Studies in Asian and African
Geolinguistics
II

ILCAA Joint Research Project 2020 - 2022 ‘Studies in Asian and African Geolinguistics’
Research Institute for Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa
Tokyo University of Foreign Studies

Studies in Asian and African Geolinguistics II“Grammatical relations”
Report of ILCAA Joint Research Project 2020–2022“Studies in Asian and African Geolinguistics”
First published 2021
Edited by Satoko Shirai & Mitsuaki Endo
Copyright © 2021 Individual Contributors

ISBN 978-4-86337-364-8
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Languages and Cultures ofAsia and Africa (ILCAA)
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Table of Contents

Featured topics ............................................................................................................................ 1
Subgrouping of the target languages (continued)
Subgrouping of Ainu.......................................................................................... 2
Grammatical relations in Asian and African languages
SHIRAI Satoko, Grammatical relations in Asian and African languages ................................. 3
FUKAZAWA Mika, Grammatical relations in Ainu ................................................................ 5
KIBE Nobuko, NAKAZAWA Kohei, and YOKOYAMA Akiko,
Grammatical relations in Japonic ....................................................................................... 6
FUKUI Rei, Grammatical relations in Korean ........................................................................ 11
SUZUKI Fumiki, Grammatical relations in Sinitic ................................................................. 12
ENDO Mitsuaki, TOMITA Aika, HIRANO Ayaka,
Grammatical relations in Kra-Dai ................................................................................... 14
SHIRAI Satoko, EBIHARA Shiho, IWASA Kazue, KURABE Keita, and
SUZUKI Hiroyuki, Grammatical relations in Tibeto-Burman ........................................ 16
MINEGISHI Makoto and SHIMIZU Masaaki, Grammatical relations in Austroasiatic ........ 20
UTSUMI Atsuko, Grammatical relations in Austronesian ...................................................... 22
MATSUMOTO Ryo, Grammatical relations in Tungusic ....................................................... 24
MATSUMOTO Ryo, Grammatical relations in Uralic ............................................................ 26SAITÔ Yoshio, Grammatical relations in Mongolic and Turkic .............................................. 28
YOSHIOKA Noboru, Grammatical relations in South Asia .................................................... 30
KODAMA Nozomi, Grammatical relations in Dravidian .................................................... 32
NAGATO Youichi, Grammatical relations in Semitic .............................................................. 34
NAKAO Shuichiro, Grammatical relations in Nilo-Saharan .................................................. 36
SHINAGAWA Daisuke and KOMORI Junko, Grammatical relations in Niger-Congo .......... 39
KIMURA Kimihiko and NAKAGAWA Hirosi,
Grammatical relations in the Kalahari Basin Area .......................................................... 41
Cumulative references ................................................................................................................ 42

ArticlesSUZUKI Hiroyuki, Sonam Wangmo, and Tsering Samdrup,
Geolinguistic analysis of ‘hand’, ‘wind’, and ‘moon’ in Tibetic languages in sMarkhams,
mDzogong, and rDzayul counties ...................................................................................... 54
SUZUKI Hiroyuki, Grammatical relations in Caucasian languages:
Preliminary mapping ......................................................................................................... 63

Cover photo:In the Mazhong village, China © 2007 Satoko Shirai

Studies in Asian and African Geolinguistics 2
Featured topic: Grammatical relations

Subgrouping of Ainu
The major subgrouping of Ainu is into the threegroups of the Sakhalin, Hokkaido, and northern Kuril
dialects, generally accepted in previous studies (Hattori
and Chiri 1960, Asai 1974, Tamura 2000). The
Hokkaido dialect can be divided into the eastern andwestern dialectal groups. The southern Kuril dialect canbe included in the eastern Hokkaido dialect (Hayashi
1973).
We will not deal with further subgroupings in Ainu
here apart from the following brief note. The dialects inand around Saru and Chitose in western Hokkaido area
often show special patterns in vocabulary, including
functional words, that may be similar to those of the
Sakhalin dialect. Hattori and Chiri (1960) and Chiri and
Murayama (1974) suggested the minor subgrouping of
the northernmost dialect of Soya and the southernmost
dialect of Samani in Hokkaido.
(FUKAZAWA Mika)

・Hokkaido dialect― Western Hokkaido dialect― Eastern Hokkaido dialect
・Sakhalin dialect
・Northern Kuril dialect2Grammatical Relations in Asian and
African languages

Thus, ‘The fox killed the snake.’ represented atypical sentence for scrutiny. The abovementioned
stipulations were selected with reference to Hopperand Thompson (1980) to ensure the examination ofsentences with high transitivity.

1. Project aims
Languages mark the grammatical relations oftransitive sentences in varied ways: for example, bycase, by agreement, or by constituent order. Moreover,patterns may be split through diverse factors such asanimacy or information structures, even in a single
language.
This project intended to conduct a geolinguistic
analysis of the ways of distinguishing the grammatical
relations of highly transitive vis-à-vis intransitive
sentences. It is first necessary to establish a specificanalysis target because the scholarly subject ofgeolinguistics does not denote the whole system of alanguage; rather, it pertains to each individual
linguistic
phenomenon(Sibata
1969/1977).
Typological projects such as Dryer and Hapelmath(2013) illustrate the distribution of typological systems,
including the locus of marking in the clause (23a), thealignment of the case marking of full noun phrases(98a) and pronouns (99a), and the configuration ofverbal person marking (100A). Conversely,
geolinguists draw a map focusing on thecommon-target type sentences so that they can analyze
the linguistic history.
Therefore sentences were set for this study to meetthe conditions listed below as the common focus foranalysis: The subject and object are equal in theempathy/animacy/person hierarchy: for example,
both are 3rd person or animals.
 The subject and object are definite, specific,
and/or referential.
 The predicate is simple and/or plain in voice
and/or mood.
 The predicate is verbal with high volitionality
and/or affectedness.
 The event described by the sentence has occurred
or is finished/completed in the past.
 The information structure and word order are
unmarked or most general.
However, the use of sample sentences that did notmeet these conditions was accepted if a contributor
could confirm the absence of equivalent distinctions in
the concerned languages or stipulated that such
distinctions did not affect the grammatical relation
marking.

2. Classification criteria
Table 1 illustrates the major classifications and basic
map symbols commonly used during this project. The
letters A, S, and P in the title column respectively
indicate the subject of a transitive verb, the subject of
an intransitive verb, and the object of a transitive verb.
Types A–E correspond to the types of alignment: A)
nominative–accusative, B) ergative–absolutive, C)
split of S such as active–stative, D) tripartite, and E)
neutral. The numbers following the capitals indicate
the loci of marking: 1) dependent, 2) head, 3) double,
and 4) none (Nichols 1986). The notation ‘X’ indouble-marking types represents a conflict between
dependent and head (e.g., the case alignment isnominative–accusative, but the verbal morphology
shows hierarchical agreement). E2 denotes that thehead-marking morphology does not directly markgrammatical relations, for example, hierarchicalmarking. Languages with no morphological markings(4) may be classified into A4–E4 depending on theconstituent order or other syntactic phenomena.
The splits within the common-target type sentences
are also addressed. The symbols for split patterns arelisted below Table 1. If more than one type of split
was found in the common-target type sentences of asingle language, and both were considered equallymajor, multiple symbols were stacked on the map. For
example, if the pattern was split between A1 and A2
according to information structures, it was classified
as A1/A2c and marked with both ‘|’ and ‘—'. However,
if four or more three split patterns were observed, thelanguage/dialect was classified as “F,” and a starsymbol was inserted for higher visibility. Moreover, alanguage could be classified as G if the pattern did not
fit any of the abovementioned types.

3

Table 1: Major types and prearranged symbols.
Dependent-marking

Headmarking

Doublemarking

Western part of the Indian subcontinent, and theSouthern and Western sides of the Caspian Sea (SeeSuzuki in this volume for the distribution in the
Caucasus). The Type C pattern (active-inactive) shows
sporadic distribution in the Eastern regions such as
Nepal (South Asia), the Pacific (Austronesian), andSouthwestern Japan (Japonic). Pattern Type D(tripartite) is sporadically found in limited languagesof Nilo-Saharan, South Asia, Austronesian,Tibeto-Burman, and Japonic.
Type A4 (neutral marking but syntacticallynominative–accusative) tends to be distributed throughthe East and West peripheral regions of the
Asia-Africa continuum. The East represents the Sinitic,
Kra-Dai, Eastern regions of Austroasiatic andNorthern regions of Japonic; the West encompasses
the Western regions of the Nilo-Saharan and
Niger-Congo, and the peripheral regions of Semitic.
Most verbal markings are nominative–accusative inpattern (Types A2 and A3). The verbal markings of theergative pattern (Types B2 and B3) are found only inSouth and Southwest Asia. The active-inactive patternis rare but is attested in an Austronesian language
spoken in Northern Sumatra (Type C3). The tripartite
pattern is not attested to as a verbal marking system.
(SHIRAI Satoko)Nomarking

AS/P
A3
A1

A2

A4
AX3

A/SP
B3
B1

B2

B4
BX3

S1/S2
C3
C1

C2

C4
CX3

A/S/P
D3
D1

D2

D4
DX3

ASP
E3
E1

E2:

E4
EX3

Split patterns:
a. Hierarchy of nouns, including nouns vs. pronouns.
b. Lexical properties of verbs.
c. Pragmatic features, including the information
structure.
d. Features of noun phrases.
e. Word order.
f. Features of the predicate.
g. Others.

References
Dryer, Matthew S. and Martin Haspelmath (eds.)(2013) The World Atlas of Language Structures
Online. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for
Evolutionary Anthropology. (Available online at
http://wals.info, Accessed on 2021-10-06.)
Hopper, Paul J. and Sandra A. Thomason (1980)
Transitivity in grammar and discourse. Language
56(2): 251-299.
Nichols, Johanna (1986) Head-marking anddependent-marking grammar. Language 66. 56-119.
Sibata, Takesi [柴田武] (1969) 『言語地理学の方法』[Methods in linguistic geography]. Tokyo: Chikuma
Shobo.
Suzuki, Hiroyuki (this volume) Grammatical relations
in Caucasian languages: Preliminary mapping.

3. Geographical distribution and interpretation
Some languages in Asia and Africa cannot be
categorized within the prescribed framework, such as
the symmetrical voice in Austronesian, the transitivealignment in Iranian and Nuristani languages in SouthAsia, and the bidirectional markings in the Songhay
languages of Nilo-Saharan. These patterns are thusclassified to Type G. Additionally, complex splits
occur even within the common-target type sentencesin Torwali (South Asia) and Northern Lwo(Nilo-Saharan). However, Types C4, D2, D3, D4, E1,
E3, and EX3 are either not attested or are extremely
rare.
The maps provided by contributors evince thefollowing tendencies in terms of geographicaldistribution:
The alignment pattern Type A (nominative–
accusative) is most widespread. Conversely, pattern
Type B (ergative–absolutive) exhibits continuous
distribution in the central regions: the Himalayas, the4Grammatical Relations in A inu
1. Classification of grammatical relations
Ainu has SOV constituent order and no casemarking of nouns and pronouns for Agent (A), Subject(S), or Patient (P). Arguments for obliq ues such as
locatives, allatives, and ablatives are marked bypostpositions. Moreover, Ainu is a so-called pro-drop
language, since personal pronouns are uninflected andoften omitted in subject (A/S) and object (P) position(Bugaeva 2012; cf. Kindaichi & C hiri 1936 ; Refsing
198 6 ; Shibatani 1990).
Personal verb affixes act as a personal obligatory
index within the verb conjugation, constituting “ verbal
cross-reference marking” (Bugaeva 2012: 47 2; Table 1).
3SG/PL indexing involves not only zero-marking onverb, but also no case marking of arguments. Wordorder is known to be relatively flexible (cf. Tamura
2000).

The Ainu language has ordinarily been classified ashaving “ a mixed (but basically tripartite) alignment”(Bugaeva 2012: 46 1; cf. Okuda 2015 ). However, here
Ainu is classified as Type E2a, because the 3SG/PL
zero-marking is defined as the ASP neutral andhierarchically head-marking type.
Table 1: Personal verb affixes in Ainu
Grammatical Person
A
S
P
1SG
kuen1PL .exclusive
c i-as un1PL .inclusive(Hokkaido dialect)
1PL
a( n) - -ani(Sakhalin dialect)Indefinite2SG
e2PL
ec i2PL(Hokkaido
dialectof
esAsahikawa)
3SG/PL∅(1) a. ekasi
huc i∅-∅-nukar
grandfather grandmother 3.A.3.P-see‘ Grandfather see(/saw) grandmother.’(Tamura 2000: 42)b. p oyson∅-c issmall_ child 3.S-cry‘ The small child cry(/cried).’(Tamura 2000: 26 )2. Geographical distribution
See Figure 1.

(FUKAZ AWA Mika)

E2a
Figure 1: Grammatical Relations in Ainu

5

Grammatical Relations in Japonic

2. Geographical distribution and interpretation
In the mainland Japan, there are five types of casemarking: A1-1, A1-2, A4-1, C1, and D1.
The languages and dialects that belong to each typeare shown in map 1 and 2. We will show example
sentences of each type by giving typical points.
Hiroshima dialect is A1-1 type. In this dialect, andare marked by =ga, and is marked by *=o.

