sentences. Its general function is to indicate that a given action or process is self-induced or self-beneficent, and the participant concerned is fully responsible for it (see pp. 70–2). Passivization is another device which is generally associated with transitivity. Kannada uses mainly an impersonal passive construction

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Page 104 whose purpose is to suppress completely the controller of a given action. It is used in the case of both transitive as well as intransitive sentences, but the sentence concerned must have a controlling argument occurring in it. There is also an additional constraint, namely that the sentence must have at least two arguments (see 3.4.2), but the second argument can be an adjunct like time or location. There are a number of vector verbs which are used after the past participial form of the main verb in a sentence in order to indicate certain aspectual connotations (see 3.4.6). The use of some of these involves the change of volitional sentences into non-volitional ones, but they affect sentences irrespective of the number of participants that occur in them. There are also other processes like the use of a beneficiary or a cause (3.4.1), use of modal constructions like the imperative and the prohibitive (3.4.9), which are also constrained by the notion of volitionality but not by that of transitivity. All these processes can be regarded as disconfirming the claim made by several linguists, as mentioned above, that the notion of transitivity or transference plays the central role in all languages. Another language which provides evidence against this claim about the universal centrality of transitivity is Manipuri, a Tibeto-Burman language spoken in the north-eastern part of India (bordering Burma). I will be describing, in the next chapter (see 5.4), a number of morphosyntactic processes of this language which show conflicts between transitivity and volitionality and in which the language resolves the conflicts in favor of volitionality and not in that of transitivity. 4.3 KINDS OF INTRANSITIVE AND TRANSITIVE BASES As I have pointed out in the previous section, the postulation of S, A and O as the three universal core arguments is also based upon the assumption that the notion of transitivity plays the central role in all languages. Kannada provides evidence against this postulation as well, as can be seen from the subgrouping of its verbal bases that I have presented in the previous chapter (see 3.2.1). Notice that the single-participant (intransitive) verbs of Kannada fall into three distinct groups, depending upon whether they take, as the obligatory argument, an actor in the nominative (group (i)), an undergoer in the nominative (group (iv)), or an experiencer in the dative (group (v)). There is some basis for regarding the first two of these groups as falling into a single class: both take a nominative argument with which the verb shows agreement; both show similar behavior in causativization (with some exceptions); and both share the semantic

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Page 105 property of participating in a possibly (but not necessarily in the case of group iv) self-induced action or event. But there does not seem to be any basis for regarding the third group (group (v)) as falling into this class so as to establish a class of intransitive verbs (or the core argument symbolized as S) in this language (except for the trivial fact that all of them take a single argument). There is also a similar problem that has to be faced if we are to group all two-participant verbs into a single class called ‘transitive’ in Kannada. Verbs taking an actor along with an undergoer in the accusative (group (ii)) and an experiencer in the dative (group (iii)) can be put together into a single class, but the ones which take an undergoer in the nominative along with an experiencer in the dative (group (vi)) cannot be combined with them into a larger class. In fact, the former two groups combine with group (i), which has only a single participant, namely the actor, to form a class of action verbs in this language. That is, the verbal classification cuts across the participant-number criteria by giving greater importance to the notion of volitionality. 4.3.1 Unergatives and unaccusatives The necessity to divide intransitive verbs into two distinct groups has been recognized recently by several linguists. Dixon (1979), for example, differentiates between two kinds of S, namely Sa participant which exercises control over the action) and So (one which does not). He contends, however, that ‘languages show a tendency to ignore these semantic niceties and to generalize one grammatical form to mark S NPs with all types of intransitive verbs’ (1979:80). Perlmutter (1978) proposes to differentiate between these two types of intransitives by postulating that the nominative argument occurring with one type of verbs (Sa) is the subject in both the initial as well as the final strata (see 2.3.3 above for a description of this notion of ‘strata’), whereas the one occurring with the other type of verbs (So) is the subject only in the final stratum, but an object in the initial stratum. He calls the former ‘unergatives’ and the latter ‘unaccusatives’ in his theory of Relational Grammar. This idea of viewing some intransitive verbs as having an underlying object as their obligatory participant has been adapted into Government and Binding theory by linguists like Burzio (1983) for Italian and Miyagawa (1989) for Japanese. Verbs of this type (unaccusatives) are called ‘ergatives’ in this theory. The single arguments of these verbs are considered to occur inside the verb phrase (in the object position) in the deep structure, and to move to the subject position in the surface

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Page 106 structure because of the fact that these verbs are incapable of assigning case to their objects. We can perhaps regard this identification of the nominative arguments of non-volitional intransitive verbs with the objects (accusative arguments) of volitional transitive verbs as representing an attempt (conscious or unconscious) to maintain the assumption that transitivity plays the central role in all languages. But such an identification would not be satisfactory in the case of Kannada because, as I have pointed out in the third chapter, Kannada makes a distinction between these two types of arguments. An accusative argument is necessarily affected by the action of some other overt or covert participant, whereas a nominative argument may have the effect produced by its own self-induced (volitional or non-volitional) action or event. In fact, Kannada makes use of a nominative-accusative shift in contexts in which the effect on a given participant has clearly resulted from the action of some other participant (see 3.2.3). Such a grouping would be unsatisfactory for Manipuri also, because, as I will be pointing out below (see 5.2.1–2), Manipuri leaves the non-volitional arguments of unaccusative verbs unmarked, whereas it marks the non-volitional arguments of two-participant (transitive) verbs provided that they are animate. The two differ from one another in that the former may have the effect brought upon it by a self-induced event, but not the latter. 4.3.2 Process of ‘inversion’ The occurrence of a dative noun phrase instead of a nominative one in the case of intransitive verbs belonging to group (v) (and also in transitive verbs of group (vi)) in Kannada, and also in several other languages like Malayalam (McAlpin 1976), Italian (Perlmutter 1984), and Georgian (Harris 1984), has been rather problematic for linguists. In the case of Kannada, Sridhar (1979) has put forth certain arguments in order to claim that these dative noun phrases are to be regarded as underlying subjects. Similar proposals have been put forth for other languages also, as for example, by the scholars mentioned above. In the theory of Relational Grammar, these noun phrases are considered to involve a process called ‘inversion’, which changes a nominal from its position of subject in the initial stratum to that of indirect object in the final stratum. This claim is based upon the fact that in languages like Italian and Georgian the concerned nominals show some of the characteristics of subject.

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Page 107 I will be examining in detail, in a separate appendix, the arguments put forth by Sridhar (1976, 1979) in support of his contention that the relevant noun phrases show some of the characteristics of ‘subjects’ in Kannada. An examination of these arguments reveals that the processes given by Sridhar as supporting his contention actually go against it. They indicate clearly that the dative noun phrases under consideration are quite different from nominative noun phrases and cannot therefore be regarded as ‘subjects’. 4.3.3 Active languages Thompson (1985:417) has suggested, on the basis of his study of Salish and other American Indian languages, that the grouping of all single-participant verbs into a unified class called ‘intransitives’, found both in our ‘familiar nominative-accusative systems and the somewhat more exotic ergative-absolutive systems may reflect specialized (and sometimes arbitrary) extensions from earlier systems showing more categorizations in terms of logical properties’. He finds it necessary, for example, to distinguish between uncontrolled and controlled (volitional) actions and processes, with the distinction occurring in both transitive as well as intransitive bases. Other scholars such as Klimov (1972, 1979), DeLancy (1985), Durie (1987), etc., have also referred to the occurrence of languages in which prominence is given to this distinction between active and non-active sentences, rather than to the one between transitive and intransitive sentences. It has been suggested that such languages are to be regarded as forming a distinct type called ‘active’ languages contrasting with ‘transitive’ ones, with only the latter falling into two subgroups, namely accusatives and ergatives. According to Klimov (1979), it is possible to associate several distinguishing characteristics with this active language type, such as the occurrence of (a) an active-inactive distinction among the nominals (resembling the distinction between animate and inanimate nouns); (b) a near-distant distinction among the complements of verbs (instead of the one between direct and indirect objects); (c) centrifugal (directed outside)—non-centrifugal (limited to oneself) distinction among the actions; and (d) affective (involving an experiencer)—non-affective (active or non-active) distinction in addition to the active-stative one among the verbs. However, other scholars have considered such languages to be partly accusative and partly ergative. For example, Dixon (1979, 1987) considers these to be possessing a ‘split-S’ system in which the single

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Page 108 argument (S) of intransitive sentences has been split into two, namely Sa (volitional) and So (non-volitional) with the former being combined with A (as in the accusative system) and the latter with O (as in the ergative system) for case marking and verbal agreement. Notice, however, that these active languages can be regarded as involving a ‘split’ system only if we examine them from the point of view of languages that have an ergative or an accusative system of case marking and verbal agreement. Because, the notion of S as a unified entity has resulted from the extension of case marking that has taken place in these latter languages in either of the two possible directions. From the point of view of the active languages themselves, we can only regard them as constituting a distinct type and not as involving a mix-up of the accusative and ergative systems. Notice further that the accusative and ergative languages are to be regarded as marked systems in view of the fact that they have undertaken the above-mentioned extensions. Dixon (1979:80) has pointed out that in addition to such languages with a ‘split-S’ system, there can also be languages with a ‘fluid-S’ system, in which one and the same verb may take either Sa or So depending upon whether the argument actually controls the action or not. He considers this fluid-S system to be very rare, occurring only in a handful of languages. We might add Manipuri also to this list, as it shows comparable fluidity in the case of some of its single-participant (and also some two-participant) verbs (see 5.2.1). Dixon also considers the split-S marking to be of superficial relevance. His contention is that the distinction between Sa and So helps only in explaining some morphological splits in the languages concerned; it plays virtually no role in syntax (1979:108). This contention, however, is contradicted by both Kannada (see 3.4) as well as Manipuri (see 5.4). Both these languages have been found to use this distinction rather extensively for syntactic purposes. Perlmutter (1978) and Rosen (1984) also provide syntactic processes that make use of this distinction while establishing their claim that intransitive sentences are to be divided into two distinct groups, called unaccusatives and unergatives. Another point that is of relevance here is the claim made by Dixon (1979:112) that a universal category of ‘subject’, which groups A and S together, can be established at the deep-structure level for all languages. In the case of some languages, according to him, almost every syntactic operation would be based upon this subject category, whereas in the case of others, there would at least be a minimal set of such operations that would be based upon it. He has given three critical examples of

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Page 109 operations which, according to him, can be regarded as belonging to this latter group; they are: 1 being the second person pronoun in imperatives; 2 being the co-referential noun phrase in a jussive complement whose antecedent is the object of matrix verbs like tell or order (as in I ordered him to go); 3 being the co-referential noun phrase in a main clause whose antecedent is the subject of auxiliaries like can, begin, finish, try, etc. (as in I began to paint the wall). Notice, however, that the first two of these syntactic operations involve volitional activities and hence we can expect languages which give prominence to volitionality to restrict these operations to A and Sa only. In fact, Dixon (1979:82) does find that Guarani, a language of Paraguay, shows such a restriction in the case of the imperative. But he regards this to be only an ‘isolated’ instance. However, as I have pointed out in the previous chapter, the grouping of A and Sa is relevant in the case of Kannada also for carrying out the three operations mentioned above (and also for several others). In the case of both imperatives (see 3.4.9) and jussive complements (see 3.4.5), the constraint is the need to have a controlling (volitional) argument (A or Sa), whereas in the case of verbs like begin, finish, etc., Kannada makes use of two distinct ‘helper’ verbs, namely aːgu ‘to become’ and ‘to do’, of which the former is used for So and the latter for Sa. Examples: (1a) suru aːyitu fruit-nom fall-pur start became ‘The fruits started to fall’ (1b) avanu oːdalu suru maːdida he-nom run-pur start did ‘He started to run’ These two helper verbs can also be used in order to differentiate between volitional and non-volitional complements in the case of two-participant (transitive) sentences as well. Examples: (1c) avanige śabda suru aːyitu him-dat noise-nom hear-pur start became ‘He started to hear noise’ (1d) avanu śabda maːdalu suru maːdida he-nom noise-acc do-pur start did ‘He started to make noise’ The situation is similar in Manipuri also, as I will be pointing out in the next chapter (see 5.4).

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Page 110 4.4 THE NOTION OF VERB PHRASE AND OF EXTERNAL ARGUMENT Williams (1984) has argued that there is no need to establish grammatical relations as a distinct set of abstract entities in order to relate semantic roles (called by him ‘thematic’ roles) and case roles. The latter two sets of entities, according to him, can be directly correlated with the help of assignment and realization rules of theta theory and case theory. However, he does find it necessary to regard one of the arguments of the sentence as an ‘external’ argument and the remaining ones as ‘internal’ arguments (i.e. as part of the verb phrase). This distinction, according to him, is connected with the ‘logical organization’ of the sentence into a subject-predicate relation (see 4.4.2 below). This notion of external argument, according to Williams (1984:640), is part of the ‘correct’ theta theory; it involves both the nature of the verb’s argument structure and the manner of theta-role assignment. It plays a crucial role in languages like English, for example in the functioning of certain syntactic processes like control of co-reference, anaphora and verbal compounding, but in others, it may not have any prominent role to play. However, he considers it necessary to postulate it (external argument) for the s-structure of all languages (see 4.1 above). 4.4.1 As a pragmatic notion It appears to me, however, that the relation which gets expressed through this external-internal distinction among the arguments of a given sentence is basically a pragmatic one and not a semantic (or ‘thematic’) one; it concerns the organization or packaging of the sentence (see 2.1), and hence, theta theory, which deals with the thematic structure of sentences, is not the correct place for deriving it. There are apparently two different reasons why Williams has considered it possible to include this notion of external argument in his theta theory. First of all, he has apparently followed the general trend in GB framework, namely of setting aside pragmatic factors as of no direct relevance to grammar proper. He cannot therefore include this notion under a separate theory called pragmatic theory. Secondly, the language upon which his theory has been built up, namely English, combines together and grammaticalizes the semantic and pragmatic relations, as I have pointed out above (see 2.1), and the ‘externalization’ of the sentential topic is one of the aspects of pragmatics that has been combined together with thematic roles in this fashion. It is apparently the indistinguishability resulting from this joint

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Page 111 encoding which has induced him to include a pragmatic factor (namely of being an external argument) in his theta theory. The relation between (a) being an ‘external’ argument in a sentence on the one hand, and (b) being the ‘topic’ in a sentence on the other, has been recognized by several scholars. For example, Haiman (1978:584) has pointed out that topics can be considered as noun phrases that are outside a given sentence, established either by previous context or by the agreement that the speaker solicits from his listener. He has also referred to Sgall as claiming that the topic noun phrase originates outside the complement of the performative verb. Fillmore (1968:57) considers the selection of subject in English sentences as a ‘primary topicalization’ process. Some of the constraints which affect this notion of external argument, such as the need for it to be definite, and some of the entailment distinctions that are connected with it, can also be explained easily by regarding it as the topic of the sentence, i.e. as the item which connects the sentence with other sentences and the one about which the rest of the sentence provides a characterization (see 3.3.1). Stowell (1981:35) has pointed out that an argument functioning as the ‘subject’, but not one with any specific theta-role, constitutes an exception to the one-to-one correspondence between sub-categorized positions and theta-role positions. This important (latter) correlation has been formulated by Chomsky (1981) by his Projection Principle, according to which lexical items are expected to select the same set of complements in all grammatical levels. The possibility here, I believe, is that this exceptionality of the ‘subject’ notion (or of external argument) results from the fact that it does not actually belong to theta theory. If this contention that the notion of external argument is basically a pragmatic notion (sentential topic) is correct, then it would be a mistake to regard it as part of the theta theory, because, as I have pointed out in the previous chapter, languages like Kannada which clearly differentiate between the encodings of thematic and pragmatic relations do not place topic in their system of thematic relations. Notice that Kannada can shift any given argument occurring in the sentence to the initial position in order to make it function as the topic. This shifting does not affect the thematic relations like agent, patient, etc., that are expressed by the arguments concerned, or the case markers that are used for denoting them. However, it is constrained by other pragmatic factors like definiteness, focus, co-reference, etc, (see 3.3.1). This point brings out, very clearly, the mistake that lies in the attempt of some linguists to postulate configurationality to the deep structure (or lexical structure) of non-configurational languages, and thereby to bring

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Page 112 them in line with the configurational ones (see 2.3.1). Since the former type of languages (like Kannada) already have configurationality in the neglected part of their grammar (namely the pragmatic system), what is needed is to recognize that part, and to correlate it with aspects of configurationality occurring in the latter type of languages. 4.4.2 As a logical notion I mentioned earlier that Williams (1984) considers the distinction between external and internal arguments to be connected with the ‘logical organization’ of the sentence into subject-predicate relation. Bavin (1980) has also argued that the notion of ‘subject’ can be defined as the argument to which the predication is to be attached. According to Kuroda (1972) and Sasse (1987), however, there have been conflicting views about the structure of sentences (or of ‘judgements’) among logicians. They point out that only the Aristotelian logic was based upon the conception of human judgement as being uniquely composed of a subject and a predicate; that system of logic, however, had turned out to be rather inadequate, and had given rise to two alternative approaches, namely, (a) Frege’s predicate calculus and (b) Brentano’s concept of a dichotomy between two different types of human judgements called thetic and categorical (which was later on modified, especially from the point of view of grammar, by his student, Marty). Modern logic was founded on Frege’s solution to this problem, which regarded the distinction between subject and predicate to be irrelevant for the representation of human judgement; this view of Frege was based upon the claim that there can only be a rhetorical difference between the active and passive (Kuroda 1972). The solution proposed by Brentano, on the other hand, was to retain the subject-predicate distinction in one of the two types of judgements, namely the categorical, and to regard the other type, called thetic, as logically unstructured (Sasse 1987), i.e. as not making the subject-predicate distinction. Even though logicians preferred the former solution, the latter is actually of special interest to linguists. Kuroda (1972) has suggested that the use of two distinct particles in Japanese, namely ga and wa, can be regarded as strongly supporting this latter solution. Consider, for example, the following two sentences of Japanese, given by Kuroda: (2a) inu ga hasitte iru (2b) inu wa hasitte iru ‘A/the dog is running’

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Page 113 Kuroda points out that the first sentence (2a), in which the particle ga is attached to the word inu ‘dog’, can be regarded as representing a thetic judgement, whereas the second one (2b), in which the particle wa has been attached to it, as representing a categorical judgement. For example, if someone sees a dog running, (2a) will be used, whereas if someone sees a certain definite dog running, i.e. one which is familiar to him, or whose identity has already been established in the speech context, (2b) will be used. According to Sasse (1987), this distinction can also be seen in English, in its use of certain intonational contours. For example, when both subject and object of a sentence receive high pitch, it would be a categorical statement, whereas when only the subject receives high pitch, it would be a thetic statement. The distinction can also be seen, according to him, in the use of certain word-order differences in English. Kannada also shows a distinction of this nature in its use of two distinct negative words, namely illa and alla . The former is used for simply negating the occurrence of a particular action or event, whereas the latter is used for negating the involvement of a particular argument in such an action or event. The two can also be used for negating the characterization of a given argument in two different ways (existential versus equational). We can regard illa as representing a thetic negation and alla as representing a categorical negation. Examples: (3a) avanu manege hoːgalilla he-nom house-dat go-pur-not ‘He did not go home’ (thetic negation) (3b) avanu manege hoːdaddalla he-nom house-dat go-pur-it-not ‘It is not going home that he did’ (categorical negation) (4a) aː gulaːbi huː kempilla that rose flower-nom red-not ‘That rose is not red’ (thetic negation) (4b) aː gulaːbi huː kempalla that rose flower-nom red-not ‘That rose is not red’ (categorical negation) If we can regard this distinction between thetic and categorical statements as representing two different ways of packaging a given sentence, then, the occurrence of subject-predicate distinction in the sentence, or of external-internal distinction among its arguments, which concerns only the latter type of sentences, can only be regarded as a characteristic of some sentences, and not of all of them as claimed by Williams (1984).

