The Rise and Fall of Ergativity in Aramaic OXFORDSTUDIES IN DIACHRONICANDHISTORICAL LINGUISTICS GENERAL EDITORS: AdamLedgewayandIanRoberts,UniversityofCambridge ADVISORY EDITORS: CynthiaAllen,AustralianNationalUniversity;RicardoBermúdez- Otero, University of Manchester; Theresa Biberauer, University of Cambridge; CharlotteGalves,UniversityofCampinas;GeoffHorrocks,UniversityofCambridge; Paul Kiparsky, Stanford University; Anthony Kroch, University of Pennsylvania; DavidLightfoot,GeorgetownUniversity;GiuseppeLongobardi,UniversityofYork; GeorgeWalkden,UniversityofManchester;DavidWillis,UniversityofCambridge RECENTLYPUBLISHEDINTHESERIES  ArabicIndefinites,Interrogatives,andNegators ALinguisticHistoryofWesternDialects DavidWilmsen  SyntaxoverTime Lexical,Morphological,andInformation-StructuralInteractions EditedbyTheresaBiberauerandGeorgeWalkden  SyllableandSegmentinLatin RanjanSen  ParticiplesinRigvedicSanskrit TheSyntaxandSemanticsofAdjectivalVerbForms JohnJ.Lowe  VerbMovementandClauseStructureinOldRomanian VirginiaHillandGabrielaAlboiu  TheSyntaxofOldRomanian EditedbyGabrielaPanăDindelegan  GrammaticalizationandtheRiseofConfigurationalityinIndo-Aryan UtaReinöhl  TheRiseandFallofErgativityinAramaic CyclesofAlignmentChange EleanorCoghill The Rise and Fall of Ergativity in Aramaic Cycles of Alignment Change ELEANOR COGHILL 1 3 GreatClarendonStreet,Oxford,OXDP, UnitedKingdom OxfordUniversityPressisadepartmentoftheUniversityofOxford. 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For my parents, Charles and Sylvia Coghill Contents Seriespreface xi Acknowledgements xii Listofmapsandtables xiv Abbreviationsandglosses xvi  Introduction   Alignment  . Alignmentofverbalarguments  .. Syntacticalignment  .. Semantic/Split-Salignment  .. Manifestationofalignment  . Pathwaysofalignmentchange  .. Introduction  .. Accusative>ergative  .. Ergative>accusative  .. Tense-conditionedalignmentarisingvianewconstructions  .. Shiftfromtense-conditionedtoconsistentalignment  .. Accusative>semanticalignmentviademotion/suppression ofagent  .. Accusative>semanticalignmentviaextension  .. Ergative>semanticalignmentviademotion/suppression ofobject  .. Similaritiesanddifferencesbetweenthepathwaysfrom syntactictosemanticalignment  .. Semantic>syntactic(accusativeorergative)alignment  .. Reconstructingalignmentchangeonthebasisofmarkedness  .. Processesinvolvedinalignmentchange  .. Theroleoflanguagecontact  . Thedevelopmentoftense-conditionedergativityinAramaic,Iranian, andIndic  . Afullcycleofalignmentchange  viii Contents  Aramaic  . HistoricalstagesofAramaic  . MorphosyntactictypologyofAramaic  .. Root-and-patternsystem  .. Argumentmarking  .. Wordorder  .. Nominalmorphology   AlignmentinEasternNeo-Aramaicdialects  . Overview  . Dialectswithonlyaccusativealignment  .. Definition  .. Dialectswithfullinversionofsubject/objectindexes  .. DialectswhichonlyallowS-suffixobjectsinthethirdperson ornotatall  .. Summary  . JewishSouth-EasternTrans-Zabdialects  .. Definition  .. Alignmentinargumentindexes  .. Semantic/Split-Salignment  . Excursus:IstheresyntacticergativityinNENA?  .. Indexation  .. Coreferentiality  .. Wordorder  .. Controlofreflexives  .. Relativization  .. Summary  . Dialectswithnon-accusativealignmentintheperfect  .. Definition  .. JewishSETrans-Zabdialectswithnon-accusativeperfect  .. Non-SETrans-Zabdialectswithatransitive/intransitive distinctionintheperfect  .. Summary  . ṬuroyoNeo-Aramaic  .. Alignmentinargumentindexes  .. Alignmentinargumentmarkingonnounphrases  .. AbsenceofergativealignmentelsewhereintheṬuroyoGroup  . Split-S/semanticalignmentinNENA,Ṭuroyo,andbeyond  . AlignmentpatternsinNENAandṬuroyoargumentindexes  Contents ix  TheverbalsystemandalignmentinearlierEasternAramaic  . Predicationandtense–aspect–mood(TAM)categories  . Alignment  . ThemorphosyntaxoftheQtịlliconstructioninLate EasternAramaic  .. Patientmarking  .. Agentmarking  .. Theroleofinformationstructureinagentexpression  .. OthersyntacticbehaviourofQtịlli  .. Tense–aspect–mood(TAM)valuesofQtịlli   TheoriginanddevelopmentoftheQtịlliconstruction  . Introduction  . InfluenceofIranianlanguages  . Qtịlli:Fromapossessiveconstruction?  . Linktoperfectaspect  . PossessiveversusPassiveTheory  . Passive+ExperiencerDativeTheory  . ExperiencerDativeversusPossessiveTheory  . l-markinganothersemanticrolewithnon-experientialverbs  . Qtịlliandpassivity  .. Claimsastothepassivenatureoftheconstructionat variousdiachronicstages  .. IsNENAQtə̣ llipassive?  .. IsLateAramaicQtịllipassive?  .. DoesQtịlliresultfromthereanalysisofapassiveplusagent?  . OriginofQtịlli:Summary  . ReconstructingthedevelopmentofQtịlli  .. Reanalysisofl-asagentmarker  .. Qtịllitakesoverasthegeneralpastperfective  .. DevelopmentofpersonindexesonthePresentand PastBases  .. Thedisappearanceinmostdialectsofergativeflaggingof nounphrases  . l-asmarkeroffocusedagentinNENA  . ThefateofQtịlliinNeo-Mandaic  . Roleoflanguagecontactandthelinguisticarea  . Summaryofthedevelopmentoftense-conditionedergativityin EasternAramaic 