1. Classification
In the maps, the synchronic types of grammatical
relations in Japonic (Japanese and Ryukyuan) areclassified into four major categories:
A1: / ; nominative-accusative marking
A4: / ; no marking but word order
C1: 1/ 2; split intransitivity
D1: / / ; tripartite alignment(2) a. o-zii-saɴ=ga […] taaraa (< *taara=o) aɴ-de
HON-old.man-HON=NOM […] straw.bag.ACC knit-GER‘the old man knitted a straw bag’
b. hurue=ɴnjaa boɴkura=ga
or-aɴ
Furue=LOC.TOP sodden.person=NOM be-NEG‘there is no sodden person in Furue’<Hiroshima city, COJADS>

In addition, subcategories are recognized under A1and A4, and mixed types are also found.
Since Japonic languages are agglutinative, particles
are usually used for case marking.
(1) aicu=ga
bīru=oreizōko=kara
toridasita
that.guy=NOM beer=ACC refrigerator=ABL took.out‘That guy took out beer from the refrigerator.’<Tokyo, Shimoji 2018: 92>Ōsaka dialect is A1-2 type. In this dialect, andare marked by =ŋa, and is usually with no marking.
(3) a. kanai=ŋa […] hanasi si-ta=ɴ=ja=kedo
wife=NOM […] chat do-PST=NMLZ=COP=CNC‘my wife had a chat’b. baɴtoo=ŋa
suwat-te-masi-ta-desu=wa
head.clerk=NOM sit-GER-POL-PST-POL=SFP‘the head clerk was sitting’<Osaka city, COJADS>

For A1 and A4, we created subcategories based on(a) whether or not the relevant forms to markgrammatical relations exist and (b) whether or not theforms drop in natural discourse. For (b), we used datafrom the Corpus of Japanese Dialects (COJADS) of the
National Institute for Japanese Language andLinguistics (NINJAL), which contains transcriptions ofapproximately 4,000 hours of dialectal discourse fromover 200 locations throughout Japan.
The subcategories for A1 are as follows:
A1-1: Both nominative (NOM) and accusative (ACC)
forms exist, and the frequency of both occurring
simultaneously is 50% or more.
A1-2: Both NOM and ACC forms exist, but the frequencyof the ACC is less than 50%.
A1-3: The NOM form exists, but the ACC does not.
The subcategories for A4 are as follows:
A4-1: Both NOM and ACC forms exist, but the frequency
of both occurring simultaneously is less than 50%.
A4-2: Both of NOM and ACC forms do not exist.
Moreover, the map includes markings with diacritic
symbols for “animacy,” “definiteness,” and “honorific”
that are related to grammatical relations: animacy ismarked with “a,” definiteness with “d,” and honorifics
with “h”.

Toyama dialect in Hokuriku is A4-1 type. In thisdialect,, , andare usually not marked
morphologically but marked by word order.
(4) a. ora toru=no taberu-joo-na moɴ tabe-ta
1SG chicken=GEN eat-SEEM-ADN thing eat-PST‘I ate something like chickens eat’b. mata aŋat-te
kuru moɴ
ot-teagain go.up-GER come person be-GER‘there was a person who came up again’<Tonami city, COJADS>
Tsugaru dialect in Tōhoku is the type of A4-1d. In
this dialect, ,andare usually not marked
morphologically but marked by word order. However,when is high in specificity, like proprietary noun ordemonstratives, is marked by =goto.
(5) a. ano
zu-samataego-kotadage-bathat old.man-HON drum-DIM beat-COND‘when that old man beats a drum’

6however when the subject is a respected person, ismarked with =ga, and is marked with =ga or =no.

b. ameuri
ki-ta=oɴcandy.seller
come-PST=SFP‘the candy seller has come, right’c. soe=goto oraɴdo ko su-te nameru=ɴ=daa
that=ACC 1PL this.way do-GER lick=NMLZ=COP‘we lick it (= the candy) this way’
<Hirosaki city, COJADS>(8) a. omai{=ga/=no} kokee
suwat-ta=naa
2SG.HON=NOM here.LOC sit.down-PST=SFP‘You sat here.’b. kokee wai=ga
suwat-tajoo=ga
here.LOC 2SG=NOM sit.down-PST.INFR=SFP‘You would have sat here.’<Teuchi, Sakai 2019>

Shiiba dialect in Miyazaki is C1 type. In this dialect,
is marked with =ga, is not usually morphologicallymarked. is divided into 1 and 2 by agentivity. 1 isalways marked with =ga and 2 is marked with =no or=ga. When the agentivity of is high, takes =ga, andwhen it is low, it takes =no.

In Ryukyuan languages, there are six types of casemarking for grammatical relations: A1-1, A1-2, A1-3,
A4-1, A4-2, and C1. In some of the dialects andlanguages, animacy has an effect on case alignment.
A1 type languages are widely distributed on the
Ryukyu Islands. Of these, A1-3 (marked nominativetype) is distributed from Yoro Island to Naha on
Okinawa Island, and A1-1 is distributed around the A13 regions. The westernmost Yonaguni is C1 type. A4
type is distributed in Yaeyama with A4-1 type in
Iriomote-Sonai, and A4-2 type in Hateruma, which has
no morphological markers.
Okinoerabu in south Amami is A1-3a type. In thislanguage, and are marked by =ga or =nu dependingon the position in the animacy hierarchy (Dixon 1979:85): nouns that are located in a higher position in thehierarchy are marked by =ga, and nouns in a lower
position are marked by =nu.
is not marked
morphologically.

(6) a. anoko=ga
awee huku
ki-tor-uthat.child=NOM blue clothes wear-RES-NPST‘That child is wearing blue clothes.’b. onago=ga
tat-tor-u
woman=NOM stand-RES-NPST‘A woman is standing.’c. akjaa hana{=no/=ga} sjaa-tot-ta=nee
red
flower=NOM
bloom-RES-PST=SFP‘Red flowers were in bloom, weren’t they.’(“Shiiba Hōgen Goishū forth coming”)
Hakata dialect in Fukuoka is A1/D1 type. In thisdialect, when the subject is a first-person or secondperson pronoun, and are marked with =ga, and ismarked with =ba. However, when the subject is not a
proper noun nor a kinship noun nor a pronoun, ismarked with =ga and is usually marked with =no.

(9) a. wa=ga
ura
mic-ju-ɴ
1SG=NOM 2SG
see-NPST-IND‘I see you.’b. wa=ga
ic-ju-ɴ
1SG=NOM go-NPST-IND‘I go (there).’c. ʔmaa=nu
ic-ju-ɴ
horse=NOM go-NPST-IND‘(The) horse goes (there).’(7) a. omae=ga ore=ɴ=to=ba tabe-taroo=ga
2SG=NOM 1SG=GEN=NMLZ=ACC eat-PST.INFR=SFP‘You would have eaten mine.’b. omae=ga
taore-ru=bai
2SG=NOM
get.sick-NPST=SFP‘you will get sick’c. gokiburi=ba
kodomo=ga jaccuke-ta
cockroach=ACC child=NOM beat-PST‘The child beat the cockroach.’d. warusoo{=no/=ga} or-u
bad.child=NOM
be-NPST‘There is a naughty kid.’<Hakata, Sakai forth coming>

This marked nominative type is known to be very
rare, with only 6 languages reported on the WALS maps.
However, it is relatively common in Ryukyus.
Hateruma dialect in Yaeyama is A4-2 type, which iswith (almost) no marking of the distinction between
and . In this language, , , and are not marked
morphologically but marked by word order.

In the Koshiki-jima Teuchi dialect,andaregenerally marked with =ga, and is marked with =ba,

7

(10) a.

b.

c.

The animacy hierarchy is used as a criterion for theusage of NOM markers =ga and =no; if the animacy ofa NOM is high in the hierarchy, it is marked with =ga,
and =no is used if it is low. This difference developed
from that of agentivity since they are strongly related: anoun that is more animate tends to be an agent, and anoun that is less animate tends to be a patient.
Definiteness concerns ACC markers, which is known as
differential object marking (DOM) such as =goto in
Tohoku-Tsugaru (see 5c), and it is considered to be an
innovation in these areas. Honorific is related to theproper usage of the NOM markers =ga and =no. This isdeveloped in relation to agentivity, since weakening
agentivity shows honor to nominatives.
In addition to the marking with/without particles,
contracted forms and lengthened forms are also
observed in case marking (see 2a). It is considered thatthe markings with no particles are derived fromcontracted forms through lengthened forms, rather thanparticles being merely omitted.

baa
nuf-u-n1SG
sleep-NPST-IND‘I sleep.’baa
sumucï jum-u-n
1SG
book
read-NPST-IND‘I read a book.’tun
butu
tum-a-nwifehusband look.for-DUR.NPST-IND‘(The) wife is looking for (the) husband.’(Aso 2020: 109, 111)

We assume that A1-1 type is the oldest type in history
since it is widely distributed in both mainland Japan and
Ryukyus, from Tohoku to Southern Ryukyus.
The marked nominative types (A1-2 and A1-3),
which are typologically rare, are considered to be theresult of the decrease and disappearance of ACC
marking. In the A4-1 and A4-2 types, not only the ACC
case marking but also the NOM case marking becameless frequent and disappeared.
Since the A4 types are distributed in the outermost
part of Japonic, that is, Tohoku and Yaeyama, they seemto be the oldest at first glance. In addition, the casemarker was not developed in ancient Japanese, it ispossible that the proto system is retained in these areas.
However, since types that have case markers are
distributed in the neighborhood of A4 and there aretraces that the language of A4 once had case markers, it
is presumed that the present A4 types are developed
from A1 types.
The C1 types are considered to have developed fromthe A1 type in parallel. The C1 type in Kyushu marks
NOM by =ga or =no depending on the agentivity. This
type seems to be the retention of Old Japanese system.
Similarly, most of the C1 types of Ryukyus (northern
Ryukyus and Yonaguni) are considered to be the resultof the reduction and loss of =nu (< *=no), which marks(non-agentive ). Like the C1 type, the D1 type is asystem in which is marked with =ga and is marked
with =no depending on the agentivity and the positionin the animacy hierarchy. C1 in the Miyako-Tarama
dialect has an inactive marker =ba (Celik and Hayashi2017), which originally marks ACC but now also marks. In Hachijo dialect and Old Japanese, there areexamples ofmarked with an ACC particle. The C1
type of Awaji is developed from A1-2 by omitting theNOM case marking from
. Since marked nominative
types do not have ACC markers, the case omission inis the result of merger with .

(11) a. kore=wo ‘this=ACC’ > kore-u > korjoː > koreː > kore
b. kore=ga ‘this=NOM’ > kore-ã > korjãː > koreː > kore
c. kore=no ‘this=NOM’ > kore-ɴ > korẽː > koreː > kore
d. kore=woba ‘this=ACC.TOP’ > kore-uba > korjoːba >koreːba > koreba
Marked nominative alignment seems to be the resultof diachronic sound changes. Since the ACC casemarker =wo was developed earlier than NOM casemarkers, the change in (11a) also occurred earlier andbecame the zero form. The particle =ba probably camefrom =woba. The sound /wo/ was fused in a process
like (11d), leaving only =ba.
In Old Japanese, case marking is not obligatory, andparticles =ga and =no are originally genitive markers.
The ACC marker =wo developed from the interjectory
particle, which seems to mark the inactive case. Later,
the genitive in the attributive clause was recognized as
the NOM, and then the NOM case markers emerged.
Abbreveiations:
ADN: adnominal, CNC: concessive, DIM: diminutive,
GER: gerundive, HON: honorific, INFR: inferential, NPST:
non-past, POL: polite, RES: resultative, RLS: realis,
SEEM: seeming, SFP: sentence-final particle(KIBE Nobuko, NAKAZAWA Kohei, andYOKOYAMA Akiko)8

Figure 1: Grammatical Relations in mainland Japan9

Figure 2: Grammatical Relations in Northern Ryukyu Islands

Figure 3: Grammatical Relations in Southern Ryukyu Islands

10Grammatical Relations in Korean

only from Middle Korean. Its meaning is enigmaticand its phonological shape varied. (p. 205)

1. Classification
The Korean language has the following characteristics
regarding grammatical relations.

The meaning of the volitive morpheme is difficult
to delineate with any precision. However, it seems
to have been used for actions (or states) that were of
subjective will or intent, not for factual, objective
narrative. (p. 206)

Morphology: agglutinative
Basic word order: SOV
Cases-marker: postposition
Locus of marking: dependent-marking
Alignment pattern: AS/P

It seems difficult to maintain the first person
marker theory because there are apparent counterexamples. However, it still has something to do withthe restrictions on the selection of the grammaticalperson in a predicate structure. It may be that somekind of unidentified grammatical function (forexample, Professor Randy LaPolla suggested thenotion ‘epistemic authority’ when I presented apreliminary version of this paper) lies behind thescene.

Therefore the basic type of this language is A1
according to the framework of this project.
However, there are some problems. In colloquial
speech, case-markers are often not used and theconditions on the use and non-use of case-markers arecomplex (for example, Kim Jihyun 2016).
Kazama (2015) argued that in colloquial Japanesecase-markers are not used frequently and thedistinction of the grammatical person often depends
on the kinds and structure of the predicate so that thecolloquial Japanese tends to be a head-marking
language. The situation is quite similar in the case of
the Korean colloquial language although theconditions are not the same.
In this respect, Middle Korean is interesting
because it had the so-called volitive prefinal ending‘-o/u-’ (‘-wo/wu-’ in Yale Romanization) which has
been also called the first person marker according tosome researchers. Examples are the following:

2. Geographical distribution and interpretation
As to the basic grammatical relations, there is nogeographical differences in Korean dialects.
(FUKUI Rei)

(1) itoŋsan-ʌr phʌr-o-ri-ra
this garden-ACC sell-O-FUT-DEC“I will sell this garden.”이 東山 로리라 <1447 釈譜詳節6:24b>(2) na-spunjonh-o-rahʌ-si-myeI-onlyhonored-O-DEC say-HON-CONV“Only I am honored”. (唯我独尊)
나 尊호라 시며 <1447 釈譜詳節6:17a>
If we treat this ‘-o-’ as the first person marker
then this language might be classified as the A3 type.
Lee and Ramsey (2011) describe this prefinal
ending as follows:

A1

The “volitive” –wo/wu- (called the modulator in
Martin 1992) was a complex morpheme known

11Grammatical Relations in Sinitic

ba is a marker of a prepositive object and does not
express disposal.
我 把 他们 的 话 知道。‘I know what they say.’