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Page 114 4.4.3 Sentences as endocentric constructions Sentences have been generally regarded as exocentric, i.e. as constructions whose constituents are not capable of functioning independently as sentences, apparently on the basis of the above-mentioned Aristotelian view that they are all divisible into a subject and a predicate. Recent studies of phrase structure, especially studies connected with the formulation of x-bar theory, have raised doubts regarding this wellestablished characterization of sentences. For example, Jackendoff (1977:42) has argued that the maximum projection of a verb is a sentence and not a verb phrase because ‘where rules generalize across categories, it is invariably Ss, not VPs, that behave like NPs, APs, and PPs’. He has shown this generalization to be true of syntactic processes like topicalization, establishing the antecedents of it or of appositives, gapping in conjoining, etc. Whereas others, like Chomsky (1981), Stowell (1981) etc., have taken the position that the maximum projection of a verb is a verb phrase and not a sentence. They have considered the latter to be a projection of a non-lexical item like the verbal inflection. However, the aspects of English grammar that Stowell gives in support of this contention appear to have resulted from the ‘grammaticalization’ of the combined encoding of semantic and pragmatic relations that I have pointed out above (see 2.2). They do not appear to be language universal in nature. Stowell’s main contention is that there are certain differences between subject of a sentence and that of a phrase (like noun phrase) and these can be accounted for only by regarding the former as not being governed by a lexical head. For example, subject of a sentence can be a PRO (a minimal pronominal element) whereas that of a noun phrase cannot. There is an assumption that a PRO may not be governed (Chomsky 1981) and this assumption would be violated by the occurrence of PRO in the subject position of a sentence unless it is regarded as not being governed by the verb (Stowell 1981:31). However, languages like Kannada do allow PRO to occur in noun phrases as well, as shown by the following sentences: (5a) avanu suru he-nom drink-pur start did-is ‘He has started to drink’ (5b) avanu he-nom drinking-acc control-loc kept-refl-is ‘He has kept (his) drinking in control’ Notice that the actor (PRO) in the case of both the purposive clause in (5a) and the noun phrase containing a derived nominal in (5b) are co-referential with the actor of the matrix sentence.

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Page 115 Another difference between the subject of a sentence and that of a noun phrase that has been referred to by Stowell (1981) is that the former is obligatory but not the latter. Stowell points out that a sentence requires a structural subject position even when no thematic role is assigned to that position, (he considers this to be a ‘universal principle of phrase structure’), whereas a noun phrase does not. Examples (Stowell’s 35 and 36): (6a) It appears that John is lying. (6b) *Appears that John is lying. (6c) [Appearances] can be deceiving. However, Bennis (1986) has argued, on the basis of his detailed study of Dutch, that the occurrence of subject and predicate as constituent elements need not be regarded as the defining property of the clause. The crucial point about Dutch that has been used by him in support of this contention is that it does not have any dummy subjects (as in (6a)). Bennis argues that the elements that have been generally regarded as dummy subjects in Dutch are actually either referential or have other specifiable functions. Even though English is rather different from Dutch on this point, Bennis (1986:275) suggests that Old English is similar to the latter (Dutch), and hence it would be more economical to derive the sentence structure of both Old English as well as Modern English from an underlying endocentric structure rather than from an exocentric one. He points out that many of the differences between Old English and Modern English can be derived through the postulation of a single change in the grammar of English, involving the position of inflection. There are several languages like Kannada and Manipuri which do not make use of any ‘dummy’ subjects; it is difficult to see how an obligatory subject position can be established in these languages. Further, the disputants appear to have completely missed the thetic-categorical distinction and its relevance for this claim about the universality of ‘subject’, and also the fact that the notion of subject as an argument external to the verb phrase is basically a pragmatic one.

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Page 116 5 Transitivity and volitionality in Manipuri 5.1 PRELIMINARIES I wish to examine in this chapter some of the grammatical processes of Manipuri in order to evaluate the generally held view that the notion of transitivity plays the central role in the grammar of all languages. My contention, as I have already made clear in the previous chapter, is that this view is mistaken. I have pointed out, in support of this contention, several aspects of Kannada grammar that go against such a view. In the present chapter, I will be presenting evidence from Manipuri which will also have the effect of disconfirming the above-mentioned view. Manipuri (also called ‘Meitei’) is a Tibeto-Burman language of the Kuki-Chin sub-group (considered to be closer to Burmese than to Tibetan), which is spoken by about a million people primarily in the Manipur state of India. It is the official language of this state and has an extensive literature dating back several centuries. Its traditional grammars have been heavily influenced by the grammar of Sanskrit (see Shastri 1962, Sharma 1965), whereas the more recent ones (like Tomba Singh 1982, Thaudam 1984) show the influence of the Western tradition. As a result, none of these grammars have been able to bring out any of the major aspects of its grammar that I will be putting forth in the following sections. The present study is primarily based upon the joint work that I have been carrying out with Dr M.S.Ningomba (who is also a native speaker of Manipuri) on a grammar of this language since 1985 (see Bhat and Ningomba 1986 and also Bhat and Ningomba, forthcoming). I have decided not to indicate, in this study, the tonal contrast between high-falling and level that the language does show, even though not very consistently, because it was felt that the failure to do so would not affect the general conclusion. Tone is marked rather inconsistently in the Manipuri writing system as well.

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Page 117 Manipuri is a verb-final language. The verb is inflected for tense, aspect, spatial and deictic distinctions, and mood, but not for agreement with any of the arguments that occur with it. The case-marking of arguments is crucially dependent upon a three-fold division of verbs into states, processes and actions, as I will be pointing out below. The relative order of arguments to the left of the verb is quite free; it appears, however, that the preverbal position is occupied by the focused argument. The language also freely allows the deletion of arguments that can be recovered either from speech context or from preceding sentences. The representations of semantic and pragmatic relations are kept distinct from one another in this language as well, and further, the semantic factors are used directly and almost exclusively for controlling or constraining the various morphosyntactic processes that occur in this language. On the basis of these two points, it can be claimed, I believe, as I have done earlier in the case of Kannada grammar (see 3.1), that there is no need to postulate grammatical relations as abstract linking elements or as the pivots of morphosyntactic processes while describing the grammar of this language. The method used by Manipuri for maintaining the distinction between the representations of semantic and pragmatic relations, however, is rather different from the one used by Kannada. As I pointed out earlier, Kannada uses two distinct sets of devices, namely (a) case suffixes and postpositions on the one hand, and (b) word order, clefting and postposing on the other, for representing semantic and pragmatic relations respectively, whereas Manipuri uses both case suffixes as well as word order for representing both these types of relations; however, it still maintains the distinction between the two in an interesting fashion. For example, case suffixes are used primarily for denoting semantic relations. But there are two main types of redundancies that are associated with this usage. First of all, there are certain contexts in which the use of a given case suffix is optional because the semantic relation that it indicates is predictable either from the nature of the noun phrase with which it occurs or from the sub-categorizational property of the verb. Secondly, a given noun phrase needs to take only one case suffix for denoting the semantic relation, and hence the position next to that case suffix is redundant and is available for some other purpose. Manipuri makes use of both these types of redundancies that occur in the use of case suffixes for denoting pragmatic relations, and as a result, it has been able to maintain the distinction between the representations of semantic and pragmatic relations.

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Page 118 I propose to describe this fascinating aspect of Manipuri grammar in the following two sections, dealing first of all with case suffixes and the way in which they are used for these two types of representations (5.2), and later on with word order (5.3). My main concern, in this chapter, however, is to exemplify my claim that the notion of transitivity does not play a central role in Manipuri. I propose to do this in the next two sections by showing, first of all (5.4), that there are several morphosyntactic processes in this language in which the notion of transitivity conflicts with that of volitionality (or some other notion) and the language fails to favor transitivity (as against others) in any of these processes, and secondly (5.5), that there are several morphosyntactic processes which indicate either (a) that the language treats all the arguments of its sentences in a uniform fashion, or (b) that it fails to provide any basis for consistently selecting one of them as the ‘external’ argument in the case of all its sentences. I believe that the processes of the first type can be used for disconfirming the claim about the primacy of transitivity and the latter two types of processes jointly for disconfirming the claim that an ‘external’ argument can be postulated for all its sentences. 5.2 THE USE OF CASE SUFFIXES We can regard the representations of semantic relations as the primary function of case markers and the representation of pragmatic relations as their secondary function; this latter function is, in a way, superimposed upon the former function by making use of some of the redundant aspects of the former, as I have mentioned above. I will therefore describe, to begin with, the way in which the case markers are able to directly represent semantic relations in this language, and show, later on, how the same set of case markers is also able to represent pragmatic relations. There are three main case suffixes in this language: (a) nominative nǝ; (b) accusative bu (which is pu after voiceless consonants); and (c) locative dǝ (which is tǝ after voiceless consonants). Noun phrases can also be used in their unmarked form as distinct from these case marked forms. It is also possible to use the genitive suffix gi and the conjunctive suffix gǝ ‘and’ as case markers in order to denote the beneficiary and the associate respectively. I have retained the traditional terms, namely ‘nominative’, ‘accusative’ and ‘locative’, for denoting the three main case markers of this language, in spite of the fact that the actual functions of these three suffixes are quite different from the ones encountered in most of the

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Page 119 familiar languages. The suffixes have easily recognizable semantic connotation, as shown below: 1 Nominative: controller of actions. 2 Accusative: animate referent which is affected by an action or process (carried out by someone else). 3 Locative: location (including goal, source, experiencer, patient and beneficiary). 5.2.1 Nominative In the case of action sentences, the nominative suffix is used for denoting the actor. The sentence may or may not involve a patient or theme as an additional argument. Examples: (1) manǝ ǝybu kawwi he-nom me-acc kicked ‘He kicked me’ (2) manǝ kǝppi he-nom cried ‘He cried’ (3) manǝ ǝyŋondǝ yeŋŋi he-nom me-loc looked ‘He looked at me’ However, the suffix does not occur with the arguments of states and processes, because they do not involve a ‘controlling’ or volitional argument. Examples: (4) ma ǝybu uy he me-acc saw ‘He saw me’ (5) ma sawwi he angry ‘He is angry’ (6) ucek laŋdǝ thuy bird net-loc trapped ‘The bird got trapped in the net’ In the case of causative sentences, the nominative suffix is added to the causer argument, because the causer is the controller of action in such sentences. Examples: (7) manǝ ǝybu layrik pahǝlli he-nom me-acc book read-caused ‘He made me read the book’ (8) manǝ ǝybu kǝphǝlli he-nom me-acc cry-caused ‘He made me cry’

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Page 120 Natural forces like rain, wind, sunshine, etc. can be seen as controlling the actions that they carry out, and hence the nominative suffix is used after noun phrases that refer to such entities as well. Examples: (9) nuŋsitnǝ udu tuy wind-nom tree-that fell ‘The wind toppled that tree’ (10) ma noŋnǝ cotli he rain-nom wetted ‘He got wet in the rain’ The causes of events can also be viewed as ‘controllers’ of those events and this idea apparently allows the language to use the nominative suffix for denoting causes as well. Example: (11) ma kensǝrnǝ si he cancer-nom died ‘He died of cancer’ Another interesting usage of this suffix is for denoting the instrument, material or means of a given action. Since these are the items which assist the controlling argument while carrying out the given activity, we can view them as ‘co-controllers’; this can probably be the justification for this extended use of this nominative suffix. Notice that the occurrence of these arguments with the nominative suffix is restricted to sentences in which there is also a controlling argument (in the nominative). Examples: (12) manǝ siŋjǝŋnǝ udu tuhǝllǝmmi he-nom axe-nom tree-that fall-caused ‘He felled that tree with an axe’ (13) manǝ bǝjardǝgi bǝsnǝ laki he-nom market-from bus-nom came ‘He came from the market by bus’ Some verbs like yan ‘to hang’, leŋ ‘to move’, lǝy ‘to turn’, then ‘to touch’, net ‘to trample’, etc. can take either an argument with the nominative suffix or without it, depending upon whether they denote an action (intentional hanging, moving, turning, touching, etc.) or a process (unintentional ones). Examples: (14a) ǝynǝ tombǝbu theŋŋi I-nom Tomba-acc touched ‘I touched Tomba intentionally’ (14b) ǝy tombǝbu theŋŋi I Tomba-acc touched ‘I touched Tomba unintentionally’ (15a) ǝynǝ ǝŋǝmbǝdǝ olli I-nom slope-loc rolled ‘I rolled on the slope’ (volitional)

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ǝy ǝŋǝmbǝdǝ olli I slope-loc rolled ‘I rolled on the slope’ (non-volitional) These instances exemplify the occurrence of the so-called ‘fluid-S’ system of Dixon (1979:80) in Manipuri. 5.2.2 Accusative There are three main constraints which generally affect the use of this accusative suffix. They are, 1 the referent of the concerned noun phrase must be animate; 2 some effect must have been produced upon it by an external agency (overt or covert); 3 it must be involved in an action or process (and not a state). Examples: (16a) manǝ huybu kawwi he-nom dog-acc kicked ‘He kicked the dog’ (16b) manǝ tebǝl kawwi he-nom table kicked ‘He kicked the table’ (17) ma tombǝbu siŋŋi he Tomba-acc grudged ‘He grudges Tomba’ (18a) ǝy mabu sawwi I him-acc angry ‘I am angry with him’ (showed anger) (18b) ǝy ma sawwi I he angry ‘I am angry with him’ The non-occurrence of bu in (16b) is due to the fact that the noun phrase concerned is not animate, whereas in (18b) the implication of a process, which occurs in (18a), is absent. In the case of bitransitive sentences, the accusative can be used for denoting the experiencer or beneficiary (as the ‘affected’ animate being) provided that the patient is inanimate. (Otherwise, the locative is used for denoting the experiencer or beneficiary.) Examples: (19a) ǝynǝ maŋondǝ sel pi I-nom him-loc money gave ‘I gave him money’ (19b) ǝynǝ mabu sel pi I-nom him-acc money gave

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ǝynǝ maŋondǝ huybu pi I-nom him-loc dog-acc gave ‘I gave him a dog’ (20b) *ǝynǝ mabu huy(bu) pi I-nom him-acc dog-(acc) gave In (19b) the beneficiary is able to take the accusative suffix whereas in (20b) it is unable to do so because in the latter case the patient (dog) is animate. Similarly, in the case of causative sentences, the accusative can be used for denoting the causee, provided that any of the remaining arguments, such as the patient, experiencer or beneficiary does not occur with that suffix. Example: (21a) ǝynǝ maŋondǝ tebǝl ilhǝlli I-nom him-loc table push-caused ‘I made him push the table’ (21b) ǝynǝ mabu tebǝl ilhǝlli I-nom him-acc table push-caused It is possible, however, to have the animate patient or beneficiary denoted by the locative suffix (see below), in which case, the causee can take the accusative suffix. Examples: (22a) ǝynǝ tombǝdǝ cawbǝbu cithi ihǝlli I-nom Tomba-loc Chaoba-acc letter write-caused ‘I made Tomba write a letter to Choaba’ (22b) ǝynǝ tombǝbu cawbǝdǝ cithi ihǝlli I-nom Tomba-acc Chaoba-loc letter write-caused The accusative suffix can also be used for denoting the possessor of an affected body part (the noun denoting the body part, being inanimate, does not take this suffix), apparently because, in the case of such actions (or events), it is actually the person who possesses the body part that is affected by the action. Example: (23a) tombǝnǝ magi mǝkok thugayre Tomba-nom his head broke (perfect) ‘Tomba has broken his head’ (23b) tombǝnǝ mabu mǝkok thugayre Tomba-nom him-acc head broke (perfect) The direct association of meaning (semantic relation) with the use of this suffix can be exemplified by its use for denoting an ‘actor’ in the case of negative sentences, as seen in the following: (24) layriksi ǝybu padri book-this me-acc read-not ‘I myself did not read this book’

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mabu laktre him-acc came-not ‘He did not come’ The absence of the nominative suffix with the ‘actor’ here is apparently due to the fact that the person concerned has no control over the action; and the presence of the accusative suffix with the same can be explained as resulting from the fact that some outside cause or agency has ‘affected’ that individual, such that he has not been able to carry out the relevant activity. 5.2.3 Locative The locative suffix can be used for denoting different kinds of arguments, such as the goal, source, locations of different types (on, in, into, at, etc.), experiencer, recipient, patient (affected), causee, time, cause, instrument, etc., provided that the referent concerned can be viewed as being the location for some object, action, experience, effect (of an action or process), characteristic, etc. Examples: (26) manǝ ǝyŋondǝ kawwi he-nom me-loc kicked ‘He kicked (at) me’ (27) manǝ ǝyŋondǝ layrik utli he-nom me-loc book showed ‘He showed (towards) me a book’ (28) manǝ ǝyŋondǝ tombǝbu cǝyhǝlli he-nom me-loc Tomba-acc abuse-caused ‘He made me abuse Tomba’ (I am the goal of causation) (29) mǝsi ǝyŋondǝ say this me-loc hot ‘This is hot for me’ (30) manǝ puŋ ǝhumdǝ lakkǝni he-nom hour three-loc come-fut ‘He will come at three o’clock’ (31) manǝ khuttǝ komla khoki he-nom hand-loc orange peeled ‘He peeled the orange by hand’ The locative and the accusative can be used alternatively in a number of contexts because an affected being can also be viewed as the location of that effect. Examples: (32a) ǝynǝ mabu cǝppi I-nom him-acc pinched ‘I pinched him’ (he is affected by my pinching) (32b) ǝynǝ maŋondǝ cǝppi I-nom him-loc pinched ‘I pinched him’ (he is the ‘location’ of my pinching)

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Page 124 However, there are two main types of contexts in which the locative suffix cannot be used in place of the accusative, apparently because one cannot view the relevant argument as a location. First, patients that have been wholly (rather than partly) affected by an action or process cannot take the locative suffix. Examples: (33a) ǝynǝ mabu hatli I-nom him-acc killed ‘I killed him’ (33b) *ǝynǝ maŋondǝ hatli I-nom him-loc killed’ (34a) ǝynǝ mabu phay I-nom him-acc arrested ‘I arrested him’ (34b) *ǝynǝ maŋondǝ phay I-nom him-loc arrested Second, patients that have been newly created (effected) by an action or process also cannot take the locative suffix. Example: (35a) ǝynǝ mabu ǝphǝbǝ mi oyhǝlli I-nom him-acc good man become-caused ‘I made him a good man’ (35b) *ǝynǝ maŋondǝ ǝphǝbǝ mi oyhǝlli I-nom him-loc good man become-caused Another interesting aspect of this locative suffix is that noun phrases containing it function as ‘unmarked’ forms that can be used for denoting different types of locations, with different lexical items being used along with the suffix for ‘marking’ the specific type of location when needed. Examples: (36a) lǝyrik ǝdu tebǝldǝ lǝy book that table-loc is ‘The book is on the table’ (36b) lǝyrik ǝdu tebǝl mǝthǝktǝ lǝy book that table on-loc is (37a) nǝŋgi sel upudǝ lǝy your money box-loc is ‘Your money is in the box’ (37b) nǝŋgi sel upu mǝnuŋdǝ lǝy your money box in-loc is (38a) manǝ lǝymaydǝ layrik khulli he-nom floor-loc book picked ‘He picked the book from the floor’ (38b) manǝ lǝymaydǝgi layrik khulli he-nom floor-loc-gen book picked Notice that the locative suffix occurs by itself for denoting different kinds of locative meanings like ‘on’, ‘in’, and ‘from’ in the (a) sentences

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Page 125 given above, whereas in the corresponding (b) sentences, it has been used along with certain other markers like mǝthǝk ‘on’, mǝnuŋ ‘in’ and gi ‘genitive’ to provide the specific meanings. (The genitive suffix is able to provide this last meaning ‘from’ because the source can be regarded as the ‘possessor’ of the relevant entity.) 5.2.4 Unmarked forms Noun phrases that are unmarked by any of these three case suffixes can be regarded as having the ‘elsewhere’ connotation. They are used in contexts in which none of the three specific meanings mentioned above are available. For example, inanimate patients or themes are left unmarked. Examples: (39) manǝ tebǝl kawwi he-nom table kicked ‘He kicked the table’ (40) phi sǝmbǝndǝ pǝlli cloth fence-loc entangled ‘The cloth entangled in the fence’ Similarly, animate experiencers or patients of processes for which there is no specific external cause are left unmarked for case. Examples: (41) ǝy layrik phǝŋŋi I book got ‘I got a book’ (42) ǝy saridu pammi I sari-that like ‘I like that sari’ Individuals or objects characterized by a state are also left unmarked for case. Examples: (43) cǝy ǝsi telli stick this short ‘This stick is short’ (44) ma mǝŋŋi he poor ‘He is poor’ The foregoing description of the three major case markers of Manipuri reveals, I believe, that there is a direct correlation between their use with arguments and the semantic roles that the arguments represent in the concerned sentences.

