5 SUBJECT 5.1 THE PROBLEM In section 3.3, we mentioned some of the problems inherent in working with grammatical relations, including subject, and some of the possible approaches towards a solution to these problems. In the present chapter, we will look in considerably more detail at one particular aspect of this problem, namely the definition of subject cross-linguistically. Subject is an important notion, used frequently, both in traditional grammar and in more recent linguistic work, both in the descriptions of individual languages and in stating cross-linguistic generalizations. If linguists were invariably in agreement in stating which noun phrase, in each construction in each language, is the subject, then we could, perhaps, accept this inter-subjective agreement, and devote correspondingly less energy to trying to find an explicit definition of subject. However, it turns out that, in a wide range of cases, this inter-subjective agreement is lacking, so that the need does arise as a serious empirical problem to establish criteria for declaring a given noun phrase to be or not to be a subject. One particular instance of lack of agreement among linguists on subject-hood is illustrated by competing analyses of the ergative construction. We shall return below, in sections 5.3 and 6.2.2 to a more detailed discussion of ergativity, and for present purposes we may simply give some illustrative examples of the kind of problem that arises, using Chukchi as our example: Yam ts-yet-yPek. (1) I-ABSOLUTIVEcame-ISINGULAR ' I came.' Y^m-nan ydi ta-lPu-yat. (2) I-ERGATIVE thou-ABSOLUTIVE saw-1SINGULAR-2SINGULAR ' I saw thee.' Analyses of English agree that, in the English versions of these two sentences, / is subject both of the intransitive construction of (1) and of the transitive construction of (2); moreover, English morphology, at least for pronouns, exactly mirrors this distribution: the subjects are in the nominative, the direct object in the accusative. In Chukchi, as in English, there are two cases used for these three noun phrases, but their distribution is quite different: the absolutive case is used to translate / (intransitive subject) of (1), and to translate thee (direct object) of (2), whereas a separate case, the ergative, is used to translate / (transitive subject) of (2). The question therefore arises whether, in Chukchi, one should not rather group together the absolutive noun phrases as subject, following the morphology, rather than simply following the distribution that turns out to be relevant for English. Although in early periods many linguists working on ergative languages tried to solve this problem a priori, by fiat - and in either direction, by relying on the morphology or by disregarding it - the question is in fact an empirical question, and in sections 5.3-4 we will see that its answer is much less simple than either of these solutions. For the moment, however, we may simply note that the problem exists. Of course, in addition to criteria of case marking in establishing subject-hood, it will be clear from the discussion of section 3.3 that syntactic criteria are also important in establishing subjecthood. In English, for instance, we can note the following two syntactic criteria of subjecthood. First, verbs agree in person and number with their subject; although English verb morphology is fairly atrophied, this distinction is still maintained consistently in the difference in the present tense between third person singular and all other forms, and in a few other instances with irregular verbs, so that we have the third person singular form in he sees you but the non-third person singular form in I see you. Secondly, in the kinds of constructions called subject-to-object raising by many transformational-generative grammarians, we find that the subject of a that-clause, and only the subject, can, after certain verbs, appear in an alternative construction of type (4): / believe that Max is an accountant. (3) / believe Max to be an accountant. (4) In the vast majority of sentence-types, these two syntactic criteria coincide, i.e. there is agreement between logically independent criteria as to the subject in English.There are, however, some sentence types where this agreement is not found, such as sentences introduced by there is/are: There arc unicorns in the garden. (5) There is a unicorn in the garden. (6) 98 IOO SUBJECT In such examples, at least in the standard language, verb agreement is determined by the noun phrase that follows there is/are. Subject-to-object raising, however, treats there as the subject, giving: / believe there to be a unicorn/unicorns in the garden. (7) And, indeed, in such instances we find disagreement as to which noun phrase, in (5) and (6), should be considered the subject: different weighting of different criteria gives different results. So even in English there are some construction types where there is no agreement among linguists as to which noun phrase is subject. Faced with such problems surrounding the characterization of the notion subject, there are two possible approaches. On the one hand, one could claim that the notion of subject is misleading from the outset, and should be banished from linguistic theory. On the other hand, one could try and work out a definition of subjecthood which, while corresponding to linguists' inter-subjective intuitions in the clear cases, would also make insightful claims about the unclear cases. In the present chapter, we follow the second of these paths. Before embarking on the details of the definition, however, we should make some further preliminary remarks. First, we are not committed a priori to the view that subject is a necessary descriptive category in the grammar of every language: there may well be languages where it is not appropriate, though equally there are languages (including English) where it is appropriate. Secondly, we