1. Classification
Most Sinitic languages are classified under the A4(No-marking, AS/P) type. The subject of a transitive
verb (A) and an intransitive verb (S) can be placed at
the beginning of a sentence, while the object of atransitive verb (P) follows the transitive verb.
Examples from standard Chinese are as follows:
小李 走 了。‘Xiao-Li is gone.’

I marker they structural-particle word know

(Gansu Lanzhou 兰州 dialect, Huang 1996)
The ba construction varies in function, marker, andsentence type. In some dialects, ba serves as both adisposal marker and other markers, such as passive.
Some dialects use other markers derived from verbs
such as taking (na 拿), giving (gei 给, bi 畀), or
helping (bang 帮). In some dialects, the markers canbe omitted (Li and Chappell 2013).
In the Gansu Linxia 临 夏 dialect, the object
usually occurs before the transitive verb (SOV) except
in copular sentences using shi 是 . To distinguish
subject and object, ha 哈 often follows the object,
especially when personal pronouns are used (Wang
1993).
我 他 哈 叫 来 了。‘I called him.’

Xiao-Li go perfect-aspect

小张 打 伤 小李 了。‘Xiao-Zhang hurt Xiao-Li.’
Xiao-Zhang hit injured Xiao-Li perfect-aspect

Some dialects use both SVO and SOV, for which
the symbols of the A4 (No-marking, AS/P, SVO) andE4 (No-marking, ASP, SOV) types overlap for
convenience.
The object of a transitive verb is also shifted toprecede the transitive verb through the ba 把
construction, which typically means “disposal.”
张三 把 李四 打 跑 了。

I him marker call come perfect-aspect

我 哈 他 叫 来 了。‘He called me.’Zhang-san marker Li-si beat away perfect-aspect

me marker he call come perfect-aspect‘Zhang-san beat Li-si away.’
The actual behavior of the ba construction varies
widely. Therefore, we consider only whether the
dialects possess the ba construction and overlook theconditions of usage. The markers of the ba
construction are usually prepositive, classified underA1-1 (Dependent-marking, AS/P), but sometimes are
postpositive as well, classified as A1-2.
2. Geographical distribution and interpretation
Grammatical relations in Sinitic languages show ananonymous distribution of A4 type, while the A1-1
type is observed in most Chinese dialects. The “+”symbols in the map indicate that the dialect adopts the
SVO order and has the ba construction. However, ba
is not always a typical marker of a prepositive object.
In standard Chinese, the ba construction has certain
structural restrictions: The verbal component needs tocarry other components and cannot be a sole verb; thepostpositive nominal component needs to be definite.
Further, the object can sometimes follow the verb (Lü1965).
他 把 橘子 剥 了 皮。‘He peeled the oranges.’With the spread of standard Chinese, the “ba + O +ha” construction later appeared in the Linxia dialect.
我 把 我 的 亲人 哈 想 者。
I marker I structural-particle n.relative marker miss‘I miss my relatives.’
It has been pointed out that contact with Altaic or
Tibeto-Burman languages has led northwest dialects todevelop the marker of a prepositive object. Based on
conditions in the Linxia dialect, Li and Chappell(2013) further argued that through strong language
contact, SOV languages such as Mongolian, Turkish,and Tibetan directly influenced the development of the“O + ha 哈” construction and the replacement of theba construction.
The “O + shang 上 ” construction is seen in
Shangri-La 香格里拉 Mandarin dialect. This is also
due to intense contact with SOV languages (Zhou2016).
狼 狗 上 咬 死 喽。‘The wolf bit a dog to death.’wolf bite marker bite dead perfect-aspect

The “-” symbols in the map, indicating dialects thatlack the ba construction, show a scattered distribution
in the Guangdong and Guangxi provinces. The
southern dialects tend to use a basic SVO order for
disposal sentences, and the ba construction can beused only under limited conditions.
(SUZUKI Fumiki)

he marker orange v.peel perfect-aspect n.peel

This type of ba construction is observed over a large
area, especially in northern China, while some dialects
show unique developments.
For instance, in some dialects of northwest China,

12A1 (Dependent-marking, AS/P)
A1-1 (prepositive)
A1-2 (postpositive)
A4 (No-marking, SV O)
E4 (No-marking, SOV )Figure 1: Grammatical Relations in Sinitic

13Grammatical Relations in Kra-Dai
1. Classification
The core argument in Kra-Dai belongs to the typeA4 category, which is characterized by no markings
for subjects and objects, coupled with the prevalenceof the basic word orders AVP and SV.
In the Baoding Li language in Hainan (Ouyang
and Zheng 1980:58, 66, 40):ɬɯːk7o1 rau2 tshia3
student read book
“Students read books.”na1 raːu1
he to laugh“He laughs.”
This type is applicable to Kra-Dai in general.
However, the so-called “ba 把” construction exists
in almost all Kra-Dai languages inside China. For
example, consider this Li sentence construction:deɯ1 tsɯ2 hom1 wa:u1 tsho:n2 dɯ3 tsho1
ACC one CLF bowl put on table“Put the bowl on the table!”
Here, deɯ1 serves as “ba” in Chinese. This type
belongs to A1.
Another subtype A1b is found in Khamti Shan,
wherein a human endpoint, prototypically a recipientof a physical transaction, is marked by “mai” (here)(Ingris 2018: 135). In addition, an animate or
inanimate object of a transitive verb is marked by“mai” (here) if foreground information is being
provided (Ingris 2018: 140–142). In Phake and Aiton
Tai, subtype A1b comprises the original AVP word
order; however, a preposition may be added to P.
This preposition is not a prerequisite; a prepositional
phrase is added only in the cases in which A and P
are both animate (Morey 2005: 272).

2. Geographical distribution and interpretation
In Figure 1, type A4 is denoted by － and typeA1 by |. Hence, the place where both types exist
resembles ＋ . Although some languages not
categorized under type A1 also exist within China,
these languages lack detailed grammaticaldescriptions; consequently, they do not bear any
trace of the “ba” construction. In the Southeast Asian
Kra-Dai languages, including Bangkok’s Thai andVientiane’s Lao, the existence of the “ba”
construction has not been found. Type A1b is foundin Myanmar and India, with the latter influenceinterpreted as the result of an aerial contact with the
Tibeto–Burman language (Morey 2005: 270).
As described by Ouyang and Zheng (1980:40),“The ‘ba’ construction is scarcely used in Li
language. Instead, the Chinese construction ‘ba +object + verb + complement’ is expressed in Li as‘verb + object + complement’. For instance, theChinese construction ‘ba3 wan3 da3po4, ba + bowl +hit + break) is expressed as ‘tha:i2 wa:u1 pho:n3’ (hit+ bowl + break, ‘break a bowl’ in Li. With thegrowing Chinese influence, the use of deɯ1 as apreposition continues to increase…” Liang (1980:59) explained that in Maonan language, the use of
the “ba” construction is not yet common, except
among learned people. Some languages borrow thesame word form “ba” from Chinese, while other KraDai languages also make use of calque expressions
such as “deɯ1” and tәi2 (meaning “take”). Hence,
this construction seems to be borrowed fromindividual Kra-Dai languages independently under
the recent Chinese influence.
(ENDO Mitsuaki, TOMITA Aika, HIRANO
Ayaka)14

A4
A4 plus A1 (“ba” construction)
A4 plus A1b
Figure 1: Grammatical Relations in Kra-Dai

15

Grammatical Relations in Tibeto-Burman

E4 (including E4a, E4e): No morphological marking;
SVO constituent order. Loloish, Qiangic, Naish,
and Tujia.
Among these types, A1, B1, BX3, and E4 are themost commonly found types of sentence patterns. A4
is limited to two language groups, while A2, AX3, D1,
DX3, and E2 are found in one or few
languages/dialects. No language has Type C as theprimary type: Although some languages (Prinmi,
Kurtöp, Tshangla, Kyirong Tibetan, etc.) may mark thesubjects of intransitive predicates as either ergative oragentive within marked contexts, generally may not in
the common-type sentences.
Moreover, we found the following split patterns:(a) features of noun phrases: the split between nouns
and pronouns; (b) features of verbs: the lexical split;and (e) word order.
2. Geographical distribution and interpretation
Figures 1 and 2 present the geographicaldistributions of the alignment types, which are
relatively distinguishable from one another. These aredescribed below.
Type A is found primarily in Myanmar,
Northeastern India, and a corridor from the China–
Myanmar border to Northwestern Sichuan. In
particular, the languages of the southern regions tend
to be of Type A. Type A is also found sporadically in
Nepal and Yunnan.
Type B is widely found in the Tibetan Plateau andits adjacent regions as well as in Northwestern
Myanmar. Despite being the most widespread type ofsentence patterns, Type B is clustered geographically.
Type D is found sporadically in Nepal (Tamangic),
Western Sichuan (Gochang), and the China–Myanmar
border (Nungic). Among them, Trung [Nungic]
consists of the split between Types AX3 and DX3.
Type E is mainly found in the eastern region. As an
enclaved distribution, it also features in Puroik spoken
in Southern Tibet.
These distributions suggest that each marking
system of grammatical relations is developed in eachof the areas. However, it is difficult to find relative
time depth from the geographical distribution alone.
Previous comparative linguistic studies concluded
that there was no relational morphology, at least at theProto-Sino-Tibetan stage (e.g., LaPolla 2017). At theProto-Tibeto-Burman stage, it was closer to the“role-dominated” system, which is typically found in
Lolo-Burmese (LaPolla 1992a, b). Moreover, the

1. Classification
Tibeto-Burman (TB) languages are characterizedby widely diverse patterns of grammatical relations. In
this project, we classify, in accordance with thecommon criteria, the patterns found in common
target-type sentences, namely, transitive sentenceswith equally animate arguments and high transitivity(Shirai, this volume). Moreover, several languages
show split patterns based on animacy or pragmatics.
Parts of languages also have highly developed
agreement systems when the first and second persons,which are usually at the top of the empathy hierarchy,
are involved. Even though these split patterns are
eliminated when focusing exclusively on the common
sentence type, TB languages still display a variety ofgrammatical relation marking patterns presented asfollows (single language names are followed by thegroup name in square brackets):
Type A: The nominative–accusative or anti-agentive
type
A1: Dependent marking. Burmish, Loloish (also E4),
Jinghpaw–Luish, Bodo–Garo, nDrapa [Qiangic],
and Manang [Tamangic].
A2: Head marking. Kaman [isolate].
AX3: Double marking; however, the verbal
agreement pattern is non-nominative. Trung[Nungic] (also DX3) and Jinghpaw [Jinghpaw–
Luish].
A4: No morphological marking and the SVO
constituent order. Baic and Karenic.
Type B: The ergative–absolutive typeB1 (including B1a and B1b): Dependent marking.
Himalayish (including Tibetic), Qiangic, Nusu
[Loloish], Malimasa [Naish], Larong sMar,
Lamo, Songlin [isolate], etc.
BX3: Double marking; however, the verbal
agreement pattern is not ergative. Kiranti, Kuki–
Chin, Qiangic, Newar, and Kinnauri.
Type D: The tripartite type
D1: Dependent marking. Tamangic and Gochang[Q].
DX3: Double marking; however, the verbal
agreement pattern is not tripartite. Trung (alsoA3-1) and Rawang [both Nungic].
Type E: The neutral typeE2: Other types of head marking (e.g., hierarchical):Qiangic.

16

ergative (or agentive) and primary object markings in
TB have typically developed to disambiguate thesemantic roles (ibid).
Thus, applying our classification to thesearguments leads to the following hypothesis: Type E is
the oldest morphological alignment pattern, while
Types A and B have been developed in each areal
context. In fact, our data reveal that Loloish languages
are typically Type E4 for the common-type sentences,
showing splits with A1 or B1 under various conditions,such as constituent order and pragmatics. For example,
in Jinuo, all arguments can be left unmarked (TypeE4), as in (1). However, once the object comes to thesentence-initial, it can be followed by the particle lɛ33
(Type A1 but in pragmatically marked contexts), as in(2) (Hayashi 2009).
At the same time, many languages with a Type B1
basic sentence pattern are characterized by splits with
C1, D1, or E4, as exemplified in most Tibetan dialects;
e.g., (3) and (4), which consist of splits with C1 but inpragmatically limited contexts. These facts suggestthat our data support LaPolla’s (1992a, b) view. Here,
we present examples (2) and (4) for the purpose of
explanation; however, these are not the common
pattern types that this study would focus on.