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Page 126 5.2.5 Denotation of pragmatic relations by case suffixes I mentioned earlier that the case suffixes are used in Manipuri not only for denoting semantic relations as described in the previous section, but also for denoting pragmatic relations. However, Manipuri differs from English, in spite of this double use of its encoding system, in that it has been able to maintain the distinction between these two types of denotations by using only some of the redundant aspects of the former use for the latter purpose. There are actually two main types of redundant contexts: (a) contexts in which the semantic relations are predictable; and (b) contexts in which no suffixes are being used for denoting semantic relations. Manipuri makes use of both these types of redundant contexts for denoting pragmatic relations as shown below. Predictable contexts The semantic relation that a given argument denotes can become predictable for different reasons in different types of contexts, and the use of the relevant case suffix in such contexts is optional in Manipuri. The language makes use of this optionality, in the case of all the three case suffixes described in the previous section, for denoting pragmatic connotations. For example, the single argument of an action verb can only be an actor, whereas that of a non-action verb can only be an affected argument (patient). This sub-categorizational property of the verb can help us to predict the semantic relation that an argument has with the verb in the case of sentences which contain single-argument verbs of this nature. Hence, the use (as well as the non-use) of the nominative case suffix is optional in arguments of this nature. (Verbs showing the so-called ‘fluid-S’ system (see 5.2.1), however, are exceptional in this regard.) Manipuri makes use of this optionality for denoting the pragmatic meaning of contrastive reference as shown below: (45a) ma celli he ran ‘He ran’ (45b) manǝ celli he-nom ran ‘He ran (but others did not)’ (46a) ce isindǝ tawwi paper water-loc floated ‘The paper floated on water’

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Page 127 (46b) cenǝ isiŋdǝ tawwi paper-nom water-loc floated ‘The paper floated on water (but the pen did not)’ In the case of state verbs, the nominative suffix can be used for denoting the sense of comparison, which is clearly related to the sense of contrastive reference mentioned above. Example: (47a) ma sawwi he angry ‘He is angry’ (47b) manǝ sawwi he-nom angry ‘He is angrier (than others)’ In the case of sentences that contain two or more arguments, we can regard the case marking of one of the arguments to be predictable because the sub-categorizational property of the verb would indicate the exact set of semantic roles that need to be specified in such sentences. This predictability has made optional the case marking of one of the arguments of such sentences. Manipuri makes use of this optionality for denoting the above-mentioned pragmatic meaning. Examples: (48a) ǝy mabu yeŋŋi I him-acc looked ‘I looked at him’ (48b) ǝynǝ mabu yeŋŋi I-nom him-acc looked ‘I looked at him (but others did not)’ (49a) ǝynǝ ma layrik puhǝlli I-nom he book carry-caused ‘I made him carry the book’ (49b) ǝynǝ mabu layrik puhǝlli I-nom him-acc book carry-caused ‘I made him (but not others) carry the book’ (50a) mǝmanǝ mǝca cak pijǝy mother-nom child food fed ‘The mother fed food to the child’ (50b) mǝmanǝ mǝcadǝ cak piJǝy mother-nom child-acc food fed ‘The mother fed food to the child (but not to others)’ Notice that the predictability of the nominative, accusative and locative suffixes has made it possible to have them unspecified in (48a), (49a) and (50a) respectively, whereas their specification in the corresponding (b) sentences has made it possible to convey the pragmatic meaning of contrastive reference. This optionality of the use of predictable case suffixes is also used in Manipuri for denoting another related meaning, namely specificity. The

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Page 128 presence of a suffix in such contexts is used for denoting specific reference, and the absence for denoting non-specific (habitual or generic) reference as shown below: (51a) manǝ huybu kawwi he-nom dog-acc kicked ‘He kicked the dog’ (51b) manǝ buy kawwi he-nom dog kicked ‘He kicks dogs’ (52a) manǝ ciŋdǝ kay he-nom hill-loc climbed ‘He climbed the hill’ (52b) manǝ ciŋ kay he-nom hill climbed ‘He climbs hills’ (53a) manǝ nuŋdaŋdǝ layrik pakhi he-nom night-loc book read ‘He read the book on a particular night’ (53b) manǝ nuŋdaŋ layrik pakhi he-nom night book read ‘He reads books at night’ Notice that the non-specification of accusative and locative case suffixes has made it possible to regard the (b) sentences given above as habitual or generic sentences. It might be noted in this connection that Manipuri makes use of a future-non-future tense distinction (as against the past-non-past tense distinction found in English and other familiar languages) and because of this, Manipuri uses its non-future (past) forms, rather the future ones, for denoting the habitual and generic meanings as shown by the (b) sentences given above (see Bhat and Ningomba 1986). I have pointed out earlier (5.2.2) that the use of accusative suffix is restricted to animate noun phrases as far as the denotation of semantic relations is concerned. Its non-use after inanimate noun phrases is apparently due to the fact that their semantic role is predictable in that they cannot be the controlling arguments. The inanimate nouns do take the locative case suffix, for example when they are to be denoted as the location of an effect or characteristic rather than as simply the affected or characterized ones. However, Manipuri does make use of this predictability of the accusative case marker (or rather its ‘unused’ context, see below) for denoting a pragmatic meaning in that an inanimate noun phrase can occur with the accusative case suffix in order to indicate a specific referent. Example:

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tebǝldu table-that ‘Carry that table!’ tebǝldubu table-that-acc ‘Carry that particular table!’

puy carry puy carry

Unused contexts A noun phrase can denote only one semantic relation in a sentence and hence it needs to take only one case suffix for this purpose. However, Manipuri allows its case suffixes to follow other case suffixes, and this latter type of occurrence, which is not used for denoting semantic relations, is used for indicating certain pragmatic connotations. For example, the nominative suffix, occurring after other case suffixes, denotes contrastive (exclusive) reference. Examples: (55a) tombǝbu khwaynǝ pammi Tomba-acc all-nom like ‘Everyone likes Tomba’ (55b) tombǝbunǝ khwaynǝ pammi Tomba-acc-nom all-nom like ‘Everyone likes only Tomba’ (56a) manǝ tombǝdǝ sel pi he-nom Tomba-loc money gave ‘He gave money to Tomba’ (56b) manǝ tombǝdǝnǝ sel pi he-nom Tomba-loc-nom money gave ‘He gave money to Tomba only’ (57a) magi lupa mǝŋa lemmi his rupee five saved ‘His five rupees were saved’ (57b) maginǝ lupa mǝŋa lemmi his-nom rupee five saved ‘Only his five rupees were saved (but not others’)’ It can also be used in this contrastive sense directly after inanimate patients, since these do not take the accusative case suffix for denoting their semantic relation. Example: (58a) ǝynǝ mǝcu olli I-nom colour changed ‘I changed the colour’ (58b) ǝynǝ mǝcunǝ olli, mǝwoŋnǝ onde I-nom colour-nom changed design-nom changed-not ‘I changed the colour, but not the design’ The accusative suffix can also be used after other case suffixes in order to indicate the speaker’s doubt about the involvement of the concerned referent in the action or process under consideration. Examples:

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Page 130 (59a) aŋaŋnǝ kǝri khǝŋgǝni? child-nom what know-fut ‘What will the child know?’ (59b) aŋaŋnǝbu kǝri khǝŋgǝni? child-nom-acc what know-fut ‘What will the child know?’ (implies that it would not know anything) (60a) ǝyŋondǝ manǝ mǝdu haybra? me-loc he-nom that say-Q ‘Did he say that to me?’ (60b) ǝyŋondǝbu manǝ mǝdu haybra? me-loc-acc he-nom that say-Q ‘Did he say that to me?’ (implies that he did not) It is possible, perhaps, to regard some of these pragmatic uses of case suffixes as representing distinct homophonous suffixes which contrast with the corresponding case suffixes proper, but such an analysis would fail to bring out the more important aspect of Manipuri case marking, namely that the language uses the device for encoding both semantic as well as pragmatic relations, and further, that in the latter case, it makes use of some of the redundant or predictable aspects of the former use. 5.3 CHANGING THE RELATIVE ORDER OF ARGUMENTS It can be claimed, I think, that Manipuri makes use of the relative order of arguments (to the left of the verb) for encoding both semantic as well as pragmatic relations; the representation of semantic relations through this device appears to be of secondary importance; there are contexts in which the device conflicts with that of case marking, and in such contexts the interpretation of semantic relations depends crucially upon the use of case suffixes (see below). The use of this device for denoting pragmatic relations is yet to be properly studied. There are some facts about the language, however, which indicate that certain specific positions of arguments might be relevant for interpreting pragmatic relations. For example, question words are generally placed in the preverbal position (irrespective of the semantic relation that the questioned argument denotes), but they may be shifted to other positions if used with emphatic stress. Examples: (61a) maŋondǝ layrik ǝdu kǝnanǝ pi? him-loc book that who-nom gave ‘Who gave that book to him?’ (61b) tombǝnǝ layrik ǝdu kǝnadǝ pi? Tomba-nom book that whom-loc gave ‘To whom did Tomba give that book?’ (61c) tombǝnǝ maŋondǝ kǝri pi? Tomba-nom him-loc what gave ‘What did Tomba give him?’

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kǝnadǝ layrik ǝdu tombǝnǝ pi? who-loc book that Tomba-nom gave ‘To whom did Tomba give that book?’ As far as the denotation of semantic relations is concerned, it appears that the relative order of arguments (to the left of the verb) can be changed in any of the several possible ways, if all the arguments are properly marked by the relevant case suffixes; such changes would not affect the semantic relations that are being denoted by the arguments, as seen in the following examples: (62a) tombǝnǝ cawbǝdǝ phuy Tomba-nom Chaoba-loc beat ‘Tomba beat Chaoba’ (62b) cawbǝdǝ tombǝnǝ phuy Chaoba-loc Tomba-nom beat (63a) manǝ huybu kawwi he-nom dog-acc kicked ‘He kicked the dog’ (63b) huybu manǝ kawwi dog-acc he-nom kicked (64a) ǝynǝ maŋondǝ layrik pi I-nom him-loc book gave ‘I gave him a book’ (64b) maŋondǝ ǝynǝ layrik pi him-loc I-nom book gave (64c) layrik ǝynǝ maŋondǝ pi book I-nom him-loc gave (64d) ǝynǝ layrik maŋondǝ pi I-nom book him-loc gave However, as we have seen above, Manipuri does allow some of the case markers to be left unspecified, especially in contexts in which such a non-specification would not lead to any misunderstanding. In the case of some of these contexts, it has been found that the relative position of the arguments is able to convey some of the semantic relations that are otherwise indicated by case suffixes. For example, when an action verb occurs with two unmarked arguments, with both of them denoting animate beings, the one occurring first is to be interpreted as the actor and the second as the patient. However, by marking one of them for case, it is possible to undermine this relevance of word order for semantic interpretation. Example: (65a) tombǝ ma phubra? Tomba he beat-Q ‘Did Tomba beat him?’

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ma tombǝ phubra? he Tomba beat-Q ‘Did he beat Tomba?’ (65c) mabu tombǝ phubra? him-acc Tomba beat-Q ‘Did Tomba beat him?’ Notice that the two arguments occurring in (65a) and (65b) are unmarked for case, and the first argument functions as the actor in both of them; whereas in (65c) the first argument is marked by the accusative case suffix, and because of this, it is the second argument which functions as the actor. A similar situation exists in the case of process sentences also, as can be seen in the following example: (66a) ǝy ma uy I he saw ‘I saw him’ (66b) ma ǝy uy he I saw ‘He saw me’ (66c) mabu ǝy uy him-acc I saw ‘I saw him’ The relative order of arguments appears to be relevant for interpreting semantic relations in the case of certain causative sentences also. For example, when a sentence containing an animate patient is causativized, there is an option to use either the accusative suffix or the locative suffix for denoting the causee (i.e. the original actor of the causativized sentence), depending upon whether the animate patient is being viewed as a location (and has the locative suffix) or as a patient (and has the accusative suffix) respectively. Examples: (67a) tombǝnǝ ǝybu maŋondǝ kawhǝlli Tomba-nom me-acc him-loc kick-caused ‘Tomba made me kick him’ (67b) tombǝnǝ ǝyŋondǝ mabu kawhǝlli Tomba-nom me-loc him-acc kick-caused ‘Tomba made me kick him’ Notice that the second argument denotes the causee in both these sentences, irrespective of whether its case marker is accusative (67a) or locative (67b). However, the two case markers are also semantically relevant in that they do convey their basic meanings in both these sentences. For example, (67a), with the causee in the accusative, implies that the person concerned was directly ordered to carry out the job and was therefore being forced to do so (an animate being that is ‘affected’

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Page 133 from outside), whereas (67b), with the causee in the locative, implies that the person concerned was only induced to do the job but was not therefore directly under pressure. There is apparently a need to make a more detailed study of the way in which the relative order to arguments affects the denotation of semantic and pragmatic relations (especially the latter type of relations) in this language; it appears, however, that the two are kept distinct by this language even when it has to use the same device for encoding both of them. 5.4 CONFLICTS BETWEEN TRANSITIVITY AND VOLITIONALITY I suggested in the previous chapter (4.2) that the notion of transitivity (or transference) does not play the expected central role in Manipuri. There are several morphosyntactic processes in this language which show conflicts between transitivity and volitionality, and in all such processes, Manipuri resolves the conflicts by favoring volitionality as against transitivity. I propose to describe in this section the following ten different morphosyntactic processes that show conflicts between transitivity and volitionality and one that shows conflict between transitivity and deictic movement. In all of them, transitivity fails to occupy the favored position. 5.4.1 Use of case suffixes. 5.4.2 Notion of core arguments. 5.4.3 Causativization. 5.4.4 Compounds containing verbal bases. 5.4.5 Purposive and desiderative suffixes. 5.4.6 Adverbial suffixes. 5.4.7 Benefactive argument. 5.4.8 Two uses of the benefactive suffix. 5.4.9 Two uses of imperative and prohibitive suffixes. 5.4.10 Factive and non-factive complements. 5.4.11 Conflict between transitivity and deictic movement. 5.4.1 Use of case suffixes The use of case suffixes is generally considered to support the notion of transitivity, and according to this assumption, the single argument of intransitive sentences (S) is expected to be marked uniformly like one of the arguments (A or O) of transitive sentences (Dixon 1979).

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Page 134 However, such a system of case marking would show conflicts with the notion of volitionality in two different situations: (a) in the case of intransitive sentences, the single argument (S) might refer to a volitional or a non-volitional participant; and (b) in the case of transitive sentences, both the arguments might refer to non-volitional participants. The use of case suffixes in Manipuri is based upon the notion of volitionality and not upon that of transitivity. The following set of sentences are illustrative of this point: (68a) ma si he died ‘He died’ (68b) manǝ celli he-nom ran ‘He ran’ (69a) ma ǝybu uy he me-acc saw ‘He saw me’ (69b) manǝ ǝybu phuy he-nom me-acc beat ‘He beat me’ Notice that the occurrence of the nominative suffix is constrained by the notion of volitionality as against that of transitivity, as shown by the contrast between the (a) and (b) sentences. 5.4.2 Notion of core arguments Several linguists have claimed that a set of three core arguments, symbolized as S, A and O, can be regarded as language universal entities, with the help of which the clause structures and syntactic rules of all languages can be adequately described (see 2.3.2 and 4.2). The grammar of Manipuri contradicts this claim because, we need (a) a controlling (volitional) argument, (b) an animate being affected from outside, (c) a location, and (d) an unmarked argument which is none of the above three, as the four core arguments for describing the clause structure of this language (see 5.2 for details). It is difficult to see how these four can be correlated or reduced to the set of three ‘universal’ core arguments mentioned above. The crucial problem here is that the generally recognized set of three core arguments is based upon the notion of transitivity, whereas the set of four core arguments that Manipuri needs is based upon that of volitionality. It is apparently this assignment of primacy to different conflicting semantic features which makes it impossible to reduce the sets of core arguments occurring in different languages into a single ‘universal’ set.

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Page 135 5.4.3 Causativization In the case of causativization, the general tendency among the familiar languages, as pointed out by Comrie (1985:337), is to change intransitive bases into monotransitives and monotransitive bases into bitransitives. The process is considered to support strongly the primacy of the notion of transitivity. But in Manipuri, causativization has an entirely different kind of effect upon the verbal bases, which once again shows that the language gives prominence to the notion of volitionality as against that of transitivity. As can be seen from the following set of sentences, the changes affected by causativization in this language are: 1 the conversion of state or process verbs into direct causation (action) verbs; 2 the conversion of action verbs into indirect causation verbs irrespective of the fact as to whether the verbs originally had a single argument (intransitive) or two (or more) arguments (monotransitive or bitransitive). Examples: State or process to direct causation (70a) isiŋ sǝwwi water boiled ‘The water boiled’ (70b) ǝynǝ isiŋ sǝwhǝlli I-nom water boil-caused ‘I boiled the water’ (71a) ma layrik phǝŋŋi he book got ‘He got the book’ (71b) ǝynǝ mabu layrik phǝŋhǝlli I-nom him-acc book get-caused ‘I got the book for him’ Action to indirect causation (72a) manǝ celli he-nom ran ‘He ran’ (72b) ǝynǝ mabu celhǝlli I-nom him-acc run-caused ‘I made him run’ (73a) manǝ cak cay he-nom food ate ‘He ate food’

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ǝynǝ mabu cak cahǝlli I-nom him-acc food eat-caused ‘I made him eat food’ Notice that the notion of transitivity does not play any role in this process of causativization; the first two sentences ((70) and (71)) are non-volitional and therefore lead to direct causation, whereas the next two ((72) and (73)) are volitional and therefore lead to indirect causation; both these sets of sentences contain intransitive ((70) and (72)) as well as transitive ((71) and (73)) sentences, but this latter fact has no observable effect upon the process of causativization. Notice further that the sentences (72b) and (73b) denote only indirect causation and not direct causation; that is, they indicate instigations and not actions on the part of the causer; they are therefore quite different from the two causative sentences given earlier, namely (70b) and (71b). Manipuri uses either lexically distinct verbs as in (72c) and (73c) given below, or other devices, like the addition of the benefactive suffix bi to the verb as in (74c), in order to indicate direct causation in contexts like (72) and (73) in which action sentences have been causativized. Examples: (72c) ǝynǝ mabu talli I-nom him-acc chased ‘I chased him’ (73c) ǝynǝ mabu cak illi I-nom him-acc food fed ‘I fed him food’ (74a) manǝ yumdǝ hǝlli he-nom house-loc returned ‘He returned home’ (74b) ǝynǝ mabu yumdǝ hǝlhǝlli I-nom him-acc house-loc return-caused ‘I made him return home’ (indirect causation) (74c) ǝynǝ magi pǝysa hǝnbi I-nom his money return-ben ‘I returned his money’ (direct causation) 5.4.4 Compounds containing verbal bases English has a subject-related constraint on the formation of what are called ‘verbal compounds’ (i.e. compounds which consist of an inflected verb, like oven-cleaner, fast-acting, man-made, etc.); this constraint has been described by Roeper and Siegel (1978) as involving a First Sister Principle. According to this principle, ‘all verbal compounds are formed by incorporation of a word in first sister position of the verb’. This rule disallows the use of subjects from being compounded with the verb in