are not committed to the view that, even in a language where subject is generally valid, every sentence will necessarily have a subject. Thirdly, we are not committed to the view that the translation of a sentence from language X where a certain noun phrase is subject will necessarily have that same noun phrase as subject in language Y. Examples of all of these points will occur below. Finally, although we will argue that the notions of topic and agent must play a role in the definition of subject, we argue that, even in English, it is clear that the notion of subject cannot be identified with either of these notions. If we take, for instance, our criterion of verb-agreement, then it is clear that in the passive sentence the men were hit by the boy, the plural verb were does not agree with the agent; and it is equally clear that in the topicalized sentence John I know the non-third person singular verb is not in agreement with the topic. However close the connection may be among grammatical relations, semantic roles, and pragmatic roles, they cannot be identified with one another. 5.2 ON DEFINITIONS AND CATEGORIES Before turning specifically to the definition of subject, it is necessary for us to make some preliminary remarks on the nature of definitions, in par- SUBJECT IOI ticular on the nature of definitions of linguistic categories, in order to avoid certain later misunderstandings. The kind of definition of subject towards which we will be working is the following: the prototype of subject represents the intersection of agent and topic, i.e. the clearest instances of subjects, cross-linguistically, are agents which are also topics. There are two important characteristics of this definition: first, it is multi-factor; second, it is stated in terms of prototypes, rather than in terms of necessary and sufficient criteria for the identification of subjects. The second point is particularly important, given that many subjects in many constructions in many languages are not topic, or are not agent, or are neither. The use of a multi-factor definition is unlikely to raise any eyebrows, since such definitions are quite widespread in linguistics and other areas, as for instance if we define preposition in terms of the intersection of adposition and position in front of the governed noun phrase. However, the attempt to use definitions in terms of prototypes for linguistic categories has met with an inordinate amount of opposition and prejudice, so that it is worth spending some time on discussion of this issue. Rather than discussing the problem directly in terms of subject properties, we will use some other examples, where the use of prototypes is much more clearly justified. Note that the use of these analogies does not in itself justify the use of a prototype-based definition of subject, but it does demonstrate that we cannot a priori reject this kind of definition, but must rather weigh up the pros and cons in terms of their fit with the data and their evaluation relative to alternative definitions. In chapter 2, we illustrated one very clear area where definitions of categories in terms of prototype seem to be required, namely with colour terms, where humans seem to recognize a central, focal value for a colour term, rather than clear-cut boundaries. What this means is that there is no set of necessary and sufficient conditions that an object must satisfy in order to be called, for instance, red. But equally, this does not mean that we can state no restrictions on the use of the term red: this term is most appropriate for the focal value, and less and less appropriate as one moves away from this focal area and approaches the foci of other colour terms. This example thus establishes that there is at least one area where humans do categorize in terms of prototypes, thus opening up this kind of definition as a real possibility. Similar examples can also be found using more clearly linguistic categories, and the example we will use here concerns the distinction between nouns and adjectives in Russian, in particular the relation of numerals to these two. In Russian, in general, the distinction between nouns and adjectives is clear-cut, so that we can establish criteria that correlate with the focal values (prototypes) of noun and adjective. Numerals, however, fall in between these two prototypes, in a way that makes impossible any estab- 102 subject subject I03 lishment of non-arbitrary cut-off points. In distinguishing adjectives from nouns, we may take two comparable construction types, the first being a noun phrase consisting of an attributive adjective and head noun (e.g. xorosij mal'cik ' good boy'), the second being a quantity phrase consisting of a head noun defining the quantity and a dependent genitive denning the entity being measured (e.g. stado ovec' flock of sheep'). The following criteria characterize the adjective in the attributive construction : (a) the adjective agrees in gender with its head noun, following a three-way masculine/feminine/neuter distinction (though only in the singular), e.g. xorosij mal'cik 'good boy', xorosaja devocka 'good girl', xoroseje okno 'good window'; (b) the adjective agrees in number with its head noun, on a singular/plural opposition, e.g. xorosij mal'cik ' good boy', xorosije mal'ciki 'good boys(c) the adjective agrees in case with its head noun, e.g. nominative xorosij maVcik, but dative xorosemu mal'ciku, instrumental xorosim mal'cikom; (d) many nouns have distinct accusative forms depending on whether or not they are animate, and adjectives agree with their head noun in terms of this distinction, e.g. inanimate accusative xorosij stol' good table', animate accusative xorosego mal'cika ' good boy', even though both stol and mal'cik are masculine singular. Head nouns in the quantitative construction have none of these properties. Thus we have stado ovec ' flock