In TB, the typical verbal morphology with regard
to grammatical relations is called ‘pronominalization,’
which is characterized by the addition of affixes
derived from pronouns. Some languages also haveinverse affixes. There are two possibilities to consider
from a historical linguistic viewpoint: whether toreconstruct this phenomenon back to theproto-language (e.g., DeLancey 1989), or to assume arelatively simple proto-language from whichmorphology has gradually developed (e.g., LaPolla
1992a).
In our study, the TB verbal morphology in terms ofgrammatical relations is reflected in Types AX3, BX3,
DX3, and E2. Except for Type BX3, which isrelatively widespread, all other types exhibit
geographically concentrated distributions in thecentral region. Moreover, no languages in the eastern,northern, and southern peripheral regions haveperson/number agreement on the predicate.
Considering the general tendency for old forms toremain in the peripheral regions (Yanagita 1930), thegeographical distribution of AX3, BX3, DX3, and E2
suggests that the verbal morphology of grammatical
relations is relatively new in TB.
Furthermore,upon
comparingthedependent-marking
types
and
headordouble-marking types, we find that Type BX3 is
distributed in the peripheral regions of the Type-B area.
This finding suggests that Type BX3 first developed interms of its verbal morphology and later obtained its
case marking system.
Meanwhile, Type A4, the SVO constituent orderwith no morphological marking, is found in Baic and
Karenic. Baic is known to have been strongly
influenced by Chinese. Kato (2019) argues that it isdifficult to determine how the constituent order in
Karenic languages has been developed; however, theirloanwords suggest that Karen people had contacts
with Mon (Austroasiatic) at a very early stage.
On the basis of the discussion presented above, we
provisionally propose the following hypothesis about
the development of grammatical relations in TB:

Jinuo [Loloish] (Hayashi 2009)(1) tɕu35ma44
ki55ki44jə35-mɤ35.
aunt
uncle
scold-PAST‘Aunt scolded uncle.’(2) ki55ki44=va55 tɕu35ma44 jə35-mɤ35.
uncle=OBJ
aunt
scold-PAST‘Aunt scolded uncle./Uncle was scolded by aunt.’
Lhasa Tibetan (Hoshi & Tahuwa 2017)́n(3) ́ŋa
dro-ki ́yiɴ.
1SG
go-IPFV:EGO‘I will go.’(4) ^ŋää
́tɕʰiɴko.
VOL
1SG:ERG go‘I will go.’ (with emphasis on the volitional actor)
By considering the geographical distribution, we
can hypothesize that Type A possibly developed in thesouth and spread to the central and eastern regions of
the whole TB area, while Type B must have originatedin the west and spread to the central and northeasternregions. Furthermore, Type D is the most recent
among the morphological alignment patterns.

E4 >A1, A2, AX3
E2 > BX3, B1> D1, DX3, A4(SHIRAI Satoko, EBIHARA Shiho, IWASA Kazue,
KURABE Keita, and SUZUKI Hiroyuki)

17

Figure 1: Grammatical Relations in Tibeto-Burman

18

Figure 2: Grammatical Relations in Tibeto-Burman: enlarged

19Grammatical Relations in Austroasiatic

Aslian languages of the Malay Peninsula―Jahai,
Semaq Beri, and Ceq Wong―are also Type A2. In
Semaq Beri, a pronoun denoting an obligatory agent
follows transitive verbs. In Ceq Wong, on the other
hand, a preverbal pronoun denoting the agent appears
with the transitive verb.
Car Nicobarese, isolated in the Indian Ocean, is of an
exceptional A2v in that the verb is followed with a clitic
denoting the agent or subject, with basic verb-initialword order VPA.
The split in geographic distribution between A4 andA2 languages provides no clue to historical changes in
the morphosyntax of the language family. Jenny, Weber& Weymuth (2015) suggest that the APV word orderand head-marking morphology of the Munda subfamily
might be the result of influence from dominant IndoEuropean or Dravidian languages.
Another exceptional A4v subtype―head initial withverb-initial order―is spoken in regions quite distantfrom each other. One is Palauk Wa of the Palaungic
subgroup spoken in Cangyuan County, Yunnan, China（雲南省滄源佤族自治県). Palauk Wa has AVP withalternative VAP, but the basic order cannot be clearly
established. Another is Pnar of the Khasic group in thestate of Meghalaya in Assam. Unlike the standard
Khasi of Type A4, the basic word order of Pnar is verbinitial VAP, although AVP is also possible.
(MINEGISHI Makoto, SHIMIZU Masaaki)

1. Major split in geographic distribution between
mainland Southeast Asia and eastern India
All Austroasiatic languages are nominativeaccusative (AS/P) in their case-marking patterns. They
are classified into two major groups―one in mainland
Southeast Asia, the other in east India―based on theuse of markers denoting core cases such as subject andobject in transitive sentences.
While the languages in Southeast Asia have no casemarkers and thus are Type A4, those on the Indian
subcontinent and Malay Peninsula have head-marking
clitics or pronouns denoting animate subjects and/or
objects attached to transitive verbs and thus are Type
A2. Types A4 and A2 have the respective subtypes A4v
and A2v regarding basic word order.
Type A4: No marking with basic verb-medial word
order AVP
Subtype A4v: No marking with basic verb-initial word
order alternating with verb-medial word orderType A2: Head marking with basic verb-final word
order APVType A2v: Head marking with basic verb-initial word
order VPA
2. Geographical distribution
Type A4 with transitive AVP order prevails in
mainland Southeast Asia. The Monic, Pearic, Bahnaric,
Katuic, Khmuic, Mangic, and Palaungic subgroups of
Mon-Khmer languages are of this type. It should be
noted, however, that languages may vary in theirintransitive word order. For example, Khmer has both
SV and VS patterns. According to Ueda (2020), the VSorder is favored in case it denotes an implicit result after
the preceding context expresses some kind of cause,
although native Khmer speakers do not observe clear
semantic differences between SV and VS sentences.
Type A2 with transitive APV order dominates on the
Indian subcontinent, where people speak the Munda
subfamily of Austroasiatic languages, such as Mundari,Santali, and Kharia mostly in the state of Jharkhand;
Sora in the state of Odisha; and Korku in the state ofMaharashtra in East India. They are head-marking
languages with no case marker attached to the agent or
patient argument, but clitics denoting the agent andpatient follow the verb in case they are animate. The

20

Figure 1: Grammatical Relations in Austroasiatic

21

Grammatical Relations in Austronesianlanguages. In double-marking languages, coreargument nouns take noun/case markers, and theirgrammaticalrole(subject/object/oblique)aredetermined with respect to the verb form in most of thelanguages. They are analyzed to fall in either type G31 with nominative-accusative alignment or type G3-2
with ergative-absolutive alignment. In no-marking
languages, which are found in Sumatra and Java islands
and Eastern Indonesia, word order is often employed toshow grammatical relations. They are categorized
either as type G4-1 (nominative-accusative alignment)or type G4-2 (ergative-absolutive alignment).
Researchers on Formosan and Philippine languages
as well as on Philippine-type languages in Sulawesi andKalimantan generally consider that those languages are
ergative-absolutive alignment (type G3-2). Rukai in
Taiwan, Muna, Bantik, Talaud in Sulawesi, and Kelabit
in Kalimantan are the exception to this since they are
analyzed as nominative-accusative (type G3-1). Nomarking nominative-accusative languages are foundamong languages of Sumatra, Java and Eastern
Indonesia, which fall in type G3-1 or G4-1. Split of casemarking on subject (type C3) is not very common
although Acehnese in northern Sumatra is claimed to
exhibit it (Durie 1985). Äiwoo is the only language
within the scope of this paper which exhibit different
marking on A, S and P (Type D1, NÆSS 2015).
(UTSUMI Atsuko)

1.

Classification
Austronesian languages exhibit a variety ofgrammatical relations in terms of case marking andalignment of nominal arguments. The level of verbal
morphology varies from very rich ones in Philippine
languages to relatively simple ones in Malayic andsome of Oceanic languages. Nevertheless, mostlanguages do exhibit verbal morphology related togrammatical voice, which, in most languages,
correlates word order or marking on the nouns thatserve as core arguments.
There have been extensive discussions on morphosyntactic alignment of many Austronesian languages
because it is not easy to decide what is the ‘basic’transitive construction, which is supposed to involvethe simplest verb form. In many languages in Taiwan,
Philippines and Indonesia, however, a verb might takeequally complex form in two or more grammaticalvoices thus it makes arguable which is the ‘most basic’transitive verb. These languages are often called‘symmetrical voice language’ (cf. Himmelmann 2005).
There has been a considerable amount of discussion
whether such a language is an accusative or an ergative.
This study concludes that these symmetrical voice
languages are categorized into ‘other patterns’. The
subtypes are posited so as to reflect researchers’
analyses on the grammatical alignment, which quite
often involve perspectives on syntactic and discourse
ergativity.
C3: S1/S2 (Split of S) Double-marking
D1: A/S/P (Different marking on A, S and P),
Dependent-marking
G3-1: Symmetrical voice, Double-marking, Analyzed
as AS/P (Nominative-accusative alignment)
G3-2: Symmetrical voice, Double-marking, Analyzed
as A/SP (Ergative-Absolutive alighnment)
G4-1: Symmetrical voice, No marking, Analyzed as
AS/P (Nominative-accusative alighnment)
G4-2: Symmetrical voice, No marking, Analyzed as
A/SP (Ergative-Absolutive alighnment)
2.

Distribution
Formosan (Taiwan), Philippine languages as well as
Indonesian languages exhibit symmetrical voicealternation, and they fall in type G. Those languages arelargely divided into double-marking and no-marking

22L egends
Type C 3
Type D1
Type G3-1
Type G3-2
Type G4-1
Type G4-2

Figure 1: Taiwan

Figure 2: Philippines

Figure 3: Indonesia

Figure 4: Papua and Pacific Islands

23Grammatical Relations in Tungusic
1) a Purta-va-s min-du bu:kel.
1. Classification

knife-ACCD-2SG.POSS I-DAT give-2SG.IMPAll Tungusic languages have SOV, AN, the'Give me you knife.'

agglutinative word-formation and also postpositions as(Nedjalkov 1997: 148)

the typological characters. It could be said that only theb D'av-ja-v o:kal. (ibid. :147)

verb-predicate final position in sentences is highly

boat-ACCIN-1SG.POSS make-2SG.IMP

strict, so the other components of the sentence can be'Make a boat for me.'omitted.

c

All Tungusic languages

have the apparent

Bi oro-r-vi etejet-che-m. (ibid. :144)
I reindeer-PL-PREFL guard-PRS-1SG

accusative form for P, and the zero form is mainly used

'I guard my reindeer.'

for subject, that is A and S. Namely all Tungusic

In Ewen (A3-3) the case markers' distribution islanguages are classified in one type AS/P, and verbs

very similar to Evenki, only the term Designative caseconjugate with the person and number of subject A and(DES) in Ewen corresponds to Indefinite Accusative inS except in Sibe.

Evenki. On the other hand, the functions between them

A3: the others

vary in a few such as in 2) where Designative is used

A1: Sibe

for the beneficial subject.

In addition, A3 is subclassified into 3 subtypes2) Kuma-ŋ-ga-ku hie-n.

according to how many case forms for P they have, andseal-AL.POS-DES-1SG appear-NFUT:3SG

how these forms are used.

'A seal appeared for me (that is, to my benefit)'

Dependent

Head

A

S

P

V

A3-1

NOM.

NOM.

ACC.

AS

A3-2

NOM

NOM.

A3-3

NOM.

NOM.

A1/E4

NOM.

NOM.

ACCD.

(Malchukov 1995: 10)
A1/E4 pattern resembles to Mongolic and Turkic
languages.

AS

ACCIN.
ACC.

2. Geographical distribution and interpretation
It is very clear that Tungusic has only one type AS/P,

AS

DES.
NOM.

but also has a few forms for P, which is being lost in
China. In Hezhe Accusative form has remained, and

φ

ACC.

Sibe has got the differentiation between zero

A3-1: Hezhe?

(Nominative) and Accusative forms by the languages

A3-2: Evenki, Negidal, Orochon, Ewenke

contact.
(MATSUMOTO Ryo)

A3-3: Ewen, Orochi, Udege, Nanay, Ulich, Uilta
Evenki (3A-2) have 2 accusative forms according
to the definiteness, Definite-Accusative (ACCD) and
Indefinite Accusative (ACCIN).
Table 1: Case markers in Evenki

simplePOSS 'my'

PREFL 'own'

NOM

-φ

-v

ACCD

-va

-va-v

-vi

ACCIN

-ja

-ja-v

-ja-vi24

Figure 1: Grammatical Relations in Tungusic

25

Grammatical Relations in Uralic

Table 1: Classification of Uralic

1. Classification
Uralic has typologically SVO (in the west) or SOV(in the east), AN word order and the agglutinative word
formation. The grammatical relations are marked by thecase suffixes.
All Uralic languages basically belong toNominative-Accusative type and verbs conjugate with
Subject (A3), which can be subgrouped by thefollowing points: how to mark P in Dependent-marking
a: one form for P
b: over 2 forms for P by the definiteness, aspectual
function etc.
 what and how to mark in Head-marking (y1 andy2 are represented in a same mark on the Map)
x: Subject's person and number
y1: Subject's person and number, and Object's number
and definitenessy2: Subject's person and number, and Object's
definitenessy3: Subject's person and number, and Object's number
and definiteness, but no accusative formz: Subject's person and number, and Object's person
and number
Each Uralic languages are classified as below:
A3ax: Komi, Udmurt (Permic), Mari (Mari), Saami
A3bx: Karelia, Veps, Votic, Izhorian, Estonian,
Livonian, Finnish (Balto-Finnic)
A3ay1: Nenets, Enets, Nganasan, Selkup (Samoedic)
A3ay2: HungarianA3ay3: Khanty, Mansi (Ob-Ugric)A3az: Moksha, Erzya (Mordvinic)
According to the grouping system of our project,these types are symbolized as follows:
A3ax → A3-1
A3bx → A3-1d
A3ay1/2, A3az → A3-2
A3ay3 → A3-2/A2

A

Dependent
S
P

Head
V
AS

A3ax

NOM.