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Page 137 forming such compounds, on the basis of the assumption that subject is external to verb phrase. However, Manipuri does allow the single participant of ‘intransitive’ verbs to be used in such compounds as can be seen in the following examples: (75) tha ‘moon’ si ‘die’ thasi ‘new moon’ (76) pot ‘object’ lum ‘be heavy’ potlum ‘load’ (77) naw ‘child’ sum ‘sleep’ nawsum ‘cradle’ It appears that only non-volitional nouns get attached to verbs in such compounds. Miyagawa (1989:94) reports that a similar situation exists in Japanese also, but he tries to account for it on the basis of the assumption that verbs which take such non-volitional subjects are to be regarded as ‘ergative’ verbs whose surface subjects originate in the object position and move to the subject position at S-structure (see 4.3.1). The point to be noted here, however, is that this process of compound formation also favors volitionality as against transitivity in selecting an argument to go with the verb. 5.4.5 Purposive and desiderarive suffixes We can derive purposive and desiderative forms in Manipuri by attaching the suffixes si ‘let us’ and ge ‘wish to’ respectively to the verb. However, these forms can be derived only from verbs which take a controlling (volitional) argument, irrespective of whether they are intransitive or transitive. Examples: (78) cǝtsi ‘Let us go!’ (79) *tasi ‘Let us fall!’ (80) ǝynǝ cak cage I-nom food eat-wish ‘I wish to eat food’ (81) *ǝy mabu uge I him-acc see-wish ‘I wish to see him’ Notice that the unacceptability of (81) is due to the fact that neither of its arguments have any control over the action, namely of seeing. 5.4.6 Adverbial suffixes There are two adverbial suffixes— di ‘without fail’ and dum ‘without worry’—which can be used with reduplicated verbal roots (transitive or

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Page 138 intransitive) provided that the verbs take a controlling (volitional) argument. Examples: (82) cadum caw eat-adv eat-imp ‘Eat without worry!’ (83) *udum u see-adv see-imp ‘*See without worry’ (84) cǝtlum cǝtlu go-adv go-imp ‘Go without worry’ 5.4.7 Benefactive argument The beneficiary of an action can be indicated by using a postpositional form derived by adding the marker dǝmǝk ‘for the sake of’ to the genitive form of the relevant noun phrase. Such arguments can be used, however, only in sentences which contain an argument that controls the action or event, irrespective of whether the sentence is intransitive or transitive. Examples: (85) ǝynǝ magidǝmǝk cǝtli I-nom his-sake went ‘I went for his sake’ (86) manǝ tombidǝ ǝygidǝmǝk layrik pibi he-nom Tombi-loc my-sake book gave-ben ‘He gave the book to Tombi for my sake’ (87) *ǝy nǝŋgidǝmǝk tay I your-sake fell ‘I fell down for your sake’ 5.4.8 Two uses of the benefactive suffix Verbs can take the benefactive suffix bi for providing two different meanings, depending upon whether the verbs occur with a controlling or a non-controlling argument. In the former case, the use of the suffix implies that the action concerned was carried out for the benefit of someone else, whereas in the latter case, it implies that the occurrence of the concerned event was unexpected. Notice, however, that the number of core arguments that occur with the verb does not affect the use or connotation of this suffix. Examples: (88) manǝ ŋaŋbire he-nom spoke-ben-perf ‘He has spoken for someone else’s sake’

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Page 139 (89) ǝynǝ layrik pubi I-nom book carry-ben ‘I carried the book for someone else’ (90) ma hennǝ sawbire he much angry-ben-perf ‘Unexpectedly, he has been very angry’ (91) yensaŋ ǝsi thum yakpide curry this salt salty-ben-not ‘Luckily, this curry is not salty’ 5.4.9 Two uses of the imperative and prohibitive suffixes The imperative suffix lo (which has the alternant ro after vowels and semivowels), and the prohibitive suffix gǝnu can be attached to verbs, but they indicate an order only in the case of verbs which take a controlling argument; in the case of other verbs, they indicate only a wish. Examples: (92) klǝp ǝsidǝ yawro club this-loc join-imp ‘Join this club!’ (93) klǝp ǝdudǝ cǝtlǝnu club that-loc go-proh ‘Don’t go to that club!’ (94) isiŋdu sǝwro water-that boil-imp ‘Let that water boil!’ (I want it to boil) (95) isiŋdu sǝwgǝnu water-that boil-proh ‘Let not that water boil’ (I don’t care if it boils or not) Notice, however, that this distinction in the connotation of these suffixes is not affected by the transitivity of the concerned sentences. 5.4.10 Factive and non-factive complements Manipuri makes a distinction between two types of sentential complements, called factive and non-factive. The former are derived by using the infinitive form (haybǝ) of the verb hay ‘to say’ as the complementizer, whereas the latter (non-factive complements) are derived by using the adverbial form (haynǝ) of the same verb. The occurrence of these two types of complements is constrained by the fact that the factive ones can have, as their predicates, only non-volitional (mostly epistemic) verbs like kaw ‘to forget’, man ‘to appear’, nuŋŋay ‘to be happy’, ya ‘to be possible’, tu ‘to be necessary’, etc., whereas the non-factive ones can have, as their predicates, only

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Page 140 volitional (mostly deontic) verbs like hay ‘to say’, hǝn ‘to ask’, ni ‘to request’, niŋ ‘to wish’, tǝk ‘ to persuade’, thǝn ‘to think’, etc. Notice that this grouping of complement-taking predicates cuts across the transitive-intransitive distinction while giving prominence to the notion of volitionality. Examples: Factive complements (96a) manǝ wa hay haybǝ ǝy kawwi he-nom word said say-inf I forget ‘I forgot that he spoke’ (96b) *manǝ wa hay haynǝ ǝy kawwi he-nom word said say-adv I forget (97a) ma lakkǝni haybǝ yay he come-fut say-inf possible ‘It is possible that he will come’ (97b) *ma lakkǝni haynǝ yay he come-fut say-adv possible Non-factive complements (98a) *manǝ laku haybǝ ǝy tǝki he-nom come-imp say-inf I persuaded (98b) manǝ laku haynǝ ǝy tǝki he-nom come-imp say-adv I persuaded ‘I persuaded him to come’ There are some matrix verbs, like thajǝ ‘to believe’, ciŋnǝ ‘to doubt’, ta ‘to hear’, ya ‘to agree’, etc., which can take either of these two types of complements, but they appear to show subtle meaning differences involving volitionality which correspond to the above-mentioned meaning distinction. Example: (99a) ma lakkǝni haybǝ ǝy ciŋnǝy he come-fut say-inf I doubt ‘I doubt that he will come’ (doubt based upon the speaker’s general knowledge) (99b) ma lakkǝni haynǝ ǝynǝ ciŋnǝy he come-fut say-adv I-nom doubt ‘I doubt that he will come’ (doubt based upon the speaker’s own presumption) The use of the verb niŋsǝŋ ‘to remember/remind’, which also belongs to this third group, is rather interesting in this context. While occurring with a factive complement it provides the meaning ‘to remember’, whereas while occurring with a non-factive complement it provides the meaning ‘to remind’. Examples:

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ma cagǝdǝbǝni haybǝ ǝy niŋsǝŋŋi he eat-should say-inf I remembered ‘I remembered that he should eat’ (100b) ma cagǝdǝbǝni haynǝ ǝynǝ niŋsǝŋŋi he eat-should say-adv I-nom reminded ‘I reminded (him) that he should eat’ 5.4.11 Conflict between transitivity and deictic motion Lastly, I wish to describe a process in which the notion of transitivity conflicts with that of ‘deictic motion’; it involves the denotation of certain movements or directionality connected with the location of the speaker, and are denoted with the help of certain spatial suffixes attached to the verb. This process also supports my claim that the language fails to favor the notion of transitivity in conflicting situations. The process concerns the use of four different deictic suffixes, namely rǝ, ru, rǝk and khǝ. There are three different semantic parameters which help us to differentiate between these four suffixes. They are, 1 motion or orientation of the event (towards versus away from the speaker); 2 place of occurrence of the event (at the place of the speaker versus at a place which is away from him); 3 relative position of these two (event preceding versus following the motion or orientation). The following paradigm illustrates the use of these four suffixes (see Bhat and Ningomba 1986 for details). (101a) ǝynǝ cak carǝgǝni I-nom food eat-sp1-fut ‘I will come and eat food (here)’ (101b) ǝynǝ cak carugǝni I-nom food eat-sp2-fut ‘I will go away and eat food (there)’ (101c) ǝynǝ cak carǝkkǝni I-nom food eat-sp3-fut ‘I will eat food (there) and come (here)’ (101d) ǝynǝ cak cakhigǝni I-nom food eat-sp4-fut ‘I will eat food (here) and go away’ The use of two of these suffixes, namely rǝk and khǝ are of interest in the present context. Their interpretation (or use) depends upon the actual movements and orientations of different individuals or objects involved in the actions or states that are being denoted by the verb, and

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Page 142 not by any possible grammatical relations like subject and object (or S, A and O) that can be assigned to them. This point can be exemplified with the help of the following two distinct types of transaction verbs that occur in the language: Type I: verbs in which the actor in the nominative is the ‘gainer’ from the transactions, such as lǝw ‘ to take’ and khat ‘ to collect’. Type II: verbs in which the actor in the nominative is the ‘loser’ from the transaction, such as pi ‘to give’ and yen ‘distribute’. It has been found that the suffix rǝk indicates, in the case of the first type of transaction verbs, a meaning in which the speaker is identified with the actor, whereas in the case of the second type of transaction verbs, it indicates a meaning in which the speaker is identified with a semantic role other than the actor (such as the beneficiary in the locative case). Whereas the suffix khǝ indicates exactly the opposite meaning in these two instances; i.e. the speaker is identified with an argument other than the actor in the case of type I verbs, and with the actor in the case of type II verbs. Examples: (102a) lǝwrǝki ‘the speaker took something from someone’ (102b) lǝwkhi ‘someone took something from the speaker’ (103a) pirǝki ‘someone gave something to the speaker’ (103b) pikhi ‘the speaker gave something to someone’ Notice that in (102a), which has a type I verb, the suffix rǝk has the speaker as the actor and someone else as the beneficiary, whereas in (103a), which has a type II verb, the suffix has the speaker as the beneficiary and someone else as the actor. The reverse order occurs in the use of the suffix khǝ as shown by (102b) and (103b). The morphosyntactic processes given above make it evident that Manipuri resolves conflicts between the notion of transitivity and some other notion like volitionality in favor of the latter, but not in that of the former. I am not claiming here that the notion of transitivity or transference does not play any role whatsoever in Manipuri. In fact, the use of the accusative suffix is constrained by the notion of transference in that it refers to an individual who has been affected by the action (or process) that has been initiated by some other individual or cause. My claim is only that the notion of transitivity does not play the expected prominent or central role in this language. Even in the case of the accusative suffix, the notion of volitionality is relevant in that the use of the suffix is generally restricted to animate beings, i.e. the ones which are potentially volitional.

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Page 143 But then, even in the case of languages like English, which give prominence to the notion of transitivity, other notions like volitionality do play some role or the other, as shown by the occurrence of co-variance described by Hopper and Thompson (1980). Bach (1980) has pointed out that certain verbs like promise need to be regarded as ‘intransitives’ in English in spite of the fact that they are followed by an unmarked noun phrase because they do not allow passivization, and further, they also share certain features with intransitive verbs. The claim therefore concerns here only the prominence of transitivity as against that of other co-varying components. 5.5 EVIDENCE AGAINST AN OBLIGATORY EXTERNAL ARGUMENT I argued in the previous chapter that the notion of external argument is basically a pragmatic one; languages like English, which combine the encoding of two different types of sentential relations, namely semantic and pragmatic, have made this notion of external argument an obligatory one for all sentences, and have given the pivotal role to it in the functioning of their various morphosyntactic processes. On the other hand, languages like Kannada, which keep the encoding of the two types of relations apart, have not given any such prominent role to this notion in their grammar. Manipuri is similar to Kannada in this respect. I propose to give two different types of morphosyntactic processes that occur in this language in support of this contention. First of all, there are processes of the following type which indicate that the language does not make any distinction between the various arguments of its sentences that can be correlated with the postulated external-internal distinction: 5.5.1 Infinitive constructions. 5.5.2 Derivation of nominals. 5.5.3 Pronominal co-reference. 5.5.4 Use of anaphoric pronoun. 5.5.5 Reflexive construction. 5.5.6 Reciprocal construction. 5.5.7 Control of adverbial clauses. 5.5.8 Sentence conjoining. Second, there are processes of the following type which indicate that the language makes it rather difficult (or may be even impossible) to select one of the arguments of its sentences as constituting the external argument consistently in the case of all sentences:

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Page 144 5.5.9 Case marking. 5.5.10 Separation of the patient noun phrase from the verb. 5.5.11 Absence of passivization. 5.5.12 Two kinds of negatives. 5.5.1 Infinitive constructions Infinitives are formed in Manipuri by attaching the suffix bǝ to the verb. We can regard these as ‘tenseless’ constructions in that they do not show the future-non-future tense distinction, and also the tense-bound distinctions of aspect (as in the progressive and perfect aspects) and of mood (as in the negative, prohibitive and concessive constructions). Examples: (104a) manǝ ŋǝraŋ cǝtli he-nom yesterday go-non-fut ‘He went yesterday’ (104b) ǝy manǝ ŋǝraŋ cǝtpǝ yay I he-nom yesterday go-inf agreed ‘I (had) agreed to his yesterday’s going’ (105a) manǝ hǝyeŋ cǝtkǝni he-nom tomorrow go-fut ‘He will go tomorrow’ (105b) ǝy manǝ hǝyeŋ cǝtpǝ yay I he-nom tomorrow go-inf agreed ‘I agreed to his tomorrow’s going’ Notice that the infinitive form is the same in (104b) and (105b) even though the original sentences show a distinction in tense as can be seen from (104a) and (105a). In tenseless infinitive constructions of the above type, languages which make use of the notion of external argument (or of subject) have been generally found to have no overt subjects. English is considered to be exceptional in this respect, because it does retain the subject overtly in some of its infinitive constructions. But even here, the relevant noun phrase is shifted from nominative to oblique (see Van Riemsdijk and Williams 1986). However, Manipuri retains all the arguments of the original sentence intact in their respective case forms in this infinitive construction as well, and therefore provides no basis for making an external-internal distinction among the arguments. This has been already exemplified by (104b) and (105b) given above. Manipuri allows the co-referential deletion of an argument either from the complement (infinitive clause) or from the matrix sentence as shown below:

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manǝ layrik pigǝni he-nom book give-fut ‘He will give the book’ (106b) ǝynǝ mabu thay I-nom him sent ‘I sent him’ (106c) ǝynǝ manǝ layrik pibǝ thay I-nom he-nom book give-inf sent ‘I sent him to give the book (to someone)’ (106d) ǝynǝ mabu layrik pibǝ thay I-nom him-acc book give-inf sent Notice that the co-referential deletion (of mabu ‘him’) has occurred in the matrix of (106c) whereas in (106d) the deletion (of manǝ ‘he’) has occurred in the complement clause. That is, (106d) does not exemplify the ‘change’ of case form in the infinitive clause. 5.5.2 Derivation of nominals Manipuri uses the prefixes khu and mǝ with verbal bases in order to derive nominals that denote the way in which (a) an event or activity is being carried out, or (b) a characteristic is being possessed. All the arguments occurring with the verb take the genitive suffix gi (which is ki after voiceless consonants) in such nominals. Examples: (107a) manǝ cak cay he-nom food ate ‘He ate food’ (107b) magi cakki khuca phǝjǝde his food’s eating good-not ‘His way of eating food is not good’ (108a) manǝ ciŋdǝ kay he-nom hill-loc climbed ‘He climbed the hill’ (108b) magi ciŋgi khuka phǝjǝde his hill’s climbing good-not ‘His way of climbing the hill is not good’ Notice that in the corresponding English constructions, there is a need to shift only the external argument (subject) to its genitive form. There is, however, one exception to this general rule in Manipuri: namely, that certain unmarked arguments (see 5.2.4) can occur without taking the genitive suffix in these constructions. But in such cases, the arguments provide a generic connotation. Example: (109a) ǝygi layrikki khupa my book’s reading ‘my way of reading the book’

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Page 146 (109b)

ǝygi layrik khupa my book reading ‘my way of reading books’ Notice that the absence of genitive suffix after layrik ‘book’ in (109b) implies a generic meaning. We may perhaps regard such nouns as part of the verb itself rather than as a distinct argument (see 5.5.10 below). 5.5.3 Pronominal co-reference The co-reference of a pronoun occurring in a sentence is constrained in Manipuri only by the fact that the antecedent must precede the pronoun; it is not constrained by notions like relative dominance, or ‘ccommand’, as shown by the following examples: (110a) tombǝgi mǝrupnǝ mabu kǝwwi Tomba’s friend-nom him-acc called ‘Tomba’s friend called him (Tomba)’ (110b) tombǝgi mǝruppu manǝ kǝwwi Tomba’s friend-acc he-nom called ‘Tomba called his (Tomba’s) friend’ (110c) manǝ tombǝgi mǝruppu kǝwwi he-nom Tomba’s friend-acc called ‘He (someone else) called Tomba’s friend’ (110d) mabu tombǝgi marupnǝ kǝwwi him-acc Tomba’s friend-nom called ‘Tomba’s friend called him (someone else)’ Notice that the word tombǝ can be the antecedent of the pronoun ma ‘he’ only in (110a) and (110b), where it precedes the pronoun, but not in (110c) and (110d) where it follows the pronoun. The noun tombǝ functions as the antecedent in (110b) in spite of the fact that it is being c-commanded by the pronoun, whereas in (110d) it fails to function as the antecedent in spite of its being in the command position. That is, pronominal co-reference does not provide any basis for establishing an external argument. 5.5.4 Use of anaphoric pronoun Manipuri is similar to Kannada (see pp. 72–3) in making use of a special anaphoric pronoun mǝsa ‘self’ for differentiating between (a) pronominal reference to antecedents which may or may not belong to the same sentence, and (b) anaphoric reference to an antecedent which actually belongs to the same sentence (occurring overtly or covertly in the sentence). The ordinary pronoun ma ‘he, she, it’ is used in the former case and the special anaphoric pronoun mǝsa ‘self’ in the latter case.

