This chapter has presented arguments for both the accusative and the ergative hypotheses of the Mäori case system. We have seen that both analyses have evidence in their favour, but neither is conclusive. Evidence from control and raising in Mäori supports the accusative analysis. Only S and A can be controlled and deleted from a control clause, and only nominative arguments can be raised to S of a negative verb.
However, raising with negative verbs also supports the ergative hypothesis – only absolutive arguments can be raised. Topicalisation, relative clause formation and pronominalisation and definiteness seem to support the ergative hypothesis. In these constructions, S and O are treated similarly, and differently from A.
If Mäori is accusative, it has an odd use of the passive, which is difficult to account for. If it is ergative, it is not fully so, because control with ki te, applies to pattern I A and S in an accusative alignment. The possibility that Mäori has both accusative and ergative structures, and is, in fact, a split-ergative language must be considered. The following chapter examines the split-ergative hypothesis.
3
The Split-Ergativity Hypothesis
3.1 Introduction
In the previous chapter, we saw that Mäori cannot be described as either wholly ergative or wholly accusative. It appears that Mäori has some accusative features and some ergative features. This chapter argues that Mäori is, in fact, a split-ergative language; that is, it has both accusative and ergative clauses. Whether a clause is ergative or accusative can be predicted by the degree of transitivity of that clause.
Under the Transitivity Hypothesis (1980), Hopper and Thompson claim that the most transitive clauses are marked ergatively in an ergative language, while those that are less transitive appear with accusative marking. This chapter investigates the factors that trigger ergative marking in Mäori. We will see that ASPECT, AFFECTEDNESS OF O,
DYNAMISM, INDIVIDUATION OF O and PARTICIPANTS are significant features of transitivity in Mäori.
The presence of syntactic accusativity in highly transitive clauses (where we expect Mäori to be ergatively aligned) follows from Manning’s Inverse Grammatical Relations Hypothesis (1996). Manning claims that agent-oriented processes, such as control and imperative addressee, operate with an accusative syntax all the time, in all languages, including Mäori. It is only in surface structure relations, such as topicalisation, relative clauses and questions that an ergative, S/O pivot is present.
Manning’s Inverse Grammatical Relations hypothesis (1996) builds on previous accounts of ergativity (e.g. Dixon 1979, 1994, Anderson 1976), and claims that there are two levels of structure in any language. Different syntactic processes are sensitive to either level of structure in a systematic way. It will be shown that Hopper and Thompson’s Transitivity Hypothesis, together with Manning’s Inverse Grammatical Relations Hypothesis, accounts for much of the alignment of Mäori.
As a split ergative language, Mäori has both accusative and ergative clauses.
In the previous chapter, the traditional active clauses were labelled pattern I. These clauses, as in (97), will also be called accusative clauses in this chapter. Pattern II
clauses, as in (98), which are passive under the accusative analysis, will also be referred to as ergative clauses.
(97) e here ana a Huia i ngä kurï
TAM tie TAM PERS Huia ACC the.PL dog
‘Huia was tying up the dogs’ (Bauer 1997: 477) (98) I herea e Huia ngä kurï
TAM tie.Cia AGT Huia the.PL dog
‘Huia tied up the dogs’
Case markings for the split-ergative analysis are summarised below, in table 3.1.
Ergative (pattern II) Accusative (pattern I) Case Particle Case Particle A ergative e nominative ∅/a S absolutive ∅/a nominative ∅/a O absolutive ∅/a accusative i/ki Table 3.1 Table of split-ergative marking in Mäori
In accusative clauses, A and S behave similarly and are marked with nominative case, or ∅ case-marking (a with people’s names). O in an accusative clause is marked for accusative case, with i or ki. In ergative clauses, S and O behave similarly and are marked with absolutive case, which is, like nominative case in the accusative clauses,
∅ or a-marked (for people’s names). A of an ergative clause is marked with e for ergative case.
We can see from the table that S is sometimes in absolutive case, and sometimes in nominative case, although it is always ∅ case-marked. As will become clearer in section 3.3.2, intransitive clauses also pattern ergatively or accusatively based on their transitivity. Although S always carries the same marking, O patterns like S in clauses with high transitivity features, such as those marked with the perfective marker i. Conversely, in clauses with low transitivity features, like progressive marked clauses, A and S pattern similarly.
The verbal suffix, -Cia, traditionally considered a passive suffix, must be otherwise accounted for under the hypothesis that Mäori is a split-ergative language.
-Cia only occurs in ergative clauses, and so must be treated as a kind of ergativity marker, although historically it was probably a marker of transitivity. Chapter 4
examines Mäori syntax, including the –Cia suffix, from a diachronic perspective and suggests how the split-ergative system in Mäori developed from ergative Proto-Polynesian.
Mäori thus has three clause types: intransitive, ergative and accusative. A necessary consequence of adopting the split-ergative hypothesis is that Mäori has no passive or antipassive construction. I suggest that this is not as problematic as it might seem. In chapter 1, we looked at universals of passives, and saw that cross-linguistically, passives are used to promote a non-subject constituent, and to reframe an event as stative or resultative. An antipassive construction is not the exact corollary of passives in ergative languages.1 Antipassives focus on the underlying A of a clause, and O appears only in a peripheral, oblique phrase (Dixon 1994:146). Dixon adds that both passives and antipassives are often used to put a particular NP into pivot function for the purposes of clause combining (Dixon 1994: 152).
In chapter 1, we saw that pattern II in Mäori does not correspond to any typical passive. So, the first point is that under the accusative analysis, Mäori has a passive only in name, and this is a disadvantage of the accusative analysis.
Furthermore, in Mäori, other constructions fulfil the functions of passives and antipassives in other languages. To focus an S or O NP, topicalisation with ko or he mea is used (see section 3.3.2.1), and the actor-emphatic is used to focus on an A (although note that the O NP is not really defocused in an actor-emphatic clause).
Events can be reframed as a state or a resultative in Mäori with neuter or state intransitive verbs (cf. chapter 1). Finally, it does not seem necessary to put a particular NP into pivot function for clause combining. It has been noted that, in Mäori, any constituent can be omitted if it is understood from context (Bauer 1997: 561).
Therefore, an NP does not need to be in S position for co-referential deletion to occur.
Lastly, it should be added that neither Tongan (Churchward 1953: 72-75, Dukes 1998), nor Samoan (Mosel & Hovdhaugen 1992: 772-773) has a passive or an antipassive construction, which suggests that neither existed in Proto-Polynesian (cf.
chapter 4 for evidence that Proto-Polynesian was ergative, like Tongan and Samoan).
Firstly, we will look for evidence of morphological ergativity, that is, when S and O are marked similarly. The existence of morphological ergativity does not imply
1 Indeed, it is possible for an ergative language to have both passive and antipassive constructions (e.g., Mam, a Mayan language, see England 1988).
syntactic ergativity, where S and O are treated similarly in a particular syntactic construction, but I in the remainder of this chapter, I will show that Mäori has both morphological and syntactic split-ergativity.