NOM.

ACC.

A3bx

NOM

NOM.

A3ay
A3az

NOM.

NOM.

ACC.~NOM.

NOM.

NOM.

GEN.

ACC.~GEN.
PART.

AS
AS/P1
AS/P2

b. En osta kirjaa.
NEG_1SG buy_PART book_SG.PART'I won't buy a book.'c. Ostin kirijoja.
buy_PST.1SG book_PL.PART'I bought some books.'
d. Osta kirja!
buy_IMP.2SG book_SG.NOM'Buy a book!'(White 2008: 278)
A3-2/A2, that is Khanty and Mansi, has Accusative
form only in the pronoun. Examples from Khanty:2) a. a:śi pox-əl xo:t-əl-na wa:n-sə-lli
father son-3SG house-3SG-LOC see-PST-SG/3SG'The father saw his son in his house.'b. ma naŋ-e:n wa:n-s-e:m.
I you-ACC see-PST-SG/1SG'I saw you.'(Nikolaeva 1999: 65, 66)
2. Geographical distribution and interpretation
It could be divided in 3 areas. In the east Samojedic
and Ugric, in the central Permic, and in the west Finnic.
Only Mordvinic in the south is rather different fromothers.
West
CentralEast
Dependent
b >
a
a
Head
x
x <
y
We can say that there is tendency that the system of
the dependent (noun) marking becomes more
complicated in the west, and that of head (verb)
marking becomes more complicate in the east.
(MATSUMOTO Ryo)

Type A3-1 is very simple type. In type A3-1d, forexample in Finnish in (1), kirja 'book' has some forms
although they stand for the object, which express thedefiniteness, imperfectivity and the object of theimperative mood.
1) a. Ostan kirjan.
buy_PRS.1SG book-SG.GEN'I'll buy a book.'

26

Figure 1: Grammatical Relations in Uralic27

Grammatical Relations in Mongolic andTurkicTurkish:Kurt-lar-Øwolf PL

1. Classification
The Mongolic and Turkic languages are all
agglutinative in morphology with the basic word orderof SOV in syntax. Cases are marked with postpositions.
In a simple sentence, the agent/subject and the patient
are treated differently in terms of case marking, andtherefore the languages belong to the nominativeaccusative type in morpho-syntactic alignment.
Most Turkic languages except Salar and Sarïg
Yughur and some Mongolic languages such as Moghol,
Oirad, Kalmyk, Buryad, Dagur and Khamnigan are
double-marking, indicating person and number of anagent/subject both in the argument and in the verb. E.g.,
Buryad:Bīa‘I read a book.’
In all Mongolic and Turkic languages, case ismanifested in arguments. In simple sentences, nouns
used as an agent/subject receive zero case marking andthose used as a patient either take or do not takeaccusative case marking.
The addition of theaccusative suffix to a noun is conditioned by various
factors (see, for instance, works of K. Hashimoto, M.
Mizuno, Y. Yamakoshi, etc. for Mongolian and Buryad,
and those of Y. Kuribayashi, A. Göksel & C. Kerslake,
Y. Şahin, etc. for Turkish). It is a complex matter, but
we can say that definiteness/specificity of the noun
used as a direct object is associated with thephenomenon in all Mongolic and Turkic languages. To
speak roughly, the direct object is marked with anaccusative case marker when it is definite/specific, andwith a zero case marker when it is unspecific. E.g.,

wolf

sheep

eat-PRS‘A wolf eats a sheep.’
Čon-Ø en xoń-īg

id-əw.

wolf

eat-PST

this sheep-ACC

koyun-uye-di-Ø.

word-ACC remember-POSB-NEG-PRES-1SG

2. Geographical distribution and interpretation
All languages show definiteness/specificityconditioned use of an accusative case marker, while
languages with number and person of an agent/subject
in both the argument and the verb are spread except in
the southeastern area ranging from Mongolia to Gansu
Province in China. (Y. Kuribayashi provided theauthor with information about some Turkic languages.)
The languages can be classified into the following two
types:

read-PST-1SG

id-ən.

this sheep-ACC eat-PST-3SG‘I cannot remember a word.’

kitap oku-du-m.

xoń-Ø

bu

wolf

The following is an example of an indefinite but
specific object with the accusative suffix.
Turkish:Bir sözcüğ-ü hatırla-ya-mı-yor-um.

‘I read a book.’

Mongol:Čon-Ø

Kurt-Ø

‘The wolf ate this sheep.’

nom unša-ba-b.

1SG-NOM bookye-r-Ø.
eat-AOR-3SG‘Wolves eat sheep.’

1SG-NOM book read-PST-1SG

Turkish:Ben

koyun-Ø
sheep

Definite/specific object
in accusative case+
Person and numberof agent/subject
in the verb

+

A3d

−

A1d

−

The geographical distribution of the two types may
indicate that the presence or absence of doublemarking is an areal feature rather than a genetic one.
(SAITÔ Yoshio)‘A wolf ate this sheep.’28

Mongolic+ Personal endings− Personal endings

Turkic+ Personal endings− Personal endings

Figure: Personal Endings in Mongolic and Turkic

29Grammatical Relations in South Asia

(ERG: S/P) verbal agreement, whereas those in theeastern half of India, Nepal, and Bangladesh show theaccusative (ACC: S/A) agreement pattern; they areclearly divided into two groups by agreement type. In
addition, in northern Pakistan and eastern Afghanistan,there coexist languages of both types, and some of theminterchange the patterns language-internally depending
on a variety of conditions.
Third, with reference to case marking systems, mostlanguages located in the northern half of South Asia
have an ERG case; on the other hand, none of thelanguages in the south (except the western coast ofIndia) have it. That is, the ERG case is absent in the south.
There are many Dravidian languages in the southernpart of South Asia, where the languages do not have
ERG alignment (see Kodama’s paper on Dravidian).
Therefore, it can be assumed that the lack of an ERG
case in IA (and other minor) languages spoken in thearea is due to language contact with Dravidian.
Alternatively, the lack in Andamanese languages might
be an inherent feature or might be affected by theAustroasiatic languages in the Nicobar Islands (seeMinegishi & Shimizu’s paper on Austroasiatic).
While this is generally true of the case marking ofagents and subjects, the ‘standard’, i.e., specific (oreven definite), referential, and identical patients arequite widely and commonly marked by any case otherthan the absolutive case so that the arguments aremorphologically marked. On the maps, A3 (ACCalignment + ACC agreement) and DX3 (tripartitealignment + ERG or ACC agreement) represent
languages in such situations. In other words, in mostlanguages of South Asia, either nonspecific, nonreferential, or generic patients tend to take no overt casemarking. This is especially true for inanimate patients.
Outside South Asia, all IA languages show the ACC
pattern for grammatical relations. The triggers for
DOM are not common in the languages: definiteness in
Domari, pronoun/noun in Lomavren, and both animacy
and definiteness in Romani.
Fourth, there is a minor case alignment pattern called‘transitive’ shown by some IA and Nuristani languages
in and around the northern border between Afghanistan
and Pakistan. This pattern distinguishes S from A and
P: in Dameli, ai å̄gyem ‘I(DIR) came’, iseg å̄ga ‘he(DIR)
came’, while mū tas yaṇḍám ‘I(OBL) beat him(OBL)’.
Certain Iranian languages are famous for this alignment
pattern (see Iwasaki’s paper on Iranian in the next
volume).
(YOSHIOKA Noboru)

1. Classification
I describe the languages of Indo-Aryan (IA), somesmall language families/branches, and language
isolates in South Asia. Eleven different symbols areused in the maps following the common classificationof grammatical relations used in articles in this volume.
Note that this classification is based on the most‘standard’ sentences.
The numbers of languages classified into each typebased on the presentation of grammatical relations inthis volume are as follows: This paper covers 76
languages, but the total number is higher because alanguage might be classified into several types.
A1:
5
BX3:
19
A2:
21
CX3:
1
A3:
26
DX3:
31 (1)
AX3:
2 (1)
E4:
6
B2:
1 (1)
GX3:
8
B3:
15 (1)The numbers in brackets are the total number ofsymbols not shown on the map. This is because wherea language must be classified into four types even
within its ‘standard’ situations, it is shown as F-class onmap, while where a language is classified into three or
fewer classes, the symbols are overlaid. Thus, there is alanguage shown as F [☆] here, Torwali (in northern
Pakistan). This language has a system of verbal
agreement with a participant in the absolutive case, so
it is classified into four classes: AX3/B2/B3/DX3.
Most of the languages I treat here show split marking.
The triggering factors of such splits are numerous andwide-ranging. They are commonly found in the region
in the following order (see Shirai’s paper in this volume
for trigger symbols and details): d (48) > a (45) > g (36)> f (20) > b (17) > c (9) > e (1).
2. Geographical distribution and interpretation
I now point out four major clear areal features.
First, there are languages with perfect circles on theislands. These are Andaman languages, Sinhala (IA; Sri
Lanka), and Vedda (isolate; Sri Lanka). These
languages commonly have the E4 pattern, which is apattern lacking both case marking and agreement.
There is one more language with the E4 pattern in far
inland India: Nihali (isolate; central India).
Second, regarding agreement systems, the languages
in Pakistan and the western half of India have ergative30

Figure 1: Types of how to show grammatical relations in Indo-Aryan, Nuristani (both in navy blue),
Andamanese, and language isolates (those in black)

Figure 2: Types of Indo-Aryan languages outside South Asia

31

Grammatical Relations in Dravidian

Gadaba. and Gondi dialects spoken in Orissa. All thethree languages of so called North Dravidian subgroup,
each with more than 100,000 (Malto) or 1,000,000
speakers (Brahui, Kurux), but isolated from othersubgroups, seem to have come through some degree ofthe Accusative/Dative merger. It might be safely
assumed that the merger of the two cases is a contact
induced change, resulting from extensive bilingualismwith New Indo-Aryan or New Iranian The case system
has been susceptible to contact induced changes.
With this in view, the uniformity of Dravidian inregard to the AS/P alignment presented on this map
appears to be extraordinary. Split A/SP alignment
prevalent in western New Indo-Aryan languages such
as Marathi and Hindi as well as New Iranian languages
such as Balochi does not seem to have influenced
minority languages such as Kolami, Naiki, Gondi and
Brahui. It might be simply that dialect data with A/SPalignment have escaped my attention. Or it may be that
A-S-P alignment is more resistant to borrowing than
individual cases.
(KODAMA Nozomi)

1. Classification
In this map, all the languages are classified as AS/Palignment type. In all the languages the AS/P alignment
is morphologically coded in the case system, and, witha single exception of Malayalam, finite verb forms
agreeing with the A or S argument.
A minor split is observed in all the languages. The
coding of inanimate P in the oblique case is reported to
be optional in most languages, an option for definite orat least specific inanimate nouns. Otherwise, thenominative case covers A, S and P for inanimate nouns
and pronouns.
S and A are coded in the nominative as the canonicalsubject which triggers agreement in the finite verb,
except Malayalam. In most languages, some stative andchange-of-state predicates such as possessives andverbs of emotion code S and A in an oblique case, or thedative if available. If P of those verbs are coded in thenominative, it may trigger the agreement. Otherwise thefinite verb is impersonal and remains in the default
form, usually the third person neuter.
Apart from Malayalam, another subclass ischaracterized by the head marking of P (or other nonS/A argument) in the first or second person, which is ashared innovation in Kui-Kuvi and Pengo-Manda
subgroups of South Central Dravidian. Sanford Steever(1993) showed that this innovation is a result of fusionand subsequent grammaticalization of the benefactive
construction V-tar for the beneficiary in the first or
second person.
Brahui codes pronominal P in the cliticized pronoun
following the host verb like Balochi, the dominantlanguage in the area where Brahui is spoken.
The red color of the symbols indicates a distinction
between the Accusative and the Dative cases, as isreconstructed for Proto-Dravidian. Green symbols
indicate distinct case forms which are largely
interchangeable between the two cases. Blue symbols
are for the languages and dialects without theaccusative/dative distinction, as is the case with NewIndo-Aryan and New Iranian languages.
2. Geographical distribution and interpretation
Merger of the Accusative and the Dative is observedin languages and dialects with speaker populations ofrelatively small size, less than 50,000 in Central andSouth Central Dravidian, such as Pengo, Manda, Parji,

32

Head-marking of AS
A3(A2ad): with the Accusative distinct from the Dative
A3(A2ad): with a general Obliq ue
A3(A2ad): with the Accusative overlapping the Dative
Head-marking of AS and P
A3(A2ad): with the Accusative distinct from the Dative
A3(A2ad): with a general Obliq ue
No Head-marking
A1
Figure 1: Grammatical Relations in Dravidian33