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Page 147 (Notice that this device is quite different from the one called ‘reflexive’; Manipuri uses a verbal suffix for this latter purpose, as shown in 5.5.5 below.) Examples: (111a) tombǝnǝ magi layrik pay Tomba-nom his book read ‘Tomba read his (Tomba’s or someone else’s) book’ (111b) tombǝnǝ mǝsagi layrik pay Tomba-nom self’s book read ‘Tomba read his own book’ Unlike the pronominal co-reference mentioned in the previous section, however, co-reference of this anaphoric pronoun is not constrained by the notion of precedence; any argument (following or preceding) that occurs in the sentence can be its antecedent; if there are two such arguments in the sentence, either of them can ambiguously function as its antecedent. Examples: (112a) cǝwbǝbu mǝsagi para tombǝnǝ tǝmbi Chaoba-acc self’s lesson Tomba-nom taught ‘Tomba taught his (Tomba’s or Chaoba’s) lesson to Chaoba’ (112b) mǝsagi para tombǝnǝ cǝwbǝbu tǝmbi self’s lesson Tomba-nom Chaoba-acc taught ‘Tomba taught his (Tomba’s or Chaoba’s) lesson to Chaoba’ (113) tombǝnǝ mǝsagi layrik cǝwbǝdǝ pi Tomba-nom self’s book Chaoba-loc gave ‘Tomba gave his (Tomba’s or Chaoba’s) book to Chaoba’ 5.5.5 Reflexive construction Reflexive sentences are formed in Manipuri by adding the suffix jǝ to the verb. Generally, one of the two coreferential arguments is left unspecified in the construction. Example: (114a) ǝynǝ tombǝbu cawbǝdǝ sel khǝrǝ pihǝlli I-nom Tomba-acc Chaoba-loc money some give-caused ‘I made Tomba give some money to Chaoba’ (114b) ǝynǝ tombǝbu sel khǝrǝ pijǝhǝlli I-nom Tomba-acc money some give-refl-caused (i) ‘I made Tomba give some money to me’ (ii) ‘I made Tomba give some money to himself’ Notice that one of the arguments of (114a), namely the recipient, has been left unspecified in its reflexive form, (114b). This unspecified argument, however, can be co-referential either with the causer I or the giver Tomba, as shown by the two possible glosses (i) and

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Page 148 5.5.6 Reciprocal construction Manipuri forms its reciprocal sentences by adding the suffix nǝ to the verb. As in the previous case (reflexive construction), one of the two co-referential arguments is generally left unspecified in the sentence; further, this unspecified argument can be co-referential with any of the remaining arguments of the sentence. Example: (115a) mǝkhoynǝ tombǝdǝ buy thǝwjǝlli they-nom Tomba-loc dog set ‘They set the dog(s) at Tomba’ (115b) mǝkhoynǝ huy thǝwjǝnnǝy they-nom dog set-recip (i) ‘The set the dogs at one another’ (at themselves) (ii) ‘They set the dogs at one another’ (at the dogs) 5.5.7 Control of adverbial clauses An adverbial clause can have as its controller ambiguously either a noun phrase in the nominative or one in the accusative (or locative) as can be seen in the following examples: (116) ǝtnǝ nuŋŋaynǝbǝ tombǝdǝ layrik pi I-nom happy-pur-inf Tomba-loc book gave (i) ‘I gave a book to Tomba in order for myself to be happy’ (ii) ‘I gave a book to Tomba in order for him to be happy’ (117) phamuŋdǝ hippǝgǝ tombǝnǝ cǝwbǝbu kǝwwi bed-loc lie-inf-asso Tomba-nom Chaoba-acc called (i) ‘Tomba called Chaoba while Tomba was lying on the bed’ (ii) ‘Tomba called Chaoba while Chaoba was lying on the bed’ 5.5.8 Sentence conjoining Manipuri uses the word ǝdugǝ ‘and’ for conjoining two or more sentences. It can delete arguments of the second clause on the basis of co-reference with any of the arguments of the first clause as can be seen from the ambiguity of sentences of the following type: (118) nupanǝ nupibu phuy ǝdugǝ kǝppi man-nom woman-acc beat and cried (i) ‘The man beat the woman and the man cried’ (ii) ‘The man beat the woman and the woman cried’ (119) midunǝ ucektǝ nuŋ lǝŋbǝdǝ tarǝki man-that-nom bird-loc stone throw-inf-loc fell ‘On that man throwing the stone at the bird, (i) the man fell down’ (ii) the bird fell down’ Whereas in a comparable sentence in English, the co-reference can only be with the subject of the first clause (see Comrie 1981).

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Page 149 The foregoing eight processes of Manipuri illustrate my claim that the language does not make any differentiation between external and internal arguments. The processes deal with all the core arguments of sentences in a uniform fashion. As I mentioned earlier, there are also certain processes which appear to go against the contention that an argument can consistently be selected as the external one in all sentences. The following are illustrative of this point. 5.5.9 Case marking Case marking and verbal agreement are the two main aspects of grammar that are generally used for identifying the subject (or external argument) of a given sentence. Manipuri does not have any verbal agreement as such; its system of case marking is also directly based upon the semantic relations that are to be denoted by the arguments, as I have pointed out in detail earlier in this chapter (see 5.2). Hence, neither of these two aspects of grammar are available in Manipuri to form the bases for establishing external argument. In fact, the system of case marking as it exists in Manipuri conflicts with the claim that an external argument can be established consistently for all its sentences. Notice that one of the crucial characteristics of external argument is that it has its case assigned under predication, whereas the internal arguments have their case assigned by the verb under government (Williams 1984). This characterization of external argument has apparently been based upon the situation as it exists in most of the familiar languages, namely that there would invariably be an unmarked or uniformly marked argument (called ‘nominative’) in all their sentences. However, in the case of Manipuri, the case markers that occur with the arguments of a given sentence depend directly upon the type of semantic relations that are demanded by the sub-categorizational properties of the verb. For example, verbs denoting an action (volitional activity) take an argument with the nominative suffix, whereas the ones denoting a process or state (non-volitional) take an unmarked argument. There are also verbs like theŋ ‘to touch’ which take either of these two types of arguments depending upon whether they denote a volitional or non-volitional activity in a given situation (see 5.2.1 for examples). Similarly, there are several state verbs like iŋ ‘to be cold’, mǝm ‘to be dark’, cik ‘to be calm’, taŋ ‘to be costly’, which can take either an unmarked argument or one with a locative suffix, depending upon whether the verb is being used for characterizing a given object or for denoting the ‘location’ of that characteristic. Examples:

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isiŋdu iŋŋi water-that cold ‘That water is cold’ (120b) imphaldǝ iŋŋi Imphal-loc cold ‘It is cold in Imphal’ (121a) ka ǝsi mǝmmi room this dark ‘This room is dark’ (121b) ka ǝsidǝ mǝmmi room this-loc dark ‘It is dark in this room’ Notice that the (b) sentences do not require a dummy argument as in English. It is possible to use an experiencer also in these (b) sentences, as seen in (122b) below, and further, it is even possible to use this experiencer in the locative, provided that it is differentiated from the other locative noun phrase through the use of the emphatic particle di. Examples: (122a) ǝy imphaldǝ nuŋŋay I Imphal-loc nice ‘I (find) Imphal to be nice’ (122b) ǝyŋondǝdi imphaldǝ nuŋŋay I-loc-emph Imphal-loc nice ‘It is nice in Imphal for me’ It is difficult to see how these different uses of case markers can be derived except directly from the subcategorizational properties of the verb. 5.5.10 Separation of the patient noun phrase from the verb Manipuri allows its patient noun phrase to be separated from the verb even by an oblique noun phrase (or adjunct, which is generally regarded as remaining outside the verb phrase). This indicates that there is no locality constraint which can support the postulation of a verb phrase constituent in this language. Example: (123) ǝynǝ hǝytup imphaldǝ lǝy I-nom apple Imphal-loc bought ‘I bought the apple in Imphal’ (124) ǝynǝ mabu tombǝgi phubi I-nom him-acc Tomba’s beat-ben ‘I beat him for the sake of Tomba’ There are, however, certain verbs like (mǝpun) lak ‘to tie (the bundle)’, (mǝhaw) taŋ ‘to taste (the taste)’, (mǝmǝl) taŋ ‘to be costly (by price)’, (may) cǝm ‘to kindle (fire)’, etc. that occur with ‘inseparable’ themes which are shown here, inside parentheses, before the respective

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Page 151 verbs. But such verbs can take additional unmarked (inanimate) and also marked (animate) patients which are separable, as in the previous cases. Examples: (125a) ǝynǝ yensaŋdu ŋǝraŋ mǝhaw tǝŋŋi I-nom curry-that yesterday taste tasted ‘I tasted that curry yesterday’ (125b) manǝ ǝybu yensaŋdu magi yumdǝ mǝhaw tǝŋhǝlli he-nom me-acc curry-that his house-loc taste taste-caused ‘He made me taste that curry in his house’ Notice that in both (125a) and (125b), mǝhaw ‘taste’ occurs as the ‘inseparable’ patient, and in (125a) there is an additional unmarked patient, namely yensaŋdu ‘that curry’ and in (125b) there is also an additional marked patient (causee) namely ǝybu ‘me’. It is perhaps better to regard the nouns like mǝhaw ‘taste’ as part of the verbal base itself rather than as distinct arguments. 5.5.11 Absence of passivization There are two main functions for which the process of passivization is being used by natural languages. They are, (a) topicalization of an argument other than the actor, and (b) suppression of the actor. We can regard the former as involving the ‘externalization’ of one of the internal arguments, and therefore the occurrence of passivization for carrying out the former function in a given language can be regarded as supporting the claim that the notion of external argument is relevant for that language. Manipuri does not make use of any process in its grammar that can be regarded as the process of passivization. The traditional (Sanskrit-biased) grammarians of Manipuri do give certain sentences as illustrative of passive construction in this language, but they are only active transitive sentences whose actor has been simply left unspecified. Example: (126a) pulisnǝ huranbǝbu phare police-nom thief-acc caught-perf ‘The police have caught the thief’ (126b) huranbǝbu phare thief-acc caught-perf ‘The thief has been caught’ Sentences like (126b) are regarded as instances of passive construction in traditional grammars of Manipuri, but a comparison of (126b) with (126a) makes it evident that the two are identical except for the nonspecification of the actor pulisnǝ ‘police’ in (126b).

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Page 152 Actually, Manipuri does not need this process of passivization: because (a) the absence of verbal agreement makes it possible to completely suppress the actor (or any other argument) by simply leaving it unspecified in the sentence (as in 126b); and (b) the language freely allows any of the arguments to be shifted to the sentence-initial (topic) position without making any changes in the verb or in the case markers of arguments. 5.5.12 Two kinds of negatives I argued in the previous chapter (see 4.4.2) that the logical distinction that has been considered to underlie the notion of external argument, namely the one between subject and predicate, may not be available in all the sentences of a given natural language; there may be two different types of sentences of which only one shows such a distinction. I suggested that the occurrence of two different negative words in Kannada can be correlated with this distinction between the presence versus absence of subject-predicate distinction in the sentences that are being negated by them. Manipuri also shows a comparable distinction between two different types of negations. Consider, for example, its system of answering yes-no questions. In the case of simple yes-no questions, such as the one given below (127a), Manipuri generally makes use of the verb that occurs in the question as the basis of its answer; it provides the affirmative (127b) and negative (127c) answers by using the relevant inflectional markers with the verb. There are no general terms to indicate these meanings like the English ‘yes’ and ‘no’ in Manipuri. Examples: (127a) nǝŋ mǝysor cǝtlurǝbrǝ? you Mysore go-away-present-perf-inf-Q ‘Have you been to Mysore?’ (127b) cǝtlure go-away-present-perf ‘Yes!’ (I have gone) (127c) cǝtludri go-away-neg-present-durative ‘No!’ (I have not gone) However, in the case of equational yes-no questions, such as the one given below (128a), it provides the affirmative answer by attaching the copula ni to the pronoun ma ‘he’ (128b), and the negative answer by using what appears to be the negative form of that copula (128c). Examples:

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nǝŋ cǝtlubǝdu mǝysordra you go-away-inf-it Mysore-loc-Q ‘Is it to Mysore that you went?’ (128b) mani it-is ‘Yes’ (128c) nǝtte is-not ‘No’ This distinction in the use of the negative appears to indicate that the This point, however, needs a more detailed study. subject-predicate distinction may not be available in all its sentences.

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Page 154 6 Theoretical implications My main contention in this monograph has been that the postulation of abstract syntactic entities called grammatical relations (or functions) is neither necessary nor possible in the case of all languages. I have provided evidence, in the first part of this monograph, from Kannada, in order to show that the functions that are generally assigned to grammatical relations can be carried out by semantic and pragmatic relations themselves in at least some languages. Whereas in the second part, I have provided evidence from Manipuri (and also from Kannada) in order to show that the postulation of grammatical relations would make the description of at least some languages to be unnecessarily complex. Notice that the purpose for which we generally postulate such abstract entities is to make our descriptions of languages simpler, more explicit and economical. There are two main types of situations in which the postulation of grammatical relations is considered to be necessary or useful. They are, (a) linking semantic (and pragmatic) roles with case roles, and (b) describing the various types of constraints which affect morphosyntactic processes. I have shown that in the case of both Kannada and Manipuri, the semantic and pragmatic relations themselves can be used in both these types of situations. Jackendoff (1977:242) has pointed out that a restriction on syntax that follows from independently motivated rules and restrictions on semantic interpretation puts the least burden on the language learner, because it can be claimed that knowing the meaning of the construction in question automatically results in the application of the observed constraint; whereas the addition of a constraint to syntax, even through universal grammar, provides no real explanation. The choice in the present context, as we have seen above, is between (a) adding an abstract set of grammatical relations to syntax through universal grammar (as linking elements and pivots) and (b) using

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Page 155 semantic and pragmatic relations themselves, which are already available in the grammar, for the same purpose. We can only make the latter choice as far as languages like Kannada and Manipuri are concerned, because only the latter can be economical, and further there is the added adventage that the latter can provide an explanation, whereas the former cannot. In the case of languages like English, however, we might choose the former alternative in view of the economy and explicitness that is being provided by it, but it would not be providing any explanation as such, because it involves the addition of constraints to syntax. I suggested earlier (see 4.1) that even in the case of these latter type of languages, grammatical relations are needed only when the purpose is to write an explicit grammar. The reason for this is as follows: the form-meaning relationship between semantic relations and their representations is rather complex in these languages because there are a number of factors which are simultaneously involved in their establishment; since the explicitly functioning brain can only deal with a few factors (six or seven at the most) at a time (see Miller 1956:83, Boring 1963:194), we are unable easily to comprehend that relationship. The use of intermediary linking elements like grammatical relations helps us to reduce the complexity of this linkage to a certain extent, and thereby to make it more explicit. However, the actual functioning of language takes place at the implicit level of our brain, and at this latter level there is no constraint of number. The brain can simultaneously be influenced by millions of factors (see Eccles 1970), and hence there would be no need to use any linking elements. Hence, if our purpose in writing a grammar, or establishing a theory of grammar, is to explicate this implicit functioning of our brain (as it encodes or decodes language), then we would be making a mistake in postulating grammatical relations even for languages like English, because there would be no need whatsoever for them at that implicit level. It is necessary to be aware of this point because we could otherwise be misled by the importance that is assigned to these linking elements in our grammars, as seen, for example, in the efforts of linguists who postulate them even for languages like Malayalam (Mohanan 1982), which do better without them (see Appendix 2). Even in the case of English, they could have the effect of obscuring the possible explanations of some of the constraints, especially if we fail to keep in mind the fact that they only have the function of explicating the relevant aspects of language. Consider, for example, the proposal of Chomsky (1970) which has now become famous under the topic called ‘x-bar theory’. The original motivation for this proposal was to find some device with the help of

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Page 156 which the similarities between derived nominals like (1a) and gerundive nominals like (1b) can be expressed: (1a) John’s criticism of the book (1b) John’s criticizing the book Chomsky (1970) had rejected the earlier proposal of deriving both these types of constructions from underlying sentences (through transformations) because there were several differences between the two, of which some were purely idiosyncratic; it was felt that transformations could not properly account for these differences. His new proposal was to generate derived nominals directly in the base component, and gerundive nominals from underlying sentences. It was argued that this difference in the derivation of these two types of structures could account for the above-mentioned differences; whereas the similarity between the two could be accounted for by a hypothesis which underlies the present x-bar theory. Notice that the similarity that needs to be accounted for here is the one which exists between derived nominals (noun phrases) and gerundive nominals (underlying sentences). However, Chomsky (1970) postulated a cross-category generalization which included nouns, verbs and adjectives, and excluded sentences; the x-bar theory that was developed later on did include sentences (as projections of INFL), but basically the theory was regarded as a generalization about the structure of ‘phrases’ such as those of nouns, verbs, adjectives and prepositions. I wish to argue in this connection that this particular formulation involved a mistake that had resulted from the ‘obscuring effect’ of the notion of grammatical relations. Jackendoff (1977:42) has rightly observed, in the first detailed examination of this proposal, that the generalization actually holds between noun phrases and sentences, and not between noun phrases and verb phrases as claimed by Chomsky (1970). He has given several arguments in support of this contention (see 4.4.3 above), but in the case of other constituents, he has retained the original proposal. This has made his revised proposal look rather distorted, and apparently because of this, the original idea of viewing the x-bar theory as a generalization about different categories persisted. There are, however, problems not only in applying this generalization to verb phrases, but also to other types of phrases as well. For example, adjectives occur in two different positions or functions in language, namely predicative and attributive; x-bar theorists have been forced to regard only the former function as the ‘proper’ function of adjectives and the latter function as a derived one, because some of the relevant

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Page 157 characteristics, like taking a complement, are shown by adjectives only while occurring in the predicative position. However, a functional distinction between verbs and adjectives can be established only on the basis of the fact that the latter occur in the attributive position. There are many languages (like Manipuri) which fail to differentiate between verbs and adjectives in the predicative position. Hence, the application of this generalization of x-bar theory to adjectives in their ‘predicative’ function is in no way different from its application to verbs, and we can expect it actually to be true of underlying sentences in both these types of situations (see Bhat, forthcoming, for details). The inclusion of prepositional phrases under this generalization is also a forced one, as is evident from the various constraints that Jackendoff (1977) had to concede in this regard. Further, there is a functional similarity between prepositional phrases, and case-marked noun phrases, and hence, whatever aspects of this generalization that can be retained in the case of prepositional phrases can be considered as deriving from their relatedness to noun phrases. The x-bar theory’s being a cross-category generalization is therefore a myth. I believe that the generalization which underlies x-bar theory is primarily derived from the similarity that exists between two different major functions of speech act, namely reference and predication. An entity is being introduced or referred to in the former case, whereas, in the latter case, an event or state is being expressed in the form of a sentence in which a verb (or an adjective) in the predicative position is related with a set of arguments (referential entities). These two functions are quite distinct from one another, but the expressions used for representing them, namely noun phrases and sentences respectively, show interesting similarities. The two are also derivationally related, as seen, for example, in the use of nominalization, which converts a given sentence into a noun phrase, and of relativization, which converts part of a given sentence into a modifier of one of its arguments. These similarities and derivational relationships between expressions used for predication (sentences) and the ones used for reference (noun phrases) provide the basis for the generalization which underlies the x-bar theory. However, this fact has been obscured, in the case of languages like English, by the separation of one of the arguments of the sentence as an external one (or subject) and its ensuing grammaticalization (see 2.2); this has apparently influenced the GB theorists, who, while trying to account for the latter aspect in the sstructure itself, have failed to recognize the former aspect, i.e. the real, language universal basis of the generalization which underlies x-bar theory.

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Page 158 Grammatical relations have received undue importance in several other theories of language, such as (a) the Generalized Phrase Structure Grammar of Gazdar et al. (1985), in which the wrongly formulated generalization of x-bar theory has been stretched to the extreme; and (b) the Lexical Functional Grammar of Bresnan (1982b) and the Relational Grammar of Perlmutter (1983), and Perlmutter and Rosen (1984), both of which regard grammatical relations as linguistic primitives. These approaches to linguistic theory have failed to give adequate importance to the fact, mentioned earlier, that grammatical relations are postulated mainly for making our descriptions of languages more explicit, and that the actual (implicit) functioning of language does not require their presence; they are therefore rather different from other entities of grammar such as case roles, tense, aspect, negation, etc. Hence, any theory which does not allow for languages that may not require them even as devices for explication cannot be regarded as presenting the correct set of generalizations about language. However, other theorists like Comrie (1981), Foley and van Valin (1984), Andrews (1985), etc. do concede the possibility of finding languages that do not make use of grammatical relations like ‘subject’, but the general importance given to the notion of transitivity persists even in the writings of these scholars. The effort of some of these scholars to replace grammatical relations with the so-called ‘core’ arguments (participant types), as I have pointed out above, is based upon this general assumption, which, however, is contradicted by languages like Kannada and Manipuri. The study has also made it evident that the pragmatic aspects of language can no longer be regarded as of no direct relevance to a theory of grammar. The problem here is that in the case of languages like English some of the aspects of pragmatics, for example the notion of sentential topic, have been encoded jointly with those of semantics, and the device used for this joint encoding, namely configurationality, has been made to assume the pivotal position in the functioning of morphosyntactic processes. In languages like Kannada, however, the two aspects of language are encoded distinctly, and the device of configurationality which is used for encoding the former (pragmatic aspects) is not made to play any role whatsoever in the functioning of morphosyntactic processes that are connected with the latter (semantic) aspects. In fact, Kannada makes use of two distinct sets of rules and principles in the structuring of its sentences, of which one occurs in the encoding of pragmatic aspects and the other one in that of semantic aspects. Configurationality is relevant in the former and case marking in the latter.

