Syntactic reconstruction from linguistic fossils
Katalin É. Kiss ([email protected])
Research Institute for Linguistics of the Hungarian Academy and Pázmány P. University
1. Goal
It is debated whether the reconstruction of the syntax of undocumented stages of languages is
possible at all (Lightfoot 2002, Ferraresi & Goldberg 2008). The talk argues that linguistic
fossils are potential sources of syntactic reconstruction. A fossilized linguistic fragment
provides plausible information on a proto-construction if it can be fit together with other
fragments of the construction preserved in the given language and/or in the sister languages.
This is illustrated by a case study claiming that the lack of accusative marking on 1st and 2nd
person singular objects in Hungarian is a relic of a Person–Case Constraint affecting topical
objects in the SOV sentences of Proto-Hungarian and Proto-Ugric.
2. The Hungarian fossil
In Hungarian, where object-marking by a -t suffix is obligatory, the 1st and 2nd person
singular pronouns bear no -t. Compare:
(1) én
eng-em
mi
mi-nk-et
I
I-POSS1SG
we
we-POSS1PL-ACC
te
you
tég-ed
you-POSS2SG
ti
ti-tek-et
you.PL you.PL-POSS2PL-ACC
ő
ő-t
ő-k
ő-k-et
he
he-ACC
he-PL he-PL-ACC
The 1st and 2nd person singular and plural accusative pronouns bear possessive agreement
(which functions as a means of definiteness marking in many present-day Uralic languages),
but in the singular, the -t accusative ending is missing. The accusative ending is also
optionally absent if the object has a 1st or 2nd person singular pronominal possessor:
(2) Összetörték az autó-m(at)
/autó-d(at).
broke-3PL
the car-POSS1SG(ACC)/car-POSS2SG(ACC)
’They broke my car/your car.’
The lack of -t on 1SG and 2SG object pronouns could be an accidental gap – if it were not for
the fact that we find similar facts in Mansi, a Ugric sister languages of Hungarian.
3. The Eastern Mansi Parallel
Eastern Mansi displays differential object marking (DOM). As clarified by Skribnik (2001),
in the SOV Mansi sentence the subject is topic, and the object is either focus (3) or secondary
topic (4). The object is case-marked iff it is a contextually given secondary topic:
(3) Såjrøng påly-låpsyøx sågrøp-øs
(4) õõw-mø öät kont-iiløm
white wood-chip
split-PAST.3SG
door-ACC NEG find-PRES.OBJ.1SG
‘He split a white chip of wood.’
‘I can’t find the door.’ (Virtanen 2013)
Interestingly, 1st and 2nd person objects (5), and objects anchored to a 1st or 2nd person
possessor are always caseless:
(5) öän-øm
jål-ääl-ääl-øn.
(6) am jāŋk sāχim
jūv tuleln!
I-POSS.1SG down-kill-IMP-OBJ.2SG
I white fur-POSS.1SG in bring.OBJ.2SG
‘Kill me!’
(Virtanen 2013)
‘Bring in my white fur!’ (Riese 2001)
The fact that 1st and 2nd person objects and objects with a 1st or 2nd person possessor cannot
be case-marked is the manifestation of a ‘strong’ Person–Case Constraint (PCC). In Eastern
Mansi, DOM is also accompanied by differential O–V agreement, which, however, is no
affected by the PCC.
4. Khanty and Northern Mansi Parallels
In Khanty, the other Ugric sister language of Hungarian (as well as in Northern Mansi),
differential O–V agreement alone fulfils the role of differentiating between topical and
focussed objects (Nikolaeva 2001, Skribnik 2001). In the SOV Khanty sentence, too, the
object is either focus (7), or secondary topic (8), and it elicits agreement on the verb only in
the latter case. I.e., we attest O–V agreement iff the object is given, or its possessor is given:
(7) (What happened?)
(8) (What happened to the boat?)
ku rit tus-Ø
ku rit tus-t
man boat take-PAST. 3SG
man boat take-PAST.OBJ.3SG
‘The man took a boat.’
‘The man took the boat.’ (Gulya 1970)
5. A constraint preserved in Samoyedic
In several languages where topical objects are marked by O–V agreement, 1st/2nd person
objects and objects with a 1st/2nd person possessor do not elicit verbal agreement in the
presence of a 3rd person subject. This phenomenon, called the Inverse Agreement Constraint
(Comrie 1980), corresponding to the PCC restricting DOM in Eastern Mansi, has been lost in
Khanty, but has been preserved in the Samoyedic branch of the Uralic family:
(8) Wanya syita
ladə◦da
(9) Wanya syiqm◦/syit◦
ladə◦
John
he-ACC hit.OBJ.3SG John
John
I. ACC/you. ACC hit.3SG
’John hit him.’
’John hit me/you.’(Dalrymple&Nikolaeva 2011)
The Inverse Agreement Constraint ensures that in the topic domain, the secondary topic
should not be more prominent in the animacy/topicality hierarchy than the primary topic (É.
Kiss 2013). (The animacy hierarchy is the person hierarchy '1 > 2 > animate 3 > inanimate 3',
some grades of which may be collapsed, or further divided into singular and plural.)
6. The fossilized Inverse Agreement Constraint in Hungarian
In Hungarian, the SOV sentence structure has been replaced by SVO; the topic role of the
object is encoded by topic movement; and topical O–V agreement has been reanalyzed as
definite O–V agreement (É. Kiss 2014). At the same time, the Inverse Agreement Constraint
lost from Khanty has survived intact: 1st person objects do not elicit agreement if the subject
is 2nd or 3rd person (10-11); and 2nd person objects do not elicit agreement if the subject is
3rd person (12), but they do if the subject is 1st person (13).
(10) Ő ismer-Ø engem/minket.
(11) Te ismersz
engem/minket.
he know-3SG me/us
you know-2SG me/us
(12) Ő ismer
téged/titeket.
(13) Én ismer-l-ek
téged/titeket.
I know-OBJ-1SG you/you.PL
he know-3SG you/you.PL
7. Assembling the fragments
Although Hungarian split off the Ugric proto-language 3000 years ago, Hungarian and the
other Ugric daughter languages have preserved fragments of DOM and differential O–V
agreement that can be fit together into a coherent and complete system. The Ugric protolanguage must have inherited the SOV word order hypothesized for Proto-Uralic. The fact
that Eastern Mansi has both DOM and differential O–V agreement suggests that the topic role
of the object was encoded both by object marking and by V agreement on the V. An inverse
topicality constraint ensured that an object secondary topic should not outrank the subject
primary topic in the animacy/topicality hierarchy. The PCC and the Inverse Agreement
Constraint were both manifestations of this requirement. The Ugric languages have preserved
various fragments of this system: Eastern Mansi has preserved both DOM with the PCC, and
differential O–V agreement without the Inverse Agreement Constraint. Khanty has only
preserved differential O–V agreement without the Inverse Agreement Constraint. In
Hungarian, only the PCC and the Inverse Agreement Constraint have survived as fossils.
References: Dalrymple, M & I Nikolaeva 2011. Objects and Information Structure. CUP.
É. Kiss, K 2013. The Inverse Agreement Constraint in Uralic Languages. FULL 2(2).
Nikolaeva, I 2001. Secondary topic as a relation in information structure. Linguistics 39:1-49.
Skribnik, E 2001. Pragmatic structuring in Northern Mansi. Congressus Nonus Internationalis Fennougristarum. 2. Pars VI. Dissertationes sectionum: Linguistica III. Tartu. 222 - 239.