Grammatical Relations in Semitic

neutral word order in Soqotri is VSO.
Soqotri: (Kogan&Bulakh 2019: 304)
følˠos ʕag ʔoben be-maʕval. ‘A man broke up a stone
with a hammer.’ [broke man stone INS-hammer]
Uzbekistan Ar. dialect, in contact with Turkic andIranian languages, has SOV order and both S isindicated by conjugation of V (A3), and P by a prefix
i- and V by a pronominal suffix referencing to P (A1).
Uzbekistan Ar.:
(Jastrow 2005: 136)i-xaṭīb dʒaːbt-u. ‘She brought the mollah,’[ACC-mollah brought.3rd.f.sg.-him]
2-3. A4
Some Arabic peripheral dialects, in which the
conjugation has lost, are A4.
Juba Ar. (Nakao 2017:194)
ána dúgu ɲerekûk. ‘I hit a/the child.’ [I hit child]Nubi in Kenya (Heine1982:29)
mária ááinú nyerekú. ‘the woman saw the child’[woman saw child]In Çukurova Ar. (south Turky, adjacent to Syria)
the O marking is highly generalised.
Çukurova Ar. (Procházka 2002: 158)
illēli ʃift-a la-Faːṭma. ‘Today I saw Fatima.’[Today saw.1st.sg.-her DAT-Fatima]
2-3. B2
In North-Eastern Neo-Aramaic, in the boarderregion between Turkey, Iraq and Iran, both AS and P
are marked on V by suffix.
Jewish Sanandaj: (Khan 2010: 1)
baxt-ăke barux-ăwal-i garš-á-lu.
‘The woman pulls my friends.’[woman-the friend-PL-my pull-NOM.3FS-DAT.3PL.]
2-4. E4
Ethiopian languages have SOV order. V agrees
with S but O is not marked. In Amharic, when P is
definite, P and V are marked, P by suffix -n and V by apersonal pronominal suffix.
Amharic: (Wakasa 2018:40)
lədʒu-n əndet agäɲɲäʃ-əu. ‘how did you find her?’[child-ACC how found-her]
In Tigrinya V is not marked.
Tigrinya: (/wiki/tigrinya_language, 21.3.28 )ḥagʷäs nǝ-’almaz räxibuwwa ‘Hagos met Almaz’[Hagos ACC- Almaz met]

1. Classification of Grammatical relations
Semitic languages are, in general, Nominativeaccusative type. And most of them have SVO word
order, although Ethiopian Semitic and some peripheral
Arabic dialects have SOV order. The Grammatical
relations of Semitic are classified as follows.
A3/A4: SVO. A S is indicated on V by the conjugation(A3). P is indicated by word order (A4).
A3/A1: SOV. AS is indicated on V by the conjugation(A3). P is indicated on V by a suffix(A1).
A4: SVO. V has no conjugation.
B2: SOV. A, S and P are both marked on V.
E4: SOV. Neither P nor V are marked
2. Geographical distribution and interpretation
2-1. A3/A4
A3/A4 is the most widely spread type in Semitic
except Ethiopian. Most of Arabic dialects are A3/A4.
Egyptian Ar.: haːni ʃaːf meħammed.
‘Hani saw Muhammad.’[Hani saw.3rd.m.sg. Muhammad]
In Syrian Ar., a core dialect, when P is a person, P and
V may be marked, P by a preposition and V by apersonal pronominal suffix referencing to P.
Syrian Ar.: (Brustad 2000: 354)
ʃuft-u la mħammad. ‘I saw Muhammad.’[saw.3rd.m.sg.-him DAT Muhammad]
2-2. A3/A1
In Cypriot and Maltese, P is marked by the DAT
preposition, when P is definite in Cypriot, and when P
is a person in Maltese. In Maltese it maybe because of
the contact with the Romance languages.
Cypriot Ar. (Borg 1985: 138)
kífta rkáʕat l-óxtak ‘why did you hit your sister’[why hit.PST.2SG DAT sister-your]
Maltese (Borg 1997: 277)
Rat li t-tifel ta hu-k. ‘She saw your brother’s son.’[saw.3rd.f.sg. DAT the-boy of brother-your]Northwest Semitic languages also have SVO word
order. In Hebrew, P is marked by a preposition et when
P is definite.
Modern Hebrew
ani kore et ha-sefer. ‘I read the book’.
[I read.m.sg. ACC the- book]
South Arabian languages have SVO order with nomarking on P. There is also the observation that the(NAGATO Youichi)

34

Figure 1: Grammatical Relations in Semitic

35

Grammatical Relations in Nilo-Saharan

Types A1, A2, A3 and A4 represent the simplest
systems found among Nilo-Saharan (although further
in-depth descriptive studies may reveal that they are
more complex). A1 is extremely rare (only Chabu,
probably a language isolate), but A2, A3 and A4 arewidely distributed. All A3 languages have unmarked
nominative and marked accusative, except for Sinyar(Central Sudanic) with marked nominative plus
marginal accusative for non-common nouns while mostCentral Sudanic are devoid of case marking. Most A4
languages have <A V P> order although Deiga has <V
A P> and Avokaya (Central Sudanic) use both <A V P>
and <A P V> according to the tense-aspect. Some A4
languages may have optional AS/P type cross-reference(under certain conditions).
Type G1 is based on Heath (2007)’s analysis of na in
Songhay languages as a ‘bidirectional’ case marking,which appears only between A and P <A na P V> but
not in intransitive clauses <S V>. The slot for na
between A and P is usually filled with modality, aspect
and negation markers, but na is a semantically empty
morpheme that only codes the boundary of A and P. As
such, this type would otherwise be categorized as A4.
AX3, BX3 and DX3 types combine two differentalignment systems. Recent studies have revealed thatmany Nubian languages and Nyimang have accusative
case marking in addition to AS/P person and A/SP
number cross-references (AX3), Kanuri (Saharan) has
tripartite case marking and AS/P type cross-reference(BX3) and Beria and Dazaga (Saharan) have A/SPcase(-cum-focus) marking and S1/S2 (active/inactive)
cross-reference (DX3).
Types A1/A4e, A2/A3e and A3/A4e represent a typeof marked nominative system commonly found among
East African Nilo-Saharan, where the nominative caseis assigned only to ‘non-topic (i.e., postverbal) subjects’(NTS). For example, Akie (Southern Nilotic) and Murle(Surmic) have <V A/S-NOM (P)> and <A/S V (P)>
(A1/A4e), Tirma (Surmic) and Turkana (Eastern
Nilotic) has <(P/X) V-A/S A/S-NOM> and <A/S V-A/S(P)> (A2/A3e) where the word order does not affect theverbal form. On the other hand, Dinka (Western
Nilotic) and Berta have <A/S V P/X> and <P/X V.NTS
A/S.NOM> (A3/A4e) where the verbal form changes
according to word order, superficially resembling the‘Philippine-type’ pivot systems. The preverbal slot
usually codes the syntactic topic/focus or adverbial
clause markers. This feature, dubbed ‘no case before
the verb’ in the literature, has been attested across the

1. Classification
On this map, Nilo-Saharan languages are classified asconsisting of 18 types:
Simple patterns
A1
AS/P dependent-marking
A2
AS/P head-marking
A3
AS/P double-marking
A4
AS/P no-marking(including optional head-marking)G1‘bidirectional’ dependent-marking
Complex double-marking patterns
AX3
AS/P double-marking
and A/SP head-marking
BX3
A/SP dependent-marking (optional)
and S1/S2 head-marking
DX3
A/S/P head-marking (optional)
and AS/P dependent-marking‘No case before the verb’ split patterns
A1/A4e AS/P dependent-marking (postverbal A/S)
and AS/P no-marking (preverbal A/S)
A2/A3e AS/P double-marking (postverbal A/S)
and AS/P head-marking (preverbal A/S)
A3/A4e AS/P double-marking (postverbal A/S)
and AS/P no-marking (preverbal A/S)
A4/B3e AS/P double-marking (postverbal A/S)
and AS/P no-marking (preverbal A/S)
F
complex split
The other major split patterns
A1/A4g limited use of case markers
A1/E1g AS/P, neutralized in certain clause types
A2/B2d indefinite patient as anti-passive adjunctA3/BX3c AS/P double-marking (topic A/S)
and A/SP double-marking (non-topic A)
2. Geographical distribution and interpretation
Nilo-Saharan languages exhibit great diversity andcomplexity of the morphosyntactic systems for coding
grammatical relations, which made them the main
phylum of African languages extensively surveyed by
König (2008) and thereafter has been the theme of anever-increasing number of typological studies. While
the majority of Nilo-Saharan has an AS/P system, asignificant number of languages exhibit a partial
ergative, active, tripartite or neutral system combinedwith another one. To simplify our argument, here weomit the splits based on ‘optional’ case marking and thenoun/pronoun split (cf. Dimmendaal 2010).

36

origin. On the other hand, Fur and Kunama share theaccusative(-cum-dative) marker -si, but their historical
relationship remains understudied. There is a debate
over the historical relationship of the ergative/
nominative/active/genitive markers -ye/-e/-i found in
A1/A4e, A2/A3e, A4/B3e, BX3, DX3 and F (Nilotic,
Surmic, Eastern Jebel, Saharan and possibly Nobiin or
Old Nubian), but it remains unclear (cf. Ehret 2001;
König 2008; Dimmendaal 2014; Dimmendaal et al.
2019). Also note that some Afroasiatic (Cushitic andOmotic) languages have the nominative/genitivemarker -i. Some Type A1/A4e languages, i.e., Nilotic,
Surmic and Berta code the marked nominative caseonly or mainly by tone. This feature is also attested insome Cushitic and Omotic languages, such as Somali
and thus it could be an areal feature (König 2008).

Nilo-Saharan, Afroasiatic and Niger-Congo phyla(König 2008). Among this type, Tennet (Surmic) is the
only language that marks the preverbal topic subject by
the nominative case, although the preverbal subject
focalized by clefting is unmarked.
Type A4/B3e is attested only by Gaam (Eastern
Jebel), which has <S V> vs. <A V P> and <P V-NTS AERG> like A3/A4e, but, according to Stirz (2014), S
never occurs postverbally. Although Uduk (Koman) has
almost the same distribution, it can be categorized as
A1/A4e since it allows postverbal S when a certain
dependent clause marker fills the preverbal slot (Killian2015).
Type F represents the complex systems represented
by Northern Lwo (Western Nilotic). For example, Päri
has <S V> vs. <P V A-NOM>, in addition to <A P V-A>,<A V-FOC P> (FOC: focus the postverbal element), <P
V-FOC A-NOM> and <A V-AP (PREP P)> (AP:
antipassive; P is coded as an adjunct), etc. Like Uduk,
these languages have postverbal S only in somemarginal (e.g., dependent) clauses or sentence types.
Uduk and Type F languages may as well be labelled‘(split) ergative’ due to these facts. As for Anywa,
closely related to Päri, Reh (1996) alternatively
describes it as a postverbal ‘definite’ (subject) marker,
but here we simply analyze it as a marked nominative.
The other types of major split include what follows:
Type A1/A4g is attested only by Keliko (Central
Sudanic) which has nominative and accusative casemarkers only in some specific (e.g., relative) clauses.
Type A1/E1g is attested only by Ik (Kuliak), whose
nominative, accusative and oblique cases arefunctionally neutralized in certain clause types (inparallel with languages like Classical Arabic). Type
A2/B2d is attested by Jumjum and Mabaan (Southern
Burun, Western Nilotic), where definite P is coded byergative word order <P V A> (vs. <S V>), but indefinite
P is coded as a (non-marked) adjunct of an antipassive
clause <A V-AP (P)>. Type A3/BX3c is attested only by
Majang (Surmic), where sentences with non-topic
subjects <V-A A-ERG P> (and <V-S S>) have A/SP casemarking and AS/P cross-reference but sentences with
topicalized subjects <A-NOM V-A P> (and <V-S SNOM>) have AS/P double-marking. The ergative andnominative markers in Majang, however, only differ intone.
Historically, the accusative markers -k(a)/-g(a)/-(k)ofound in Types A3, AX3, BX3 and DX3 (plus A1, i.e.,
Chabu, a possible language isolate) may share the same

(NAKAO Shuichiro)

37

Figure 1: Grammatical Relations in Nilo-Saharan
A1
A1/A4eA1/A4g
A1/E1g
A2
A2/A3eA2/B2dA3
A3/A4eA3/BX 3
AX 3
A4
A4/B3
BX 3
DX 3
F
G1

Figure 2: Nilo-Saharan in and around South Sudan

38

Grammatical Relations in Niger-CongoParameter 1 (P1): Structural synthesis
Synthetic vs. Synthetic-minus-OM vs.
Analytic-plus-OM vs. Analytic
Parameter-2 (P2): Topic sensitivity of SM
Subject prominent, vs. Topic prominentParameter-3 (P3): OM plurality and order restriction
Presence vs. Absence of external restrictions to
object marking

1. Classification
As is widely accepted in the literature, a generaltendency of African languages is that the grammatical
relations (GR) such as the subject and the object tend
not to be expressed through case marking morphology.
This especially applies to the Niger-Congo phylum
including Bantu languages (cf. Creissels 2000, Van der
Wal 2015). It is also well known that while western
Niger-Congo languages, including western Bantu
languages (especially zones A and B in Guthrie’s(1967–71) classification), tend to have analytic
morphology, synthetic morphology is the norm of themost (non-western) Bantu languages. Reflecting on
the structural tendencies, case marking patterns in
Niger-Congo languages are generally classified into
two categories, namely i) no marking in analytic
languages, and ii) head marking in synthetic languages,
as illustrated in (1) from Kisi and (2) from Swahili,
respectively.
(1) Kisi [Atlantic; Southern Mel]sàà sáà sàá
Saa grab sheep‘Saa grabs the sheep’ (Tucker-Childs 1995:43)(2) Swahili [Benue-Congo; Bantu E]
sisi
tu-li-m̩-on-a
PRON1PL SM1PL-PST-OM1-see-IND‘We saw him/her’

