Docs / Syntax / Clause / Alignment

Alignment

import Linglib.Syntax.Clause.Alignment · namespace Alignment

Source

A marking of the argument roles, by case, agreement or constituent order, is a function out of ArgumentRole, and its alignment is which of the three core roles S, A and P it identifies, the kernel of the marking on the core roles, as Comrie and Dixon define it. A three-element set has five partitions, so a marking has one of five alignments: neutral, accusative, with S marked like A, ergative, with S marked like P, horizontal, with A marked like P, and tripartite. Ditransitive alignment reads P, T and R the same way. A marking may also depend on a condition besides the role, and hierarchy effects are its fit to an order on the conditions.

Implementation notes

The predicates classify a marking; Alignment.AlignmentType is Comrie's observational classification of languages in WALS chapters 98 to 100, which AlignmentType.Classifies links to them. The two differ on purpose: no WALS chapter has a horizontal type, and AlignmentType.active, the split-S systems, identifies no fixed pair of roles and so is not the alignment of a single marking.

References

Declarations

L50–51

Ditransitive alignment

Ditransitive alignment compares how a marking codes P, T and R, and Haspelmath draws its triangle like the monotransitive one, with P in the place of S, T in that of A and R in that of P. The ditransitive alignment of a marking is the alignment of the marking read through that correspondence, so indirective alignment, T with P and R apart, is the counterpart of accusative alignment, and secundative alignment, R with P and T apart, the counterpart of ergative alignment.

The observational classification

L123–136
L138–146

Conditioned marking

A marking may depend on a condition besides the role, such as the referential properties of the argument or of its co-argument, or the tense of the clause. A conditioned marking m : ArgumentRole → C → Option κ codes role r under condition c by the marker m r c, or by none, and its alignment under c is that of (m · c). Bickel, Witzlack-Makarevich and Zakharko represent a case as a relation between roles and conditions, and test hierarchy effects as the fit of a marking to an order on the conditions: A overtly coded on a lower set of them, P on an upper set. The papers that posit a scale assert fit; the papers that test it count it.