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Page 159 Most of the current formulations of linguistic theory have been heavily influenced by the situation as it exists in English. For example, in the theory of Government and Binding (Chomsky 1981), only a single set of rules and principles is used while formulating the ‘core grammar’; the notion of configurationality plays the pivotal role in this formulation; grammatical relations (called ‘functions’) are considered to be relevant for semantic interpretation (‘Logical Form’) in all languages, as they are considered to determine the theta-roles (semantic relations) of arguments in all of them (Chomsky 1981:137). Languages which do not actually make use of configurationality for this particular purpose are assumed to do so in the underlying s-structure, but to be getting rid of the distinction in the surface structure through the application of a ‘scrambling rule’ (see 2.3.1). As shown by the foregoing comparison of these two types of languages (English and Kannada), however, the notion of ‘scrambling’ would be the most inadequate device for describing the differences between them. And as I have pointed out earlier (2.3.1), this mistake has occurred mainly because the relevant pragmatic factors (‘preference rules’ regarding the order of constituents) have been completely disregarded in the case of non-configurational languages (Chomsky 1981:128), whereas in the case of configurational languages they have been only partially disregarded. We can rectify this mistake only by giving equal and comparable prominence to these pragmatic factors in the description of the above two types of languages.

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Page 160 Appendix 1 Dative noun phrases as underlying subjects in Kannada I wish to examine, in this first appendix, the claim of Sridhar (1976, 1979) that the dative noun phrases of a particular set of predicates in Kannada (namely the ones which express mental or physical states and processes), are to be regarded as underlying subjects. The following sentences illustrate the use of this particular type of dative noun phrase: (1) raːjuvige bhaya Raju-dat fear ‘Raju is afraid’ (2) nanage raːjuvina gottide me-dat Raju’s address-nom knowledge-is ‘I know Raju’s address’ (3) nanage muːru gottive me-dat three stories knowledge-are ‘I know three stories’ All these predicates take an argument in the dative, but in addition to this, some take an argument in the nominative as well. The verbal agreement is controlled by the nominative argument in this latter type of sentence, as can be seen from the use of a singular verbal form in (2) and a plural one in (3). Traditionally, the nominative noun phrase is regarded as the subject in sentences like (2) and (3), but Sridhar’s claim is that in all these types of sentences, the dative noun phrase must be regarded as the underlying subject. Perlmutter (1983) upholds this ‘dative-subject’ claim, and postulates a process of ‘inversion’ as affecting the relevant noun phrases. That is, he regards the dative noun phrases of predicates of the type given above to be subjects in the initial stratum and indirect objects in the final stratum. He makes use of arguments of the type put forth by Sridhar (1979) as the main basis of his contention (see 4.3.2 above). Sridhar’s claim has been primarily based upon the contention that the above-mentioned dative noun phrases share certain grammatical

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Page 161 properties with the nominative noun phrases of other sentences (i.e. the ones which have been traditionally regarded as subjects in Kannada), and further, that these properties also help us to differentiate them from the traditional non-subjects like the ones occurring in the accusative. The following are the four main properties of this type which, according to Sridhar (1979), can fully substantiate his dative-subject claim: 1 Being the antecedent of the ‘reflexive’ pronoun taːnu ‘self’; 2 Being the controller as well as the victim of obligatory co-referential deletion in conjoint sentences of a participial type; 3 Being the controller as well as the victim of obligatory equi-deletion in one type of purposive clause; 4 Being, generally, the sentence-initial argument. I will examine these arguments individually in order to show that none of these properties can be regarded as supporting the above-mentioned claim. A1.1 ‘REFLEXIVE’ PRONOUN As I pointed out earlier (pp. 72–3), Kannada uses the pronoun taːnu ‘self’ primarily for differentiating between anaphoric and pragmatic co-references. Sridhar (1979) has wrongly labeled this pronoun as ‘reflexive’. The use of this pronoun is restricted to third person referents, and hence it cannot be used for denoting the reflexive co-reference of first or second person referents. In the case of the third person reflexive co-reference also, it is used only when there is a need to emphasize the co-referring case role, such as the patient or the experiencer. However, the use of the reflexive verbal device (see pp. 71–2) is obligatory in all these cases. Further, the pronoun is used more frequently for denoting anaphoric co-references (such as the one between an argument of the complement and that of the matrix clauses, or the one between an argument and the possessor of another argument) than the reflexive ones, whereas the verbal reflexive device is used only for denoting the reflexive co-reference. We can adequately account for these various aspects of the use of this pronoun by regarding it as a ‘special anaphoric pronoun’ (see Bhat 1977) rather than as a reflexive pronoun. The use of this anaphoric pronoun is considered to be further constrained by a ‘subject-antecedent’ rule as shown by the following unacceptable sentence:

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Page 162 (4) *naːnu raːjuvige tanna kaːrannu toːriside I-nom Raju-dat self’s car-acc showed ‘I showed my/his car to Raju’ This sentence is unacceptable in either of the two meanings suggested in the gloss; the pronoun tanna ‘self’s’ cannot have the noun phrase in the nominative (naːnu ‘I’) as its antecedent because its antecedent can only be of third person, whereas the noun phrase in third person, namely raːjuvige ‘to Raju’, cannot be its antecedent because the latter does not occur in the nominative. The pronoun cannot also have a pragmatically (contextually) determined antecedent because it is ‘anaphoric’ in nature; its antecedent must occur in the same sentence. However, the dative noun phrase under consideration can occur as the antecedent of taːnu ‘self’ as shown by the following acceptable sentences: (5) raːjuvige tanna meːle priːti ide Raju-dat self’s children’s on love is ‘Raju loves his (own) children’ (6) siːtege taːnu aːse Site-dat self queen-become-want-that wish ‘Site wishes to become a queen’ In both these sentences, the dative noun phrase of the so-called ‘dative-subject’ predicate is found to function as the antecedent of taːnu ‘self’. Sridhar (1979) has used this occurrence of taːnu ‘self’ as one of his arguments for claiming that the dative noun phrases of such sentences must be regarded as underlying subjects. However, the original contention, namely that the use of the pronoun taːnu ‘self’ is constrained by a subjectantecedent rule, is itself of doubtful validity. In the case of impersonal passive sentences, for example, the pronoun can have an accusative noun phrase as its antecedent as shown below: (7) avarannu tamma tamma they-acc self’s self’s houses-dat sent-pur-became ‘They were sent to their respective houses’ The plural form of the pronoun taːnu ‘self’ has avarannu ‘they-acc’ as its antecedent in (7). The complete suppression of the nominative (actor) noun phrase in these impersonal constructions (see 3.4.2) has apparently made it possible for an accusative noun phrase to occupy this position of the antecedent of taːnu ‘self’. There are also certain sentences containing a ‘dative-subject’ predicate in which the antecedent of taːnu ‘self’ appears to be a nominative noun phrase (i.e. one which is being denied of its traditional status as the subject) rather than the dative noun phrase, as pointed out by Giridhar (1987:54). Example:

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Page 163 (8) śaːstrige tanna gaːmbhiːryadindaːgi she-nom Shastri-dat self’s seriousness-from like-became ‘Shastri liked her because of her seriousness’ We can regard the predicate of (8) as a dative-subject predicate (according to Sridhar’s formulation), but the noun phrase which functions as the antecedent of taːnu ‘self’ in it is not the dative one, but instead, the nominative one. There is apparently a hierarchy of case marking which determines the antecedent of taːnu ‘self’ in these sentences; the exact nature of this hierarchy is yet to be worked out, but the foregoing sentences make it evident that the property of being the antecedent of taːnu ‘self’ cannot be used either to characterize the dative noun phrases as subjects or to differentiate them from ‘non-subjects’ like the accusative noun phrases. A1.2 CO-REFERENTIAL DELETION The second argument put forth by Sridhar (1979) has been based upon the occurrence of co-referential deletion in sentences in which two different clauses have been joined together by changing the finite verb of the first one into its past-participial form. Sridhar has claimed that the ‘subject’ of the first clause is deleted on co-reference with the ‘subject’ of the following clause in such sentences. Examples: (9) tarakaːri tandu umaː vegetable-acc brought-pp Uma-nom cooking-acc did ‘Uma brought some vegetables and (she) cooked food’ (10)*raːma karedu śyaːma hattira banda Rama-nom called-pp Shyam-nom near came ‘Rama called (Shyam) and Shyam came near him’ (11)*illige bandu naːnu raːjuvannu here came-pp I-nom Raju-acc met ‘Raju came here and I met (him)’ (This sentence is unacceptable only if it is to have the meaning given here.) The deletion under consideration has been exemplified by (9), in which Uma is deleted from the first clause due to co-reference. The ungrammaticality of (10) is considered to result from the fact that the ‘victim’ of deletion is a non-subject (a noun phrase in the accusative) whereas that of (11) is considered to result from the fact that the ‘controller’ of deletion is a non-subject (also in the accusative). Notice, however, that (11) would be acceptable in the meaning ‘I came here and met Raju’, in which both the controller as well as the victim are in the nominative.

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Page 164 Sridhar gives sentences of the following type in support of his contention that the dative noun phrases under consideration can function as victims (see (12b) below) as well as controllers (13b) of such deletions: (12a) avanige nenapaːyitu him-dat wife’s memory-became ‘He remembered his wife’ (12b) nenapaːgi avanu dukkhisida wife’s memory-became-pp he-nom sorrowed ‘He remembered his wife and became sad’ (13a) avanu bisilinalli tirugida he-nom sunlight-loc wandered ‘He wandered in the sun’ (13b) bisilinalli tirugi avanige baːyaːrikeyaːyitu sunlight-loc wandered-pp him-dat thirst-became ‘He wandered in the sun and became thirsty’ In (12b), a dative noun phrase has been deleted from the first clause on the basis of co-reference with a nominative noun phrase, whereas in (13b), a nominative noun phrase has been deleted on the basis of coreference with a dative noun phrase. There is one particular type of sentence, however, which has appeared to be rather troublesome to Sridhar (1979). Consider, for example, the following two sentences: (14) male bandu kere tumbitu rain-nom came-pp tank-nom filled ‘It rained and the tank became full’ (15) *raːma tarakaːri tandu umaː Ram-nom vegetable-acc brought-pp Uma-nom cooking-acc did ‘Ram brought vegetables and Uma cooked food’ Notice that (14) allows non-identical ‘subjects’ to be conjoined, whereas (15) does not. Sridhar (1979:107, fn. 6) states that ‘the details of what is involved in such sentences are not clear at present. However, the explanation, when worked out, is not likely to seriously affect the generalization about CSD [Coreferential Subject Deletion] discussed here’. But actually it does affect the generalization. The explanation that can be given for the above-mentioned disparity is the following: if two (or more) sentences are to be conjoined through the use of past participles, and if both of them have arguments (like an actor or a causer) which ‘control’ the action that their respective predicates denote, then they must also be co-referential (they may also undergo co-referential deletion as seen in 3.4.4). We can regard the unacceptability of (15) given above to have resulted from a failure to follow this rule.

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Page 165 What I am claiming here is that the constraint which affects the process of participial conjoining in Kannada is based upon the notion of volitionality (and of obligatory versus non-obligatory co-reference) and not of ‘subject’ as claimed by Sridhar (1979). Since the dative noun phrases under consideration are non-volitional, they allow non-co-referential conjoining (i.e. co-reference is not obligatory in the case of these dative noun phrases) and are therefore unlike the volitional arguments. This point can be illustrated with the help of the following acceptable sentences, which may be compared with (15): (16) naːvu beːga hoːgi avanige tondare aːyitu we-nom early went-pp him-dat trouble-nom became ‘We went early and he was troubled’ (17) avanige jvara bandu naːvu niːru horabeːkaːyitu him-dat fever came-pp we-nom water-acc carry-want-became ‘He got fever and we had to carry water’ Notice that the non-co-referential dative noun phrase occurs in the second clause in (16) and in the first clause in (17). Thus, the process of co-referential conjoining exemplifies a difference between dative noun phrases and nominative (agent) noun phrases and not a similarity as claimed by Sridhar (1979). The question as to which noun phrases would be allowed to be deleted on co-reference in conjoined sentences of the above type, I think, is determined by pragmatic factors and definitely not by the notion of ‘subject’, as shown by the following sentence: (18) nannannu karedu avanu ondu pustaka me-acc called-pp he-nom one book-acc gave ‘He called me and gave (me) a book’ This sentence satisfies the constraint mentioned above, in that the actors of the two clauses are coreferential (of which one has been deleted from the first clause), but in addition to this, it also involves the co-referential deletion of a dative noun phrase from the second clause. A1.3 EQUI-NP DELETION Sridhar (1979) has described the process of equi-NP deletion as involving the deletion of complement subjects of verbs belonging to certain specified semantic classes occurring in contexts in which the complement subjects are identical with the subjects, direct objects or indirect objects of the matrix clauses. Examples: (19) avanu hoːgalu prayatnisida he-nom inside go-pur tried ‘He tried to go inside’

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Page 166 (20) avanu raːjuvannu hoːgalu ottaːyisida he-nom Raju-acc inside go-pur persuaded ‘He persuaded Raju to go inside’ (21) avanu raːjuvige oːdalu ondu pustaka he-nom Raju-dat read-pur one book-acc gave ‘He gave Raju a book to read’ The subject of the complement sentence (nominative noun phrase) has been equi-deleted on identity with the subject of the matrix clause in (19), direct object in (20) and indirect object in (21). Notice that some of these matrix arguments have been shifted to the left of the complement clause for pragmatic purposes. Sridhar (1979) has given the following sentence (22a) as exemplifying his claim that a dative noun phrase can also function as the victim of such equi-deletion: (22a) maduveyaːyitu her-dat marriage-became ‘She got married’ (22b) maduveyaːgalu her-dat marriage-become-pur like-not ‘She does not like to get married’ Sridhar has apparently derived the purposive clause of (22b) from (22a) and has therefore regarded (22b) as exemplifying the equi-deletion of a dative noun phrase; but it is also possible to derive this purposive clause from a sentence (like (22c) below) which contains a nominative noun phrase and hence the equideletion in (22b) need not be regarded as affecting a dative noun phrase. (22c) she-nom marriage-became ‘She married (someone)’ This latter analysis is supported by the fact that predicates which obligatorily take a dative noun phrase (i.e. predicates which do not show an alternation between nominative and dative arguments—see below, section 5) cannot be used in such purposive clauses. Example: (23a) her-dat children-become ‘She has children’ (23b) she-nom children-become (23c) she-nom children-become-pur like-not ‘She does not like to have children’ Further, as I pointed out earlier (3.4.5), the matrix predicates which take purposive clauses of the above type fall into three distinct groups, of

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Page 167 which two can have a non-volitional argument (accusative in one case and dative in the other) as the controller of deletion, and the remaining one can have a volitional argument as the controller. But predicates of all the three groups can have only a volitional argument as the victim of deletion in their complement clauses. This latter constraint has apparently resulted from the fact that the complement has to indicate the ‘purpose’ of a given action, event or state in these sentences. Thus the notion that we need for adequately describing this equi-deletion of purposive clauses is that of volitionality and not of subject or of direct object as claimed by Sridhar (1979). Dative noun phrases share the property of being the controller of deletion with other arguments (both nominative as well as the accusative ones) whereas they fail to share the property of being the victim of deletion with the nominative (volitional) noun phrases. That is, this third process also exemplifies a difference between dative noun phrases and nominative (agent) noun phrases and not similarity as claimed by Sridhar. A1.4 WORD ORDER Dative noun phrases are found to be the preferred arguments for occupying the initial position of sentences which contain the ‘dative-subject’ predicates, as shown by the various sentences given above (see (1), (3), (5), (6), (12), etc.). Since this sentence-initial position also appears to be the preferred position for the ‘subject’, Sridhar (1979) feels that this property can also be used to support his dative-subject contention. However, as I have described in detail in the third chapter (see 3.3.1), this sentence-initial position carries a specific function in Kannada, namely the denotation of the topic. This function is unconnected with that of denoting semantic roles, and it is this unconnectedness of these two aspects of language which makes it possible to regard the notion of ‘subject’ to be irrelevant for the description of Kannada grammar. When an argument other than the dative noun phrase is to be shifted to the topic position, Kannada does allow such an argument to occur in the sentence-initial position. This can be seen in (8) given above, and also in the following sentences: (2a) raːjuvina nanage gottide Raju’s address-nom me-dat knowledge-is ‘I know Raju’s address’ (topic: Raju’s address ) (22c) maduveyaːgalu marriage-become-pur her-dat like-not ‘She does not like to get married’ (focus: she)

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Page 168 Similarly, in a question-answer situation, if a dative noun phrase functions as the answering argument (see 3.5.2), it must be shifted obligatorily to the preverbal position, as can be seen from the following sentences: (24a) vaːliya kate yaːrige gottide? Vali’s story-nom who-dat knowledge-is ‘Who knows Vali’s story?’ (24b) adu nanage gottide it-nom me-dat knowledge-is ‘I know it’ (24c) *nanage adu gottide me-dat it-nom knowledge-is gottide? The unacceptability of (24c) as an answer to (24a) is due to the fact that the answering argument has not been placed in the preverbal (focus) position. It is evident that the positioning of an argument in the sentence cannot be used as evidence for claiming subjecthood for any given type of argument in Kannada. A1.5 CAUSATIVE FORMATION Lastly, I wish to point out that the process of causativization differentiates between the above-mentioned dative noun phrases and the nominative noun phrases (both volitional and non-volitional) and the occurrence of this differentiation also helps us to disconfirm the main contention of Sridhar (1979). When a sentence is causativized, the dative noun phrase undergoes no change in its case marking, whereas the nominative one changes into an accusative one (if there is no accusative noun phrase in the sentence) or into a postpositional one (see pp. 46–8). There are actually two distinct types of ‘dative-subject’ predicates in Kannada: (a) predicates which can take either a dative argument or a nominative argument, depending upon whether the referent of that argument is participating in the concerned event (or assuming the concerned characteristic) volitionally or not; and (b) predicates which can only take a dative argument. In the latter case, however, the participation of the referent can only be non-volitional. The effect of causativization is two-fold in the case of ‘dative-subject’ predicates of the first type. If the predicate has a dative argument, the argument would be left unchanged, whereas if it has a nominative argument, it would be changed into an accusative one. Examples: (25a) avanige soːlaːyitu him-dat defeat-became ‘He got defeated’

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Page 169 (25b)

naːnu avanige soːlaːgiside I-nom him-dat defeat-caused ‘I got him defeated’ (25c) avanu soːta he-nom defeated’ ‘He got defeated’ (25d) naːnu avanannu soːliside I-nom him-acc defeat-caused ‘I defeated him’ However, in the case of the second type of predicate, causativization produces only one type of sentence, namely the one in which the dative argument remains unchanged. Example: (26a) avanige talenoːvu him-dat headache ‘He has headache’ (26b) naːnu avanige talenoːvaːgiside I-nom him-dat headache-become-caused ‘I caused him headache’ As I pointed out earlier (3.2.3), nominative undergoers differ from accusative undergoers in that the former can be used as participants in a self-induced (but non-volitional) event but the latter cannot. The change of nominative undergoers to accusative ones in causative constructions is primarily meant for removing this possibility of the event being regarded as a self-induced one. In the case of dative noun phrases, on the other hand, the events (or characteristics) cannot have this sense of being self-induced, and hence, there is no need to shift the argument to some other case form when the sentence in which it occurs is causativized. A1.6 CONCLUSION The foregoing examination of the properties of dative noun phrases, presented by Sridhar (1976, 1979) as supporting his dative-subject contention, makes it evident, I believe, that they only show the dative noun phrases to be quite different from noun phrases that have been traditionally recognized as ‘subjects’. Hence, they do not provide any basis for regarding the dative noun phrases as underlying ‘subjects’.