Based
on
the
parameters,thepossible
subcategorizations of GR marking in Niger-Congo areclassified as follows.
A4: No marking (Analytic) [14 languages]
A4’: Only Object can be head-marked(Analytic [+OM]) [2]A2’: Only Subject can be head-marked(Synthetic [−OM]) [7]A2: Head marking (Synthetic) [57]A2c: Topic-sensitive SM (Synthetic) [12]A2’c: Topic-sensitive SM (Synthetic [−OM]) [0]A2x: Object marking with external restrictions(Synthetic) [27]A4’x: Object marking with external restrictions(Analytic [+OM]) [0]2. Geographical distribution and interpretation
Concerning P1, our survey confirms the generaltendency, i.e. Analytic (A4) in the west (including
western Bantu languages) vs. Synthetic in the Bantu
area. While the two intermediate types are few,
Synthetic-minus-OM type (A2’) distributes acrossdifferent sub-branches including western Bantu,
non-Bantu Benue-Congo and non-Benue-Congo
Volta-Congo.
In terms of topic sensitivity of subject markers,
while the subject-prominent type appears to be theoverall majority in the Bantu area, the topic-prominent
type is also widely distributed. As suggested in
Meeussen (1967: 120), topic agreement could possibly
be reconstructed in Proto Bantu.
What may be striking about the distribution of types
pertaining to external factors affecting object marking
regularities is the high variability of different types,
especially in the eastern Bantu area. This may suggest
that, at least in Bantu, object marking can be regarded
synchronically as well as diachronically as a fluid
morphosyntactic operation.
(SHINAGAWA Daisuke & KOMORI Junko)

Moreover, as a typical head marking type, subject andobject agreement are marked in designated slots of themorphological template of the verb (glossed as SM
and OM in (2)). While the markers agree in person,
number and the noun class of referent nominals, they
do not indicate case distinction. This makes the(positional marking of) nominative-accusative theonly possible case alignment pattern, i.e., the typologyof GR marking in Niger-Congo can be quite simple
anduniform.
However,more
fine-grainedclassifications can be provided when we include
intermediate types in the synthetic–analytic scale, as
well as relevant features that may affect the regularityof the system of GR marking. The following threeparameters have been constructed to examine theinternal variety of GR expressions in Niger-Congo.

39

A4:
A4’ :
A2’ :
A2:
A2c:
A2x:

No marking (Analytic)
Object can be head-marked (Analytic [ + OM] )Subject can be head-marked (Synthetic [ OM] )Head marking (Synthetic)
Topic-sensitive SM (Synthetic)
Object marking with external restrictions (Synthetic)[ 14 languages]
[ 2]
[7 ]
[5 7 ][7 ][ 22]

A2c/x: Topic-sensitive SM + Object marking with external restrictions (Synthetic) [ 5 ]Figure 1: Grammatical Relations in Niger-C ongo

40

Grammatical Relations in the Kalahari Basin area
2. Geographical distribution and interpretation
As shown in Figure 1, non-Khoe-Kwadi languages
are basically Type A4 (AS/P, no-marking) languages,
except for the West and East ǃXoon languages, in which
the verbs index the object (Witzlack-Makarevich andNakagawa, 2019: 402). At this stage, it is not clear fromthe data available to us whether this feature of !Xoon iscontact-induced.
On the other hand, languages in the Khoe-Kwadi
family show a different tendency from the other two
families. Except for the Naro (Type A4) language,
Khoe-Kwadi languages morphologically display thefollowing case markings: Type A1 (AS/P, dependentmarking, observed in five languages in Botswana,
namely, Xade and Khute varieties of Gǀui, Gǁana, Tshila
and Tsʼixa); and Type A2 (AS/P, head-marking, e.g.,Standard Khoekhoe and ǁAni).
(KIMURA Kimihiko, NAKAGAWA Hirosi)

1. Classification
Figure 1 shows the geographical distribution of casemarking in the languages of the Kalahari Basin area
(KBA).
Generally, the nominative-accusative system (orpossibly, neutral system for some languages) can be
regarded as the dominant alignment type of KBA
languages. The 13 sample languages show three typesof case marking (A1, A2, and A4 below).
A1: AS/P, Dependent-marking
A2: AS/P, Head-marking
A4: AS/P, No-marking
NB: In Type A4 languages, nominative-accusativealignment is basically observed in the word order,
though with intricate language-specific variations thatare beyond the scope of this paper.

Tuu (orange)
A2: Head-marking
A4: No marking (cf. word order)

Kx’a (brown)
A4: No marking (cf. word order)

Khoe-Kwadi (blue)
A1: Dependent-marking
A2: Head-marking
A4: No marking (cf. word order)

Figure 1: The geographical distribution of case marking types in KBA

41

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53Geolinguistic analysis of ‘hand’, ‘wind’, and ‘moon’ in Tibetic
languages in sMarkhams, mDzogong, and rDzayul counties
Hiroyuki SuzukiaSonam WangmobTsering Samdrupca

Fudan University
Universität Bonnc
SOAS, University of Londonb

Abstract
This article examines geolinguistic features of the sound and word forms of ‘hand’, ‘wind’, and‘moon’ in Tibetic languages spoken in three counties at the southeast corner of Tibet
Autonomous Region, namely sMarkhams, mDzogong, and rDzayul. The three lexical items‘hand’, ‘wind’, and ‘moon’ contain ‘l’-sound in their forms in Literary Tibetan roots—lag, rlung,and zla, respectively. Hence, the article focuses on the sound correspondence of the ‘l’-sound as
well as word forms. The synthetic linguistic map shows that two dialects located at thesouthernmost and westernmost areas of the map have a different type of the given soundcorrespondence.

1

Introduction

This article provides a preliminary geolinguistic study on Tibetic languages spoken in three counties atthe southeast corner of Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR), namely sMarkhams, mDzogong, and rDzayul
counties. These counties belong to the Khams region in the traditional Tibetan geography together withother counties in Chamdo Municipality as well as their adjacent administrative regions—Kandze
Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture of Sichuan Province and Dechen Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture of
Yunnan Province. Geolinguistic studies have been accumulated in the Tibetosphere of Sichuan andYunnan (e.g., Suzuki 2009, 2012, 2013, 2017, 2018). Hence, this article’s data can be easily connectedwith those in the previous studies.
The present topic originates from the issue raised by Suzuki (2020, 2021), discussing the soundcorrespondences of Literary Tibetan (LT) initials l and y with Tibetic languages in Yunnan. Although
we have only limited data available for the study, we elucidate how Tibetic languages spoken in thethree counties are connected with those in Sichuan and Yunnan.
In addition, non-Tibetic Tibeto-Burman languages are also spoken by Tibetans in those counties,
such as Lamo and Larong sMar (Suzuki et al. 2018, 2021; Tashi Nyima & Suzuki 2019; Zhao 2019;
Suzuki & Tashi Nyima 2021). These languages contain many Tibetic loanwords, and we require data of
local Tibetic varieties to investigate lexical borrowing between them. From this perspective, ageolinguistic approach by mapping lexical data is essential.

2

DatasetThe data for this study consist of 23 dialects from sMarkhams, mDzogong, and rDzayul counties as our
first-hand data. Table 1 displays the dialect names and word forms of three lexical items. The
description of segmental sounds follows the framework by Zhu (2010) as well as Suzuki (2016),
including IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) symbols and additional indispensable phonetic
symbols employed in Chinese linguistics. The analysis of suprasegmental sounds follows Kitamura(1977), with a necessary expansion.

54

Table 1: Dataset.
CountyDialect(township/village)sMarkhams sGarthog‘hand’‘wind’‘moon’

ˊlɑʔ pa`ɦlũ^nda ɣɑː

sMarkhams sGarthog/lCanggrongˊlɑː pa`ɦlũˉnda wasMarkhams Rongme/Kharkyangˊlɑʔ pa`ɦluː maˊnda ɣaːsMarkhams Gruparongˊlɑʔ pa

ˉɦlɔ̃ˊnda ɣɛː

sMarkhams Gruparong/sTarkhastengˊlɑʔ pa

ˉɦlɔ̃ˊnda ɣɛː

sMarkhams Zurdoshod/Gadnagshod^lɑ ka

ˉɦlũ

ˊɦdoː

sMarkhams Zurdoshod/bCudponshodˊlɑʔ pa

`ɦlõ

ˉɦdoː

sMarkhams mBumpa

ˊlɑː pa`ɦlũˊnda wasMarkhams gTsangshod

ˊlɑː pa

`ɦlũ

^ndɑː

sMarkhams Byisgrongˊlɑʔ pa

ˉɦlõˊnda ɣɛː

sMarkhams Byisgrong/nDzotsha^lɑʔ pa

ˉɦlũˊnda ɣɛː

sMarkhams Byisgrong/mButshaˊlɑː pa

ˉɦlũ^nda ɣjaː

sMarkhams Byisgrong/sMadpa

ˊlɑː pa

ˉɦlõ

ˊɦdɔː

sMarkhams rMogshod/Agdongˊlɑʔ pa

ˉɦlõˊnda giːsMarkhams Tshwakhalo/lCanglungˊlɑʔ pa`ɦlõˊnda wasMarkhams Tshwakhalo/nJang

ˊlɑː pa

ˉɦlõˊnda giːsMarkhams mChodrten

ˊlɑʔ pa

ˉɦlõˊnda wa

mDzogong

Bulthog/Buramˊlɑʔ pa`ɦlɔˊnda ɦɑ̃

mDzogongbKrayul/Ragsmal

ˊlɑʔ pa

`ɦlɯ̃

ˊndɑː

mDzogong

Wamda/dBuyagˊlɑʔ pa`ɦlõˊɦdza ɣɑːmDzogong

Zhaglingkha/Shesriˊlɑʔ pa

ˉɦlõˊnda wa

mDzogong

Rabchenˊlɑʔ pa`ɦlõˊnda warDzayulTshawarong/rTsela

ˊlɑ̃ ŋgu

`ɦlʉ̃`ɦlə ɦa55

Other than the data in Table 1, we have obtained data of the mGola dialect (mGola Township,rDzayul County). We include this information in our analysis but not on the maps.

3

Observation and analysis

This section provides linguistic maps of three word forms and their analyses. One or two maps are
displayed for each word form. Finally, we provide a synthetic map of the initial sound of the three wordforms to relate the analysis to that provided by Suzuki (2020, 2021).
3.1‘Hand’

The word form for ‘hand’ is divided into two categories: lag pa and lag mgo. The initial consonant of all
the varieties is /l/. As shown in Map 1, the distribution of lag mgo is limited to the single variety spoken
in the southernmost area (the Tshawarong dialect).

Map 1: Distribution of the word form for ‘hand’.
As Table 2 shows, there are slight differences in the pronunciation of the first syllable. Of thedialects, the Gadnagshod has a form /^lɑ ka/. This can be analysed as a change of syllabification of the
final velar consonant /k/ to the following syllable. A potential sound change process is described asfollows: lag pa (LT) : */lɑk pa/ > */lɑk kwa/ > /lɑʔ kwa/ (attested in rGyalthang Tibetan; Suzuki
2018:86-87) > /lɑ ka/. The word form for ‘hand’ in the mGola dialect corresponds to lag pa, with a/l/-initial; hence, it belongs to the majority in Map 1.

56

3.2

‘Wind’

The word form for ‘wind’ is divided into two categories: rlung and rlung ma. The initial consonant of all
the varieties is /l/. As evident in Map 2, the distribution of rlung ma is limited to the single variety
spoken in the central area (the Kharkyang dialect).

Map 2: Distribution of the word form for ‘wind’.
The forms rlung ma (as well as rlung dmar) are widely attested in Yunnan, especially in the westernpart of the Yunnan Tibetosphere (Suzuki 2017). Hence, with regard to the distribution, the form rlung
ma in the Kharkyang dialect is not directly connected to that in Yunnan. A careful examination of themap by Suzuki (2017) revealed that in the northwesternmost part of the Yunnan Tibetosphere, dialects
use a form corresponding to rlung, the single monosyllabic stem. Suzuki (2020) suggests thediscrepancy of these dialects from others spoken to the south, which use rlung ma or rlung dmar.
Additionally, the word form for ‘wind’ in the mGola dialect corresponds to rlung, with a /l/-initial; hence,
it belongs to the majority in Map 2.
As Table 2 shows, there are slight differences in the vowel quality. Of the dialects, notably, theBulthog dialect does not exhibit a nasalised vowel, although it has an oral-nasal contrast in the vocalism.
Map 3 shows the vocalic qualities (focusing on the tongue position) and their distribution.

57

Map 3: Distribution of the vocalic quality of the stem of the word ‘wind’.
Although the LT stem (rlung) contains the u-vowel, the vowel of the rhyme ung does not always
correspond to /u/ in the Tibetic varieties in Khams. Type /u/ is surrounded by Types /o/ and /ɔ/. However,
it is difficult to state that Type /u/ is a recently generated form following the ABA-distribution theory,
although sGarthog, the chief seat of sMarkhams County, can be regarded as the centre of thesMarkhamgang region in the traditional Tibetan geography.
Types /ɯ/ and /ʉ/ are attested only in the Ragsmal and Tshawarong dialects, respectively. Thesetypes are exceptional in the Tibetic varieties in Khams; they are not common to the varieties in Yunnan.
The present dataset reflected in Map 3 is insufficient to point out a relationship between the vocalic
quality and the distribution.
3.3‘Moon’

The word form for ‘moon’ is divided into three categories: zka ba, zla dkar, and a coalescent form of oneof the first two. The initial consonant of the stem has three types: /d/ (Type D), /l/ (Type L), and /dz/
(Type Z). Map 4 shows the distribution of the word form, and Map 5 shows that of the initial consonant.

