Volume 22, Issue 1 -

A phenomenon often termed “optional ergative marking” is found in a number of genetically unrelated languages. Yali, a Trans-New Guinea language spoken in West Papua, shows striking similarities to optional ergative systems as described in the literature. This paper focuses on the relation between agentivity and discourse prominence, and argues in favour of a systematic distinction between semantic and syntactic contexts as conditioning factors for optional ergative marking. It further provides new evidence for the close interplay of ergative marking and what has been termed “discourse prominence” in descriptions of some other languages and shows that in Yali, optional ergative marking operates on both the global and the local level of discourse.

We survey the predicative functions of reduplication and analyze the relationships between them in terms of semantic affinity and iconicity. Forty-five functions are identified in 108 languages. The most frequent ones have to do with repetition/continuity of events, multiplicity of participants, and intensity. Reduplication can be polysemous. Based on high cross-linguistic frequency of expression by a common reduplicative form and cases of ambiguity, we identify semantic affinities among twelve functions, together comprising a semantic map. We also analyze the functions in terms of five iconicities—iconic relationships between specific aspects of form and meaning. An interesting relationship emerges: for any pair of semantically closely related functions, the iconicities of one are always a superset of the iconicities of the other. On the widely-held assumption that initial uses are high in iconicity, the picture is one of monotonic loss of iconicity as use is extended. As well as showing empirically how the functions relate to each other, we also review three earlier proposals which were largely based on reasoning.

This paper describes a specific non-standard negation strategy in Iquito, a moribund Zaparoan language spoken in northern Peruvian Amazonia. This strategy is used in finite subordinate clauses (namely adverbial dependent clauses and relative clauses), as well as information questions, and it utilizes two negative markers: a negative particle which is also found in standard negation, and a verbal affix which does not function as a negator in any other context. Using existing typological characterizations of subordinate clause negation, we see that Iquito exhibits the following attested traits: it uses the standard negator in a different position, it also utilizes a distinct negator, and it employs more negators in the subordinate clause than in the main clause. But unlike the languages presented in the literature, Iquito utilizes these parameters simultaneously. Additionally, the position of the standard negator changes within the subordinate clause, depending on the reality status of the clause. Using Iquito as a case study, I propose a set of parameters for comparing subordinate clause and interrogative negation strategies to standard negation strategies, which include the type of negator used, its position, the overall number of negators, the potential for interaction with other grammatical categories, such as reality status, and the resulting word order of the clause. This set of parameters expands the initial typological characterizations of subordinate clause negation strategies.