of sheep' where ovca ' sheep' is feminine, and stado gusej ' flock of geese' where gus' ' goose' is masculine. For number, we have massa benzina ' a mass of petrol' and massa ljudej ' a mass of people'. For case, we find that the head noun changes in case, but the dependent noun remains in the genitive, e.g. nominative stado ovec, dative stadu ovec, instrumental stadom ovec. Finally, the head noun does not change depending on the animacy of the dependent noun, cf. accusative massu ljudej ' mass of people' and massu karandasej' mass of pencils'. On the other hand, the head noun of a quantitative construction has a number of properties that are not shared by the adjective in the attributive construction, as follows: (e) the head noun can vary in number independently of the dependent noun, e.g. stado ovec ' flock of sheep', stada ovec ' flocks of sheep'; (f) the head noun in the quantitative construction can take an attribute agreeing with it, e.g. xoroseje stado ovec ' good flock of sheep', where xoroseje is neuter singular nominative, agreeing with stado, while ovec is genitive plural; (g) the noun dependent on the head noun is invariably in the genitive, and if countable in the genitive plural - contrast the attributive construction under point (c), where adjective and head noun must be in the same case. In terms of their adherence to the above seven criteria, we find that we can divide Russian numerals into several classes. First, the numeral' one' has all the properties of an adjective and none of those of a head noun: it j f. can even agree in number, with pluralia tantum, e.g. odni (plural) noznicy 'one (pair of) scissors'. At the other extreme, the numeral million 'million ', and also all higher numerals, have all the properties of a noun and none of those of an adjective. Intermediate numbers have a varying number of adjectival and nominal properties, as illustrated in the table. In this table, A means that the numeral has the appropriate adjectival property, N that it has the appropriate substantival property; A/N means that either property can be used, A/(N) indicating that there is clear preference for adjectival behaviour; (A) means that the numeral has the adjectival property, but in a restricted form, in particular the numeral' two' has only a two-way gender opposition, distinguishing feminine dve from masculine-neuter dva; (N) indicates a similar restriction on a substantival property, as with the plural of sto ' hundred', which has only a few restricted uses. In the table, note that ' four' behaves like ' three', and that non-compound numerals between ' five' and' ninety' inclusive behave like ' five'. adjectival and substantival properties of russian numerals (a) (b) (c) (d) (e) (f) (g) If we now ask the question whether Russian numerals are adjectives or nouns, it becomes clear that there is no straightforward answer, except in the case of' one' (adjective) and ' million' (noun): in particular, we cannot establish a cut-off point between adjectives and nouns, except arbitrarily, i.e. by deciding arbitrarily that we are going to take one, rather than another, of the seven criteria as definitive - and even then, some of the individual criteria are not definitive, as indicated by alternative entries separated by a slash or entries in parentheses. The situation is rather that we have clear prototypes, and a continuum separating those prototypes from one another, much as with colour terms, even though here we are clearly dealing with grammatical categories. Actually, the continuum-like nature of the distinction between adjectival and substantival properties finds an even stronger manifestation in odin dva tri pjat' sto tysjaca million •r '2' '3' '5' 'IOO' '1000' ' 1,000,000 A N N N N N N A N N N N N N A (A) N N N N N A A/(N) A/(N) N N N N A A A A (N) N N A A A A A N N A A A A A A/N N io4 SUBJECT SUBJECT i05 Russian numerals if we also take into account statistical preferences where alternatives are possible. For instance, after the numerals ' two' three and ' fouran adjective may be in either the nominative plural (as would be expected if these numerals were adjectives) or the genitive plural (as would be expected if these numerals were nouns). If one counts the occurrences of either possibility in text, it turns out that the preference for the adjectival type is greatest with 'two' and lowest with 'four', i.e. even as between adjacent numerals one can establish that the lower is more adjective-like than the higher. In conclusion, definitions based on prototypes must be allowed as a possibility. 5-3 ERGATIVITY In section 5.1, we posed a general problem for the syntactic analysis of any sentence, namely: what is the subject of the sentence? In view of the discussion of section 5.2, we can slightly reformulate that question. Implicit in the original question was that the question would have a clear-cut, discrete answer, i.e. a given noun phrase either would or would not be a subject. However, in terms of our characterization of subject as the intersection of agent and topic, and given that agent and topic are logically independent notions and need not coincide in a given sentence, it is clear that the answer to our question may well be less than clear-cut: it may be the case that a given noun phrase has certain subject properties, but not all, i.e. instead of simply saying that a noun is or is not a subject we will characterize it as being a subject to a certain degree. Similarly, it is possible that subject properties in a sentence will be distributed among several noun phrases, or at least between two, rather than all characterizing a single noun phrase. In many instances, then, it is as pointless to expect a clear-cut answer to the question ' what is the subject of this sentence ?' as it is to expect a clear-cut answer to the question ' is Russian pjat' ' five' a noun or an adjective?' In the present