58

Map 4: Distribution of the word form for ‘moon’.
Both the word forms zla ba and zla dkar are widely attested in Yunnan (Suzuki 2018:114-115).
However, the coalescent form is rare, found only in two varieties. In Map 4, the coalescent form is
attested in five varieties, mainly spoken in the eastern area of the map. Except for the case of the
Ragsmal dialect, the remaining four cases are possibly derived from zla dkar, appearing in thesurrounding dialects.

59Map 5: Distribution of the initial consonant of the word ‘moon’.
Map 5 shows that Type D is the majority in the target area; Type L is only found in the southernmost
place; and Type Z is present only in the westernmost place.
The word form for ‘moon’ in the mGola dialect corresponds to a coalescent form, with a /l/-initial;
hence, it belongs to the minority in Maps 4 and 5. Near the mGola dialect-speaking area, the coalescentform is found in Ragsmal dialect, and the /l/-initial is attested only in the Tshawarong dialect. In thissense, the features of the word form in the mGola dialect are connected to those of surrounding dialects.
3.4

Synthetic map of the initial consonant of the three words

We provide a synthetic map in Map 6. The classification is, consequently, the same as in Map 3. The
essential difference is the symbol specifically identical to that in Suzuki’s (2020) synthetic map of thethree words.

60

Map 6: Synthetic map of the initial consonants.

4

Conclusion

This article reported a geolinguistic analysis of the three word forms ‘hand’, ‘wind’, and ‘moon’ oftwenty-three dialects from sMarkhams, mDzogong, and rDzayul counties of TAR. These three words
are selected as a reference to Suzuki (2020) to examine the sound correspondence of the initialconsonant of LT l-initial series (l-, rl-, and zl-). Consequently, this preliminary study does not provide
any typical geolinguistic interpretations; however, we have an opportunity to connect this result withdata from the surrounding regions.

Acknowledgements
We thank Professor Tshewang Lhamo (Minzu University of China) for providing data of her native
variety mGola Tibetan. This article is part of the results of the two Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Researchfrom JSPS: ‘Investigation of Undocumented Languages in the Eastern Tibetosphere and their
Geolinguistic Research’ (headed by the present author, No. JP17H04774) and ‘Geolinguistic Studies ofChina and Adjacent Multilingual Areas Using High-resolution and Wide-area Maps’ (headed by
Mitsuaki Endo, No. JP18H00670).

61

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Researches in Asian Languages 10, 99-125. URI: http://id.nii.ac.jp/1085/00002195/
Suzuki, H. 2017. Geolinguistic analysis of ‘wind’ in Tibetic languages in the eastern Tibetosphere. Studies in
Asian Geolinguistics IV —Wind—, 27-32. URI: https://publication.aa-ken.jp/sag4_wind_2017.pdf
Suzuki, H. 2018. 100 linguistic maps of the Swadesh word list of Tibetic languages from Yunnan. ResearchInstituteforLanguages
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https://publication.aa-ken.jp/sag_mono3_tibet_yunnan_2018.pdf
Suzuki, H. 2020. Cong diliyuyanxue de jiaodu lai jiang Yunnan Zangyu de lishi fazhan. Zhongguo yuyan dilibijiao yanjiu luntan huiyi lunwenji, 38-48.
Suzuki, H. 2021. Cong diliyuyanxue de jiaodu kan Yunnan Zangyu /l/ ji /j/ de lishi fazhan. In H. Suzuki and M.
Endo
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Zhongguo
yuyan
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Suzuki, H., Sonam Wangmo & Tsering Samdrup. 2021. Lamei, another dialect of Lamo (mDzogong, TAR):
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languages 4: Link languages and archetypes in Tibeto-Burman, 25-69. Institute for Research in Humanities,
Kyoto University. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/2433/263977
Suzuki, H. & Tashi Nyima. 2021. Evidential system of copulative and existential verbs in Lamo. In Y. Nagano &T. Ikeda (eds) Grammatical phenomena of Sino-Tibetan languages 4: Link languages and archetypes in
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Suzuki, H., Tsering Samdrup & Sonam Wangmo. 2018. Contrastive word list of three non-Tibetic languages of
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Tashi Nyima & H. Suzuki. 2019. Newly recognised languages in Chamdo: Geography, culture, history, andlanguage. Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area 42.1, 38-82 doi: https://doi.org/10.1075/ltba.18004.nyi
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62Grammatical relations in Caucasian languages:
Preliminary mapping
Hiroyuki SuzukiaaInstitute of Modern Languages and Linguistics, Fudan University

Abstract
This article arranges data on grammatical relations from previous works on Caucasian languages(Kartvelian, Abkhazo-Adyghean, and Nakho-Dagestanian) as supplementary material for theStudies in Asian and African Geolinguistics project. The languages generally show anergative-marking system for dependent-marking and person(+gender)-indexation forhead-marking. Among the Caucasian languages, Kartuli has a split-ergative system based ontense-aspectual differences as case marking, whereas the verb morphology indicates aperson-indexation system based on the semantic roles S/A/P regardless of the case marking ofeach noun phrase.

1

Introduction

This article provides supplementary data on the Caucasian languages (Kartvelian, Abkhazo-Adyghean,
and Nakho-Dagestanian; see Suzuki 2021 for the location) for the project Studies in Asian and African
Geolinguistics-II (SAAG-2). Basic information on the grammatical relations in the Caucasian languages
is available in several references such as Klimov (1994) and Hewitt (2004). However, only a few
monographs provide an exhaustive paradigm of the grammatical relations in a given language.
Kartuli (Georgian; Kartvelian) exhibits the following case marking split based on verb classes andtense-aspectual differences (Aronson 1989:462; see also Fähnrich 1993; Kojima 2011). Based on
Aronson’s (1989) classification, the verbs fall into four categories: (1) transitive, (2) intransitive fori-prefixed passives and d-prefixed change-of-state verbs, (3) intransitive for activities and (4) emotion.
Table 1 presents a summary of the case marking for Classes 1 and 3:
Table 1: Summary of case marking for Classes 1 and 3 of Kartuli verbs (adapted from Aronson
1989:462).
TA-series
Subject/Agent
Direct object/PatientIndirect object
Present/Futurenominative
dativedativeAoristergativenominative
dativePerfect
dativenominative
dativeFor Class 2, the single argument is nominative, and the indirect object (if necessary) is dative. For
Class 4, the undergoer is dative, and the object is nominative. In summary, Kartuli takes a split-ergative
system, in which the ergative appears only in an aorist-series construction of transitive verbs. In additon,a similar syntactic agreement system has been observed since the period of Old Kartuli (Fähnrich 1994).
Abkhaz (Abkhazo-Adyghean) exhibits the head-marking type for grammatical relations (Klychev& Chkadua 1999a). Nouns have no inflection, while verbs have a highly complex marking system ofmorphology, including a series of markings presenting grammatical relations (Hewitt 2010).
Forker (2020:373-402) describes a complete picture of the agreement system of Sanzhi Dargwa(Nakho-Dagestanian). This language has agreement for number (singular and plural), gender (masculine,
feminine, and neuter), and person (1st, 2nd, and 3rd). In verb morphology, the marking depends on the
TAM forms.

63

2

Dataset and sources

Table 2 lists the sources of data for each language in the maps. See Shirai (this volume) for theclassification of the grammatical relation types. As Table 2 shows, four types are identified:
B1:
Ergative-absolutive pattern + dependent-marking
B2:
Ergative-absolutive pattern + head-marking
B3:
Ergative-absolutive pattern + double-marking
BX3:
Ergative-absolutive pattern + double-marking with a conflict between dependent- andhead-markings
Table 2: Dataset for mapping.
Language
Grammatical
relation types
Kartuli (Georgian)
BX3
Mingrelian
BX3
Laz
BX3
Svan
BX3
Abzhywa (Abkhaz)
B2
T’ap’anta (Abaza)
B2
Ubykh
BX3
Chechen
B1
Ingush
B1
Avar
B3
Andi
B3
Botlikh
B3
GodoberiB3
Akhvakh
B3
KarataB3
Bagvalal
B3
Tindi
B3
ChamalalB3
BezhtaB3
Hunzib
B3
Tsez
B3
HinukhB3
Khvarshi
B3
Lak
BX3
DargwaBX3
Icari Dargwa
B3
Sanzhi Dargwa
BX3
Mehweb
BX3
Lezgi
B1
Tabasaran
BX3
Agul
BX3
Rutul
BX3
Ts’akhur
B1
Archi
B3
Kryz
B3
BudukhB3
Udi
BX3
Khinalug
B3

SourceAronson (1989)
Klimov (1999a)
Klimov (1999b)
Sharadzenidze (1999)
Klychev & Chkadua (1999a) / Hewitt (2010)
Klychev & Chkadua (1999b)
Kumakhov (1999)
Desherieva (1999)
Desheriev & Desherieva (1999) / Guerin (2001)
Alekseev (1999a)
Alekseev (1999b)
Magomedbekova (1999a)
Tatevosov (1999)
Magomedbekova (1999b)
Magomedbekova (1999c)
Lyutikova & Tatevosov (1999) / Kibrik (red.) (2001)
Magomedbekova (1999d)
Magomedova (1999)
Testelets & Khalilov (1999)
van der Berg (1995)
Khalilov (1999)
Khalilov & Isakov (1999)
Testelets (1999)
Khaydakov (1999)
Musaev (1999)
Sumbatova & Mutalov (2003)
Forker (2020)
Ganenkov (2019)
Meylanoba & Sheykhov (1999)
Khanmagomedov (1999)
Alekseev & Suleymanov (1999)
Alekseev (1999c)
Talibov (1999)
Kibrik (1999)
Saadiev (1999)
Sheykhov (1999) / Talibov (2007)
Dzheylanishvili (1999)
Desheriev (1959) / Alekseev (1999d)

64

Because of the limitation of the data, detailed conditions of the splits are not specified in Table 2.
According to Shirai (this volume), the type of Kartuli is classified into BX3-bf (there are splits with verb
classes and TAM), as shown in Table 1; Icari Dargwa shows personal agreement of the verb following
the hierarchy 2 > 1 > 3 (Sumbatova & Mutalov 2003), and hence the type is B3-a. Further details arebeyond the scope of this article.
In many languages that take Type B3, head-marking corresponds to a class of nouns that canfunction as a “subject”, that is, a single argument or agent. Distinctions between the classes vary acrosslanguages.

3

Mapping with ArcGIS online

Map 1 shows the grammatical relations in the Caucasian languages cited in Table 2. Each symbol iscommon to that in SAAG-2, defined by Shirai (this volume), so that we can contrast the data of Map 1with the other languages systematically.

Legend:Map 1: Grammatical relations in the Caucasian languages.
Map 1 shows that the types of grammatical relations in the three language families vary. Kartvelian
languages exhibit Type BX3, which is widely attested in the Caucasus. Then, Type B2 is dominant in
Abkhazo-Adyghean languages, whereas Type B3 is prominent in Nakho-Dagestanian languages, ofwhich Nakh languages (Chechen and Ingush) exhibit Type B1.
In sum, each of the three language families in the Caucasus uses different markings forgrammatical relations. However, the existence of the ergative marking or conjugation is striking in all
the languages discussed here.

65

Acknowledgements
This work is part of the research outcomes of a Grant-in-Aid of JSPS: ‘A descriptive study ofendangered varieties of the nDrapa language’ (headed by Satoko Shirai, No. JP19K00543).
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Contributors
EBIHARA Shiho

Tokyo University of Foreign Studies

ENDO Mitsuaki

Aoyama Gakuin University

FUKAZAWA Mika

National Ainu Museum

FUKUI Rei

The University of TokyoHIRANO Ayaka

Osaka University

IWASA Kazue

Nagoya University of Foreign Studies

KIBE Nobuko

National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics

KIMURA KimihikoTokyo University of Foreign Studies

KODAMA Nozomi

Kumamoto University

KOMORI Junko

Osaka University

KURABE Keita

Tokyo University of Foreign Studies

MATSUMOTO Ryo

Kobe City University of Foreign Studies

MINEGISHI Makoto

Tokyo University of Foreign Studies

NAGATO Youichi

Tokyo University of Foreign Studies

NAKAGAWA Hirosi

Tokyo University of Foreign Studies

NAKAO Shuichiro

Osaka Univeristy

NAKAZAWA Kohei

The University of TokyoSAITÔ Yoshio

Takushoku University

SHIMIZU Masaaki

Osaka University

SHINAGAWA DaisukeTokyo University of Foreign Studies

SHIRAI Satoko

The University of Tokyo

Sonam Wangmo

The University of BonnSUZUKI Fumiki

Nanzan University

SUZUKI Hiroyuki

Fudan University

TOMITA Aika

Osaka Shoin Women’s University

Tsering Samdrup

The University of London

UTSUMI Atsuko

Meisei University

YOKOYAMA Akiko

Tokyo University of Foreign Studies

YOSHIOKA Noboru

National Museum of Ethnology

68

Acknowledgements
This volume is a part of the results of the ILCAA Joint Project ‘Studies in Asian and African
Geolinguistics’ 2020–2022. The articles are partially supported by JSPS Grants-in-Aid for Scientific
Research(KAKENHI)

JP18H05510,

JP21H00354,

JP20J40023,

JP19K20801,

JP18K12392,

JP17H04774, JP18H00670, JP19H01254, JP20H00011, JP16H01925, JP18H00661, JP16K02877,
JP19K13160, JP19K13187, and JP19K00543, respectively.

69