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Page 170 Appendix 2 Grammatical relations in Malayalam Mohanan (1982) has put forth certain arguments in support of his contention that in Malayalam, thematic (semantic) roles like agent, patient, experiencer, theme, causer, etc. are not to be linked directly with case features (like nominative, accusative, dative, instrumental, etc.), but only indirectly through the intermediacy of grammatical relations (called by him grammatical ‘functions’), namely subject, direct object and indirect object. Since Malayalam is very closely related to Kannada (both of them belong to the South Dravidian branch of the Dravidian language family), this contention of Mohanan is of special interest in the present context. I wish to argue in this appendix that the above-mentioned contention of Mohanan is mistaken. My claim is based upon two main points. It could be shown (a) that a description which establishes a direct correlation between case features and semantic features (or roles) is more explanatory than one which establishes only an indirect correlation between the two as far as Malayalam case marking is concerned; and (b) that the postulation of grammatical relations can only make the description of some of the syntactic processes of this language unnecessarily complex and ad hoc. (I am indebted to to Dr P.T. Abraham and Dr R.R.Thampuran for facts about Malayalam language given in this appendix.) A2.1 SUPERIORITY OF A DIRECT CORRELATION As an illustration of the first point, I propose to examine the use of accusative case marker in Malayalam. There are two different contexts in which the suffix occurs overtly in this language: (a) by itself after nouns to denote animate direct object, and (b) with the postposition ‘with’ (among others) following it to denote the agent of a causativized construction. My contention is that a direct correlation of this suffix with

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Page 171 meaning is more explanatory than an indirect one through intermediary entities like direct object and instrument. A2.1.1 Animate and inanimate direct objects Mohanan (1982:538) has pointed out that direct objects take the accusative if they are animate, whereas they take the nominative if they are inanimate. Examples (Mohanan’s (95) and (96)): (1a) awane she-nom him-acc saw ‘She saw him’ (1b) awan she-nom he-nom saw (2a) she-nom book-acc saw (2b) she-nom book-nom saw ‘She saw the book’ The unacceptability of (1b) is due to the fact that an animate direct object has been used in the nominative, whereas that of (2a) is due to the fact that an inanimate direct object has been used in the accusative. Since the case markers are to be related only indirectly with meaning, and since the intervening grammatical relation, namely the direct object, does not allow any distinction to be made between animate and inanimate noun phrases, Mohanan is unable to provide any explanation as such for this interesting phenomenon of Malayalam. However, a description which connects case markers directly with meaning can provide an explanation for this phenomenon. This can be based upon the fact that animate noun phrases, whose referents have the capability to control a given action, need to be specifically marked when their referents are said to be involved in an action over which they have no control (i.e. someone else has the control), whereas inanimate noun phrases, whose referents do not have any such capability to control actions, need not be marked in that fashion (see George 1971:90). In fact, the occurrence in events that are controlled by others is the normal type of usage as far as these inanimate noun phrases are concerned. A2.1.2 Two types of postpositional instruments There are two different ways in which instrumental postpositional phrases can be formed in Malayalam: in the case of animate noun phrases, these are to be formed by attaching ‘with’ to the accusative form of the noun; whereas in the case of inanimate noun

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Page 172 phrases, they are to be formed by attaching it to the nominative form. The former are used for denoting the agent of a causativized construction, as shown in (3) below, and the latter are used for denoting the instrument of an action sentence, as seen in (4). Examples (Mohanan’s (201b) and (207b); I have mostly followed Mohanan’s system of transcription for the Malayalam sentences of this appendix): (3) amma mother-nom child-acc-with door-nom close-caused ‘The mother made the child close the door’ (4) amma mother-nom child-acc stick-nom-with beat ‘The mother beat the child with a stick’ Notice that the instrumental postpositional form in (3) contains an accusative form whereas the one in (4) contains only a nominative form . We can regard this distinction as directly reflecting the above-mentioned semantic distinction: an animate actor, when used in a causativized sentence, loses its control over the action to the newly introduced causer, and hence, there is a need to shift the relevant argument from nominative to accusative (in addition to using the postposition ); whereas an inanimate instrument, when used in an action sentence, does not undergo any such change in its semantic role, and hence there is no possibility of using the accusative form in this latter case. Such an explanation is inaccessible to Mohanan because in both these situations, he would only be correlating the postpositional forms with meaning indirectly, i.e. through intermediary grammatical relations. As a result, the statement that he has been able to make about these forms is that the case inflections (accusative and nominative respectively) ‘are dictated by the idiosyncratic features of the postposition and have nothing to do with the general system of interpreting grammatical relations’ (1982:538). In view of what has been written above, this statement not only lacks insight, but is also mistaken. A2.1.3 Causativization and passivization In the case of a causative construction, an animate noun phrase occurring as the agent of a transitive verb is changed into a post-positional instrumental form (i.e. accusative form of the noun followed by the postposition ‘with’ as mentioned above), whereas in the case of a passive construction, it is changed into an instrumental form with the case marker aal. Examples (Mohanan’s (201) and (223)):

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Page 173 (5a) child-nom door-nom closed ‘The child closed the door’ (5b) amma mother-nom child-acc-with door-nom close-caused ‘The mother made the child close the door’ (6a) amma mother-nom child-dat book-nom gave ‘The mother gave the book to the child’ (6b) ammayaal mother-instr child-dat book-nom gave-passive ‘The book was given to the child by the mother’ Notice that the agent ‘child’ is changed from nominative to accusative (and the postposition added to it) in the case of the causative construction (5b), whereas the agent amma ‘mother’ is changed from nominative to instrumental (with the suffix aal) in the case of the passive construction (6b). Mohanan (1982:575) also points out that the suffixal instrumental form cannot be used in a causative construction in place of the postpositional one, as shown by the unacceptability of the following sentence (his (208b)): (7) *accan ammayaal father-nom mother-instr child-acc pinch-caused ‘The father made the mother pinch the child’ Mohanan can only account for this difference by adding an ad hoc rule into his grammar, namely that the subject is to be replaced by an instrumental object, rather than by an instrument, in the case of causativization. However, a description based upon the postulation of a direct correlation between case features and semantic features can provide an interesting explanation for this difference in case marking. Notice that an agent loses its control over an action when the verb is causativized. This loss of control is expressed by shifting the relevant argument from nominative to accusative; whereas in passivization, the agent only loses its topicality but not its control over the action. Hence, it is not to be shifted to the accusative form in this latter case. A2.1.4 Simple accusative forms and those in postpositional instrumental forms There is also a semantic distinction that can be correlated with the one between the use of accusative forms by themselves on the one hand, and with the instrumental postposition ‘with’ on the other. This has

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Page 174 been pointed out by Abraham (1985). In the case of certain causative constructions, the agent can be used either in its accusative form proper, or in its postpositional instrumental form (containing the accusative form+ ‘with’). The former implies direct causation, whereas the latter implies only indirect causation. Example: (8a) amma mother-nom child-acc write-caused ‘The mother made the child write’ (8b) amma mother-nom child-acc with lesson-nom write-caused ‘The mother made the child write the lesson’ The implication in (8a) but not in (8b) is that the mother took the hand of the child and made him write something (direct causation). That is, the use of an argument with only the accusative suffix implies loss of control as well as inactivity, whereas its use in the accusative along with the postposition implies that there had only been a loss of control. Abraham has also pointed out that in the case of the so-called ‘ingestive’ verbs like eat, drink, etc., Malayalam can change the agent from nominative to accusative (see (9a) below) even when there is a ‘direct object’ in the sentence. Notice that this particular fact contradicts Mohanan’s (1982:574) claim that the demoted subject does not become the ‘direct object’ if the primary predicate already has a direct object. The agent may also be changed into an instrumental postpositional form in such sentences (see (9b)) in order to provide the meaning of indirect causation. Examples: (9a) amma doosa mother-nom child-acc cake-nom eat-caused ‘The mother fed the cake to the child’ (9b) amma doosa mother-nom child-acc with cake-nom eat-caused ‘The mother made the child eat the cake’ The foregoing points (see also p. 179, below) make it clear that the postulation of grammatical relations as intermediary entities makes the description of the use of accusative case forms in Malayalam unnecessarily complex and ad hoc. It also fails to provide any explanations for the constraints which affect their usage. Whereas the postulation of a direct correlation between form and meaning makes the description simpler and also explanatory. I suspect that this is true of other case forms and postpositions also in Malayalam (as in Kannada, described earlier), but only a detailed study of the relevant usages can establish this point.

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Page 175 A2.2 SYNTACTIC PROCESSES In support of his claim that, in Malayalam, semantic roles cannot be directly correlated with case features, Mohanan (1982:565) contends that ‘there exist a number of rules in Malayalam that refer crucially to grammatical relations like subject and object. If we do not incorporate the level of grammatical relations in the theory, we will be forced to continue to refer to them in a roundabout manner, using illegitimate descriptions.’ He has examined four different syntactic processes, namely (a) the use of the ‘reflexive’ ‘self’, (b) control of adverbial clauses containing ‘while’, (c) causativization, and (d) passivization, in order to show that a reference to grammatical relations is necessary in order to make adequate statements about these processes. However, a closer examination of these processes reveals that the constraints which affect them are semantic in nature, and because of this, they are not actually statable in terms of grammatical relations as claimed by Mohanan. Hence, they do not support his contention about the form-meaning relationship in Malayalam; instead, they disconfirm that contention, as I propose to point out below. A2.2.1 Use of the ‘reflexive’ The use of the so-called ‘reflexive’ ‘self’ is considered to have a subject-antecedent constraint in Malayalam. Mohanan (1982:566) claims, in fact, that its occurrence can be used as a ‘test for subjecthood’ in this language. His examples, illustrative of this usage, are the following (his (177)): (10a) raajaawǝ bhaaryaye king-nom self’s wife-acc pinched ‘The king pinched his (the king’s) wife’ (10b) *raajaawine bhaarya king-acc self’s wife-nom pinched ‘The king’s wife pinched him (the king)’ The unacceptability of (10b), according to Mohanan, is due to the fact that the antecedent of in it is not the subject, but the object. A closer examination of the use of ‘self’ in Malayalam reveals, however, that there are certain additional constraints which affect its usage, and these cannot be stated in terms of grammatical relations. For example, it can take only animate nouns as its antecedents; further, its use is generally restricted to third person antecedents; its use with first and second person antecedents is rather odd, except when it is

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Page 176 preceded by the genitive form of the relevant pronoun as in the following sentence: (11) ñaan I-nom him-dat my self’s book-nom gave ‘I gave him my (own) book’ Further, it can also have a noun phrase in the accusative as its antecedent in this latter type of context (i.e. use with the genitive form of the antecedent), especially when the nominative noun phrase (agent) in the sentence is in first or second person (i.e. one which cannot normally be its antecedent). Example: (12) ñaan I-nom him-acc his self stick-nom with beat ‘I beat him with his (own) stick’ Mohanan’s claim that ‘self’ is ‘reflexive’ in Malayalam also appears to be untenable because, in a typical reflexive sentence such as the following (13), Malayalam uses the form tannattanne ‘self-acc’ and not . (13) addeeham tannattanne nooki he-nom self-acc mirror-loc looked ‘He looked at himself in the mirror’ A2.2.2 Controlling adverbial clauses containing ‘while’ According to Mohanan (1982:567), the control equation for the adverbial clause with ‘while’ can be informally stated as follows: The subject of the matrix controls the subject of the embedded clause. He considers it possible to use this device also as a ‘test for subjecthood’ in Malayalam. Example (his 183): (14) accanǝ amma kaasǝ bed-loc lay-while father-dat mother-nom money-nom gave ‘The mother gave money to father, while she/*he lay on the bed’ The unacceptability of ‘he’ as the subject of the adverbial clause in (14) is considered to support the control equation given above. However, the following unacceptable sentences indicate that this control equation cannot be stated in terms of the subject of the matrix clause: (15) book-nom read-while child-dat hungered ‘The child became hungry while reading the book’

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Page 177 (16a)

nelatte kitannukontǝ karaññu ground-loc lie-while child-nom cried ‘The child cried while lying on the ground’ (16b) *nelatte palam ciiññu ground-loc lie-while fruit-nom rotted ‘The fruit rotted while lying on the ground’ In (15), the so-called ‘dative subject’ of the matrix clause has been made to control the subject of the adverbial clause, but the sentence is unacceptable; similarly, in both (16a) and (16b), the nominative subject of the matrix clause has been made to control the subject of the adverbial clause, but only one of them (16a) is acceptable, and not the other. Actually, we need a semantic notion for making an adequate statement of this control equation: sentences in which the controller is an argument whose referent has no ‘control’ over the action or event that is being denoted by the matrix predicate (i.e. one which is not acting volitionally) are not acceptable. Mohanan has given the following sentence (his 184) as supporting his claim that the so-called ‘dative subjects’ can also control deletion in adverbial clauses of the above type: (17) book-nom read-while child-dat sleep-wants ‘The child wants to sleep while reading the book’ In (17), the dative argument ‘child’ appears to control the adverbial subject in spite of the fact that it is not a volitional argument. Notice, however, that the matrix verb in (17) involves uraŋŋu ‘to sleep’ which takes a volitional argument (agent) in the nominative as shown below: (17a) uraŋŋi child-nom slept ‘The child slept’ (went to sleep volitionally) We can therefore regard this volitional argument as controlling the adverbial agent in (17). Mohanan (1982:568) has analysed as a modal form of the verb uraŋŋu ‘to sleep’, but actually it has to be treated as consisting of two different verbs in the underlying structure because there are sentences of the following type (17b) which contain two ‘subjects’: (17b) enikkǝ me-dat child-nom sleep-want ‘I want the child to sleep’ That is, the controller in (17) is the nominative ‘child’ of the first verb, which is volitional, and not the dative of the second verb, which is non-volitional.

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Page 178 A2.2.3 Causativization I have already pointed out some of the aspects of Malayalam causativization which were missed by Mohanan (1982) and which make a direct correlation between case features and semantic roles more explanatory than an indirect one in this language. I wish to add one more aspect to this list, namely a disparity shown by clauses containing the verb aa ‘to become’. Mohanan (1982:576) has pointed out that these clauses, even though similar to transitive clauses in having two noun phrases, behave differently from the latter when causativized, as shown in the following pairs of sentences (Mohanan’s (213) and (215)): (18a) maram child-nom tree-nom cut ‘The child cut the tree’ (18b) amma maram mother-nom child-acc-with tree-nom cut-caused ‘The mother made the child cut the tree’ (19a) maram aayi child-nom tree-nom became ‘The child became the tree’ (19b) maram aakki magician-nom child-acc tree-nom become-caused ‘The magician turned the child into the tree’ When a transitive sentence is causativized, the first (nominative) noun phrase is generally changed into its instrumental postpositional form as in (18b), whereas when a sentence with the verb aa ‘to become’ is causativized, the corresponding noun phrase is changed into its accusative form as in (19b). That is, the latter sentence behaves like an intransitive sentence (as seen in (20b) given below) and not like a transitive one. Example (Mohanan’s (194)): (20a) dukkhiccu child-nom sorrowed ‘The child was sad’ (20b) amma dukkhippiccu mother-nom child-acc sorrow-caused ‘The mother made the child sad’ Notice that the nominative noun phrase ‘child’ of this intransitive sentence (20a) has changed into its accusative form in the corresponding causative construction (20b), and (19b) is similar to this sentence. Mohanan’s proposal to account for this disparity is to assume that one of the two noun phrases (generally the second one) is a complement in sentences containing the verb aa ‘to become’; this allows him to equate such sentences with intransitive ones.

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Page 179 However, there are certain problems, such as the following, which remain unresolved in such an analysis: 1 In the case of sentences containing the verb ‘become’, both the noun phrases are in the nominative (i.e. irrespective of the animacy of their referents), whereas in the case of transitive sentences, one of them would be in the accusative if it refers to an animate being. Examples (Mohanan’s (216) and (214)): (21a) pucca aayi child-nom cat-nom became ‘The child became a cat’ (21b) puccaye child-nom cat-acc cut ‘The child cut the cat’ That is, we already have an overt distinction between these two types of sentences and hence there is no need to postulate a covert (abstract) distinction (namely between direct objects and complements) in order to acount for the above-mentioned disparity. 2 As pointed out by Mohanan (1982:562), there are ambiguous cases of ‘become’ sentences in which either of the two noun phrases can be freely chosen as the ‘subject’. My suspicion is that the distinction involved here is not that of semantic roles but of pragmatic ones like topic and focus; hence, factors like word order and stress might be relevant in disambiguating them. If Malayalam is like Kannada in differentiating between semantic and pragmatic factors, the use of a single set of grammatical relations for describing these phenomena could only lead to unnecessary complexities. (Unfortunately, however, Mohanan has opted to disregard pragmatic factors, and to view word-order changes as involving a ‘scrambling’ rule in his study of Malayalam.) 3 When causativized, only noun phrases that have an animate referent change from nominative to accusative in these ‘become’ sentences also. As mentioned earlier, Mohanan can only provide an ad hoc statement of this constraint. Whereas a description based upon a direct correlation between form and meaning can provide an interesting explanation. Notice that the referent of the concerned noun phrase has some amount of control over the action of becoming; in (19a), for example, the child might have become a tree (as in a fairy tale) volitionally in order to hide from an enemy; whereas in the corresponding causativized construction, it loses that control or volitionality in favor of the causer (the magician)

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Page 180 and this semantic fact is being expressed in Malayalam through the change of the relevant noun phrase from nominative to accusative. A2.2.4 Passivization Another syntactic process that has been considered by Mohanan (1982:581) to be making crucial reference to subjects and objects is passivization. His interpretation of the universal rule of passivization, applicable to Malayalam also, is as follows: Wherever the name OBJ occurs, replace it with SUBJ. However, Malayalam appears to have an additional constraint upon its passivization rule, namely that the sentences which do not have a controlling (volitional) argument are not affected by this process. That is, two-place verbs with a non-volitional nominative or dative ‘subjects’ do not appear to undergo passivization. Examples: (22a) ñaan I-nom him-acc saw ‘I saw him’ (22b) *ennaal addeeham me-instr he-nom see-passive ‘He was seen by me’ (23a) enikkǝ oru me-dat one book-nom got ‘I got a book’ (23b) *ennaal oru me-instr one book-nom get-passive ‘?A book was got by me’ The verb in (22a) does not refer to an action but only to an event (non-volitional) over which the person concerned (ñaan ‘I’) has no control. Hence its passive form (22b) is unacceptable. Whereas in (23a), the verb takes a ‘dative subject’ whose referent also has no control over the event denoted by the verb, and therefore it also disallows passivization, as exemplified by the unacceptability of (23b). Mohanan (1982:583– 4) gives a sentence containing a modal (‘want’) verb in order to illustrate the interaction of dative subjects and passives, but, as I have pointed out earlier (see A2.2.2), these are to be analyzed as having two distinct underlying sentences of which one has a volitional nominative subject. In view of the above-mentioned constraint, the notion of ‘subject’ cannot help us to make an adequate description of Malayalam passivization. What we need is a semantic role, namely that of a controlling (volitional) argument.

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Page 181 A2.3. CONCLUSION It can be concluded I believe, on the basis of the two main points that I have put forth in the preceding sections, that a description of Malayalam grammar would be simpler and also more explanatory if we correlate case features directly with semantic roles, and make use of these latter elements for describing its syntactic processes instead of postulating an abstract set of grammatical relations or functions as intermediary entities. As I have argued in the preceding chapters, there would be a need to postulate such abstract entities only in the case of languages like English which do not show a direct correlation between case features and semantic features.

