Volume 19, Issue 1 -

Basic Valence Orientation has been suggested as a typological parameter by Nichols, Peterson, & Barnes (2004). Generalising over the entire lexicon, the idea is that languages can be distinguished as transitivising or detransitivising, depending on whether their verbs are basically intransitive or transitive and the opposite valency values require some means of derivation, such as causativisation or decausativisation. Whereas derivedness among valency opposites is assessed through easy-to-spot overt segmental morphological or syntactic markers by Nichols et al. (2004), we argue that phonological alternations, on their own or attendant upon conjugation class switches between intransitives and transitives, can be as directed as derivations are which are implemented through adding segmental markers. Illustrating from German, we show that stem vowel patterns in strong and corresponding weak verbs (with the former expressing inflectional categories through ablaut) as well as umlaut alternations in verb derivation are systematically involved in valency oppositions and are both directed. Thus, German emerges as being typologically mixed, being strongly transitivising on the grounds of such asymmetric formal patterns, while also showing (as observed by Nichols et al. 2004) a detransitivising or indeterminate disposition through syntactic “middle” marking or verb lability. This typological result is also of diachronic significance, insofar as the older transitivising inclination is seen to have been remarkably pertinacious, long surviving the loss of the affixal valency-increasing morphology of Common Germanic and able to hold its own against more recent detransitivising competition.

Allocutivity is a term coined to describe a phenomenon in Basque whereby, in certain pragmatic (and syntactic) circumstances, an addressee who is not an argument of the verb is systematically encoded in all declarative main clause conjugated verb forms. Although the term has been exclusively applied to Basque, similar phenomena are found in other languages as well. Indeed, despite certain differences in the degree of grammaticalization and usage, allocutive verb forms are attested in at least Pumé (isolate; Venezuela), Nambikwara (isolate; Brazil), Mandan (Siouan; North America), and Beja (Cushitic; Northeast Africa). The aim of this article is to propose a typology of verbal allocutivity in a crosslinguistic perspective, taking into consideration the locus of encoding, the manner in which it is encoded, the information concerning the addressee which is encoded, and the syntactic environments in which it can appear.

Critically reviewing the recent analysis of the distinction between the so-called “absolute” and “annexed” “states” in Kabyle (Berber) by Mettouchi & Frajzyngier (2013) (M&F), it is shown that it does not fare better than the existing treatments in its account of the empirical facts, mainly due to the assumption of monosemy. It is further argued that M&F’s rejection of “case” as a valid notion for the description of the Kabyle data rests on simplistic and ill-informed views on the nature of case, and that adoption of a case analysis allows one to compare the Berber data to a wide range of languages with similar peculiarities in the distribution of dependent marking. Finally, M&F’s claim that their analysis of Kabyle has pointed out a “previously unrecognized typological category” is refuted, showing that it stems from an unwarranted mixing of language-particular descriptive categories and crosslinguistic comparative concepts.

Are grammatical relations universals or only convenient comparative notions? In this article, it is claimed that, behind current grammatical notions, there might exist universal finer-grained relationships. Two likely universal invariants are presented as hypotheses: (i) The Major Biactant Construction, defined as the construction expressing prototypical action in any language, is also universally used as a model pattern for the expression of other kinds of events. (ii) The traditional notion of subject (in accusative languages) is a conflation of two different functions, predication subject and reference subject, which are separated both in ergative languages and in affective/experiential constructions. These hypotheses have to be systematically tested by extensive investigation. After verification, being located at the core of the syntax of any language, they will entail consequences of the utmost importance for typology.