Argument Marking in Ditransitive Alignment Types

Abstract

This paper discusses the patterns of case-marking/adpositional marking and indexing of ditransitive clauses in the world's languages, i.e. clauses with an Agent, a Recipient and a Theme argument. It distinguishes three major alignment types, indirective, secundative, and neutral, corresponding to accusative, ergative and neutral in monotransitive constructions. The alignment and coding patterns are recorded for a sample of 100 languages from around the world. Ditransitive alignment is compared with monotransitive alignment, alignment of case-marking/adpositional marking is compared to alignment of indexing, and the various coding types are distinguished, depending on the occurrence of zero-coding and overt coding. Seven cross-linguistic generalizations emerging from the data are proposed as valid tendencies, and possible functional explanations for these tendencies are discussed.

Keywords

• morphology
• ergative
• ergativity
• ditransitive
• transitive
• typology
• case
• alignment