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Page 182 References Abraham, P.T. (1985), ‘Causative construction in Dravidian with special reference to Malayalam, in D.P.Pattanayak and Y.Kachru (eds), Relational Grammar, Central Institute of Indian Languages, Mysore, 112–32. Andrews, A. (1985), ‘The major functions of the noun phrase’, in T.Shopen (ed.), Language Typology and Syntactic Description, vol. I, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 62–154. Bach, E. (1980), ‘In defence of passive’, Linguistics and Philosophy, 3, 297–341. Bavin, E.L. (1980), ‘The grammatical notion ‘‘subject”’, dissertation, University of New York, Buffallo. Bennis, H. (1986), Gaps and Dummies, Foris, Dordrecht. Bhat, D.N.S. (1977), Pronominalization, Deccan College, Poona. ——(1978), Kannada vaːkyagalu (‘The syntax and semantics of Kannada’ in Kannada), Geetha Book House, Mysore. ——(1979), ‘Vectors in Kannada’, International Journal of Dravidian Linguistics, 8, 300–9. ——(1981) Identification, Dravidian Linguistics Association, Trivandrum. ——(1986) Introduction to Linguistics, Teachers’ Forum, Imphal. ——(1988) ‘Introduction to Indian Grammars’, part I: ‘Grammatical Relations in Indian Languages’, A fellowship report submitted to CIIL, Mysore, cyclostyled. ——(1989) ‘Introduction to Indian Grammars’, part II: ‘Wh-words’, a report submitted to University Grants Commission, Xeroxed. ——forthcoming, ‘Introduction to Indian Grammars’, part III: ‘Adjectives’. ——and M.S.Ningomba (1986), ‘A manual of Manipuri Grammar’, cyclostiled, Manipur University, Imphal. ——and M.S.Ningomba, forthcoming, A grammar of Manipuri language. Boring, E.G. (1963), The Physical Dimension of Consciousness, Dover, New York. Bresnan, J.W. (1982a), ‘Control and complementation’, in J.W.Bresnan (ed.), The Mental Representation of Grammatical Relations, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 282–390. ——(ed.) (1982b), The Mental Representation of Grammatical Relations, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA. Burzio, L. (1983), ‘Condition on representation and Romance syntax’, Linguistic Inquiry, 14, 193–221. Chomsky, N. (1970), ‘Remarks on nominalization’, in R.Jacobs and

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Page 183 P.Rosenbaum (eds), Readings in English Transformational grammar, Ginn, Waltham, MA, 184–221. ——(1979), Language and Responsibility, The Harvester Press, Brighton. ——(1981), Lectures on Government and Binding, Foris, Dordrecht. Comrie, B. (1973), ‘The ergative: variation on a theme’, Lingua, 32, 239–53. ——(1981), Language Universals and Linguistic Typology, University of Chicago Press. Chicago. ——(1985), ‘Causative verb formation and other verb-deriving morphology’, in T.Shopen (ed.), Language Typology and Syntactic Description, vol. III, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 309–48. DeLancy, S. (1985), ‘Agentivity and syntax’, Chicago Linguistic Society (Proceedings) , 21, part 2, 1–12. Dixon, R.M.W. (1979) ‘Ergativity’, Language, 55, 59–138. ——(1987), ‘Studies in ergativity’, Lingua, 71, 1–16. Dowty, D. (1982), ‘Grammatical relations and Montague grammar’, in P.Jacobson, and G.K.Pulllum, (eds), The Nature of Syntactic Representation, D.Reidel, Dordrecht, 79–130. Durie, M. (1987), ‘Grammatical relations in Acehnese’, Studies in Language, 11, 365–99. Eccles, J.C. (1970), Facing Reality, Springer, Heidelberg. Farmer, A.K. (1984), Modularity in Syntax: A Study of Japanese and English, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA. Fillmore, C.J. (1968), ‘The case for case’, in E.Bach and R.Harms, (eds), Universals in Linguistic Theory, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York, 1–88. Foley, W.A. and Van Valin, Jr, R.D. (1984), Functional Syntax and Universal Grammar, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Gazdar, G., Klein, E., Pullum, G., and Sag, I. (1985), Generalized Phrase Structure Grammar, Basil Blackwell, Oxford. George, K.M. (1971), Malayalam Grammar and Reader, National Book Stall, Kottayam. Giridhar, P.P. (1987), ‘A case grammar of Kannada’, dissertation, Mysore University. Givón, T. (1984), Syntax: A Functional-Typological Introduction, vol. I, John Benjamins, Amsterdam. Haiman, J. (1978), ‘Conditionals are topics’, Language, 54, 564–89. Hale, K. (1983), ‘Warlpiri and the grammar of non-configurational languages’, Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, 1, 1–43. Harris, A. (1981), Georgian Syntax: A Study in Relational Grammar. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. ——(1984), ‘Case marking, verb agreement, and inversion’, in D.M.Perlmutter and C.G.Rosen (eds), Studies in Relational Grammar, vol. 2, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 243–58. Hopper, P. and Thompson, S.A. (1980), ‘Transitivity in grammar and discourse’, Language, 56, 251–70. Jackendoff, R.S. (1977), Syntax: A Study of Phrase Structure, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA. Keenan, E. (1976), ‘Towards a universal definition of “subject”’, in C.Li, (ed.), Subject and Topic, Academic Press, New York. ——(1987), Universal Grammar, Croom Helm, London.

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Page 184 Klaiman, M.H. (1987), ‘Ergativity in South Asia’, Lingua, 71, 61–102. Klimov, G.A. (1972), ‘On the character of the languages of active typology’, Lingua, 31, 11–27. ——(1979), ‘On the position of the ergative type in typological classifications’, in F.Plank, (ed.), Ergativity, Academic Press, London, 327–32. Kuroda, S.-Y., (1972), ‘The categorical and thetic judgement: evidence from Japanese syntax’, Foundations of Language, 9, 153–85. McAlpin, D.W. (1976), ‘Dative subjects in Malayalam’, in M.K.Verma (ed.), The Notion of Subject in South Asian Languages, University of Wisconsin, Madison, 183–94. Martin, J.R. (1983), ‘Participant identification in English, Tagalog and Kate’, Australian Journal of Linguistics, 3, 45–74. Miller, G.A. (1956). ‘The magical number seven plus or minus two’, Psychological Review’, 63. Miyagawa, S. (1989), Structure and Case Marking in Japanese: Syntax and Semantics, vol. 22, Academic Press, San Diego, CA. Mohanan, K.P. (1982), ‘Grammatical relations and clause structure in Malayalam’, in J.W.Bresnan, (ed.), The Mental Representation of Grammatical Relations, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 504–89. Nadkarni, M.V. (1981), ‘Word order in Kannada’, in M.S.Sunkapur, and J.S. Kulli (eds), Papers in Linguistics, Sharat prakashan, Mysore, 100–16. Pandharipande, R. and Kachru, Y. (1977), ‘Relational grammar, ergativity and Hindi-Urdu’, Lingua, 41, 217– 38. Partee, B.H. (1965), ‘Subject and object in modern English’, Ph.D. thesis, MIT (xerox edition produced by Garland, New York, 1979). Perlmutter, D.M. (1978), ‘Impersonal passives and the unaccusative hypothesis’, Berkeley Linguistic Studies, 4, 157–89. ——(ed.) (1983), Studies in Relational Grammar, Chicago University Press, Chicago. ——(1984), ‘Working 1s and inversion in Italian, Japanese and Quechua’, in D.M.Perlmutter and C.G.Rosen (eds), Studies in Relational Grammar, vol. 2, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 292–330. ——and Postal, P. (1984), ‘Impersonal passives and some relational laws’, in D.M.Perlmutter and C.G.Rosen (eds), Studies in Relational Grammar, vol. 2, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 126–70. ——and Rosen, C.G. (eds) (1984), Studies in Relational Grammar, vol. 2, University of Chicago Press, Chicago. Plankett, G. and McKeever, M. (1986), ‘A relational grammar approach to verb agreement in Lakota’, Work Papers, 30, University of North Dakota. Quirk, R., Greenbaum, S., Leech, G., and Swartvik, J. (1972), A Grammar of Contemporary English, Longman, London. Roeper, T. and Siegel, M.E.A. (1978), ‘A lexical transformation for verbal compounds’, Linguistic Inquiry, 9, 199–260. Rosen, C.G. (1984), ‘The interface between semantic roles and initial grammatical relations’, in D.M.Perlmutter and C.G.Rosen (eds), Studies in Relational Grammar, vol. 2, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 38–77. Sasse, H.J. (1987), ‘The thetic-categorical distinction revisited’, Linguistics, 25, 511–80. Sharma, N. (1965), Meiteilon, Imphal. Shastri, Kalachand, (1962), Manipuri byakaran kaumudi, A.K.Store, Imphal.

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Page 185 Siewierska, A. (1984), The Passive: A Comparative Linguistic Analysis, Croom Helm, London. ——(1988), Word Order Rules, Croom Helm, London. Sridhar, S.N. (1976), ‘Dative subjects, rule government and relational grammar’, Studies in Linguistic Sciences, 6, 130–51. ——(1979), ‘Dative subjects and the notion of subject’, Lingua, 49, 99–125. Stowell, T. (1981), ‘Origins of noun phrase structure’, dissertation, MIT. Thompson, L.C. (1985), ‘Control in Salish grammar’, in F.Plank (ed.), Relational Typology, Mouton, Berlin, 391–428. Thoudam, P.C. (1984), ‘A Grammatical Sketch of Meiteiron’, dissertation, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Tirumalesh, K.V (1979) (=Bhat, K.V.T.), ‘Reordering rules in Kannada and English’, dissertation, Central Institute of English and Foreign Languages, Hyderabad. Tomba Singh, S. (1982). A Comparative Study of Grammatical Categories in Hindi and Manipuri (in Hindi), Ph.D. thesis, Agra University, Agra. Van Riemsdijk, H.C. and Williams, E. (1986), Introduction to the Theory of Grammar, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA. Van Valin, R.D., Jr (MS), ‘Semantic parameters of split intransitivity’. Verma, M.K. (ed.) (1976), The Notion of Subject in South Asian Languages, University of Wisconsin, Madison. Williams, E. (1984), ‘Grammatical relations’, Linguistic Inquiry, 15, 639–73.

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Page 186 Index Abraham, P.T. 170, 174 accusative 12, 33–51, 76, 105–6, 118–19, 121–3, 170–1, 173–4, 179 action, accidental 50; completed 51; see also verbs, action active language 107–9 actor 34–9, 44–51, 53, 65–83, 99, 104–5, 119 adjectives 156–7 afterthought 52, 59–61, 63, 88 agent 11–13, 30; related properties 28 agreement, verbal 79–80; neutralized 68, 79 anaphoric pronoun 72–3, 91, 146–7, 161–3; antecedent 73, 161, 175–6 Andrews, A. 11, 19, 26, 99, 158 animate v. inanimate 35, 79, 121, 128, 131–2, 134, 171–2 answer 85–6, 152–3 antecedent, anaphoric v. pragmatic 91; see anaphoric pronoun argument, internal v. external 110–15, 143–53; as a pragmatic notion 110–12 Aristotelian logic 112 aspectual connotations 78 Bach, E. 143 Bavin, E.L. 112 benefactive 136, 138 beneficiary 118, 138; addition of 67–8 Bennis, H. 115 Bhat, D.N.S. 21, 32, 39, 50, 55, 61, 71, 72, 77, 86, 88, 91, 98, 103, 116, 128, 141, 157, 161 Boring, E.G. 155 Brentano, E. 112 Bresnan, J.W. 1, 93, 94, 158 Burmese 116 Burzio, L. 105 case-form 33, 43–51 case-marking, accusative v. ergative system 25–9, 100, 107; fluid system 108, 126; hierarchy 163; redundancy 117, 126; shifts 14–15, 39–43, 48; split system 25–8, 107, 108; unmarked 125 causative 46–8, 64–7, 94, 103, 122, 132, 135–6, 168–9, 172–3, 178–9; direct v. indirect 135, 168–9; reflexive 72 cause 13, 48, 74; addition 66–7; external 71 causer 46–8, 53, 64–6; addition 64, 119 c-command 146 Chomsky, N. 1, 21, 22, 23, 111, 114, 155, 156, 159 Chuckchee 102 comparison 127 complement 14; co-referential 76; factive v. non-factive 139–41; nominalized 77; purposive 76–7 compounds 136–7 Comrie, B. 17, 26, 102, 103, 135, 148, 158 configurational languages 19–25, 97 configurationality 19–25, 52, 111–12 conjoining, contrastive 86–7; participial 73–6, 92–3, 163–5; obligatory co-reference 75–6, 164; of sentences 148,

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v. embedding 74

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Page 187 constraints on processes, pragmatic 83–93; semantic 64–83 contrastive reference 126–30 control, of action or event 18, 46–51, 69, 70, 78, 100, 123, 164, 171, 177; in a clause 148, 176–7; from a distance 65; see co-reference; volitional core arguments 33–9, 99–104, 133–4; addition 64–8; co-reference 70–3; reordering 87–8; suppression 68–9 core concepts (A, O or P and S) 26–8, 99–109, 142; Sa and So105, 108–9 co-reference, deletion 17, 27–8, 144– 5, 163–5; pronominal 88–9, 146; see also antecedent dative 33–51, 66–7, 71, 82, 105–6, 160–9 definite 24, 61–2, 87–8, 111, 113 deictic motion 141–2 DeLancy, S. 31, 107 deletion, equi-NP 165–7; passive 17–18; see also co-reference derivation, nominals 145–6 direct object see object Dixon, R.M.W. 26, 27, 28, 99, 100, 101, 105, 107, 108, 109, 121, 133 dominance 19, 98 Dowty, D. 100, 101 durative constructions 80 Durie, M. 107 Dutch 30, 115 Dyirbal 27, 28 Eastern Pomo 30 Eccles, J.C. 155 English 11–30, 44–5, 61, 97–8, 110, 126, 128, 143–5, 150, 155, 158–9; Old v. Modern 115 entailment 24, 55, 88 equational sentence 37, 38, 56 experiencer 34–6, 39–43, 46–51, 53, 55, 65, 99, 104–7, 119 Farmer, A.K. 20 Fillmore, C.J. 13, 111 First Sister Principle 136 focus 52–3, 55–9, 60, 83, 85–6; construction 57–8, 60 Foley, W.A. 1, 9, 16, 44, 158 Frege, G. 112 French 22 Gaurani 109 Gazdar, G. 1, 21, 158 Generalized Phrase Structure Grammar 158 generic 127, 146 George, K.M. 171 Georgian 106 Giridhar, P.P. 50, 162 Givón, T. 10 Government and Binding Theory 21, 105, 110, 157, 159 grammar, explicit v. implicit 98, 155 grammaticalization 16, 21, 22, 23, 25, 28, 110, 114; degrees 16, 28 habitual 127 Haiman, J. 111 Hale, K. 20, 21 Harris, A. 29, 106 Havyaka 32 Hindi 26–7

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holistic-partitive 42–3 Hopper, P. 4, 101, 102, 103, 143 idealization 21 imperative 81, 139 indefinite 24–5, 52–3, 61–2, 85, 87–8 indirect object 24, 30, 106 individuality 101–2 infinitive 45–6, 144–5 instrument 13, 120; addition 67–8; as controller 120 instrumental 46, 72, 171–2; suffixal v. postpositional 172 intonation 113 Italian 22, 30, 105, 106 inversion 106, 160 Jackendoff, R.S. 114, 154, 156, 157 Japanese 20, 105, 112, 137 judgements, categorical v. thetic 112–13 Kachru, Y. 26 Kannada, poetic use 13, 67–8; traditional grammars 33; written form 12

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Page 188 Keenan, E. 28 kinesis 101 Klaiman, M.H. 26 Klimov, G.A. 107 Kuroda, S.-Y. 112, 113 language acquisition 20, 97–8 language universal 97–115 Lexical Functional Grammar 158 lexical structure 20 locality constraint 150 location 13, 36–7, 39, 66, 123–5 locative 33, 119, 123–5 logical notion 110, 112–13 McAlpin, D.W. 106 McKeever, M. 30 macrorole 44 Malayalam 20, 94, 106, 155, 170–81 Martin, J.R. 61 Marty, A. 112 microrole 44 Miller, G.A. 155 Miyagawa, S. 105, 137 modal constructions 81–3 Mohanan, K.P. 20, 21, 94, 106, 155, 170–81 Montague, R. 100 movement rules 23–5 Nadkarni, M.V. 12 negation 113, 122; two types 152–3; verbal 38 Ningomba, M.S. 116, 128, 141 nominative 12, 33–51, 71, 76, 82, 105–6, 118–21, 126–30, 171–2 non-configurational language 19, 62, 97 NP-raising 14 object 14, 29, 94, 105, 137, 175, 180; affectedness 101; direct 170, 174; instrumental 173 Pandharipande, R. 26 Partee, B.H. 13 particles 59, 89–91 passivization 11, 12, 14, 103, 151–2, 172–3, 180 passive, deletion 17–18; impersonal 12, 13, 17, 18, 24, 45, 48, 68–9, 103–4; personal 12, 45, 48–9 patient 11, 12, 122; related properties 28; separating from the verb 150–1 Perlmutter, D.M. 1, 2, 29, 30, 105, 106, 108, 158, 160 personification 67, 68 pivot 16, 32 Planket, G. 30 position, post-sentential 60, 88; post-verbal 63; pre-verbal 11, 16, 63, 85–6, 117, 130–1; sentence-final 57, 60, 63; sentence-initial 12, 14, 17, 54, 63, 88, 167–8 possessor 122; of argument 72, 73 Postal, P. 29, 30 postposition 33, 49, 71 precedence 19, 147 predicate, abstract 49; nominal 36; non-verbal 36–7, 56; type of 34–9 preposition 44

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PRO 114 Pro-Drop 22–3 prohibitive 139 Projection Principle 111 purposive 137 Quirk, R. 44 reciprocal 148 reflexive 70–2, 103, 147; extended use 70; pronoun 161, 175–6 Relational Grammar 29, 105, 106, 158 relations, grammatical 15, 29–31, 97–115, 154–9, 170–81; pragmatic 11–15, 32, 52–63, 73, 83–93, 110–12, 126–30; semantic 11–15, 33–51, 54–83, 92, 110, 118–25; subject-predicate 110, 112–13; see also semantic relations relativization 84–5; pronominal 85 Roeper, T. 136 Rosen, C.G. 30, 31, 108, 158 salience 55, 56, 60, 85, 87; degrees of 53 Sanskrit 33, 116, 151 Sasse 112, 113

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Page 189 scrambling 62; rule 21, 23–5 semantic relations, gradation 53; hierarchy 73; predictable contexts 126–9; see also relations, semantic sentences, endocentric v. exocentric 114–15 Sgall, P. 111 Sharma, N. 116 Shastri, K. 116 Siegel, M.E.A. 136 Siewierska, A. 21, 22, 101 specificity 127–8 Sridhar, S.N. 5, 106, 107, 160–9 s-structure 21, 97, 110 Stowell, T. 111, 114, 115 stress 58, 61 subject 20–2, 24–5, 29–30, 94, 97, 101, 105–9, 111–15, 136–7, 142, 144, 148–9, 158, 160–9, 170, 175–7, 179–80; dummy 115, 150; initial 29, 105–6; minimal operations 108–9 subjectization 12, 13 syntactic strata 29–30 tense distinction 128 tenseless construction 144 Thampuran, R.R. 170 Thaudam, P.C. 116 thematic roles see relations, semantic theme 16, 36; inseparable 15, 150–1 theta theory 110–11 Thompson, L.C. 107 Thompson, S.A. 4, 101, 102, 103, 143 Tibetan 116 Tirumalesh, K.V. 23, 24, 25, 59, 60, 90 Tomba Singh, S. 116 tone 116 topic 11–14, 52–5, 62–3, 84, 87–8, 93, 111, 167 transference 98, 102–3, 133 transitivity 26, 28, 34, 69, 98–109, 133–43; co-varying features 101–2; degree of 101; see also verbs, transitive tree-structure 19–20 undergoer 34–9, 47, 49, 53, 55, 62, 65, 99, 104–5 Universal Alignment Hypothesis 30 unreal possibility 50, 82–3 Van Riemsdijk, H.C. 21, 144 Van Valin, R.D. 9, 16, 30, 44, 158 verb phrase 97 verbs, action 119–21, 126, 131, 135–6, 138; deontic 140; epistemic 139; ergative 105, 137; helper 34, 37, 109; hitting 39; imperfective v. perfective 26–7; ingestive 174; intransitive 18, 29, 34, 69, 99–109, 134; maximum projection 114–15; middle 101; Primary Transitive (PTV) 99; process 119, 121, 124, 135; psychological 101; semi-transitive 101; state 119, 127, 135; transaction 142; transitive see transitivity;

unaccusative v. unergative 29–31, 105–6; vector 50, 77–8; see also case-marking volitional, volitionality 34, 49, 53, 66, 80–2, 101–4, 107–9, 119–21, 133–40, 165, 167, 177, 180; see also control, of action or event; action Vries, L.de 22 Warlpiri 20, 21 wh-word 85–6, 130–1 Williams, E. 4, 21, 97, 98, 110, 112, 113, 144, 149 word-order 113, 117, 130–3, 167–8; change 54–63; free 20–5, 62–3, 131 X-bar theory 114–15, 155–8

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