section we will examine implications of this further, with particular regard to ergativity. In section 5.1, we also posed the more specific question of identifying the subject of the ergative construction. In order to discuss this construction adequately, especially in terms of its similarities to and differences from the nominative-accusative construction, it is necessary to have a set of terms that is neutral between the two systems. The following is the set that we propose: The single argument of an intransitive predicate we will symbolize as S; this is clearly mnemonic for subject, and in general there is little or no controversy concerning the subject status in most intransitive (single-argument) constructions across languages, so the mnemonically suitable symbol is also suitable in terms of its content. In the transitive construction, there are two arguments, and in order to avoid circularity we shall label neither of these with the symbol S. In the prototypical transitive situation, the participants are an agent and a patient, and this remains constant irrespective of the morphological or syntactic behaviour of the sentence in any individual language. We may therefore, starting originally with transitive predicates describing actions, label the agent as A, and the patient as P, so that in the sentence / hit you, or in its translation into Chukchi, irrespective of the case marking of the various noun phrases / will be A and you will be P. The labels are again clearly mnemonic, for agent and patient, respectively. However, the advantage of having arbitrary labels A and P rather than actually using agent and patient is that we can continue to use the arbitrary symbols even when we pass beyond prototypical transitive situations (i.e. actions) to other constructions in the language that have similar morphology and syntax. In English, for instance, the transitive verb see behaves morphologically and syntactically just like the action transitive verb hit, so that although in J saw you the pronoun / is not, in terms of semantic role, an agent, we can still symbolize it as A. A and P are thus syntactic terms, whose prototypes are defined in semantic terms. In discussing examples (1) and (2) introduced at the beginning of this chapter, then, we can say that in (1) Chukchi yam and English / are Ss; in (2) Chukchi yamnan and English J are As, while Chukchi yat and English thee are Ps. Moreover, in English one case is used to encode S and A - a case of this kind is called nominative; and another case is used to encode P - a case of this kind is called accusative. In Chukchi, one case is used to encode S and P - a case of this kind is called absolutive; another case is used to encode A - a case of this kind is called ergative. The discussion thus far has related essentially to morphology, and we return to ergative-absolutive and nominative-accusative case marking in chapter 6. It is now time to turn to syntactic properties of subjects. From the remarks made hitherto about subjects in English, it should be clear that English treats S and A alike as subjects for syntactic purposes, certainly for those syntactic points discussed so far, and indeed for most others. We can illustrate this by means of examples using coordination, in particular coordination of clauses that share a noun phrase in common and where that noun phrase is omitted in the second conjunct. If we try and conjoin sentences (8), (9), and (10), taking a transitive clause and an intransitive clause, in that order, then it is clear that we can conjoin, with omission of the second occurrence of the coreferential noun phrase, only (8) and (9), and not (8) and (10): 106 SUBJECT The man hit the woman. The man came here. The woman came here. The man hit the woman and came here. (= (8) + (9)) (8) (9) (10) (11) Even though sentence (11) contains no overt S for the intransitive predicate came here, it is absolutely clear to the native speaker of English that the only possible interpretation for this sentence is that the man came here, even though the alternative interpretation ' the man hit the woman and the woman came here' would make perfect sense. In other words, in order to permit omission of a noun phrase from a second conjunct, English makes two requirements: (a) the semantic requirement that the two noun phrases be coreferential; (b) the syntactic requirement that the two noun phrases be either S or A. For syntactic purposes, English treats S and A alike, so subject in English means S or A. We may contrast this situation with the situation that obtains in Dyirbal, with the translations of our three English sentences (8H10): Balan dyugumbil barjgul yararjgu balgan. (12) woman-ABSOLUTiVE man-ERGATivE hit 'The man hit the woman.' Bayiyara baninyu. (13) man-ABSOLUTiVE came-here 'The man came here.' Balan dyugumbil baninyu. (14) woman-ABSOLUTiVE came-here 'The woman came here.' Balan dyugumbil baijgul yararjgu balgan, baninyu. ( = (12)+ (14)) (15) ' The man hit the woman, and the woman came here.' (In Dyirbal, nouns are usually accompanied by a classifier agreeing in class, including gender, and case with the noun; in the above examples, these are balan, barjgul, and bayi.) Note in particular that (15) does not, and in Dyirbal cannot, have the meaning of English sentence (11): the two sentences in the two languages are crystal-clear in their interpretations to native speakers, though the interpretations happen to be different in the two languages. Dyirbal, like English, has two restrictions on coordination with omission of a noun phrase, but while the semantic restriction is as in 1 1 : i SUBJECT I07 English (the two noun phrases must be coreferential), the syntactic restriction is different: in Dyirbal, the coreferential noun phrases must be S or P. Thus for syntactic purposes, Dyirbal treats S and P alike, as opposed to A, so that in Dyirbal the appropriate grammatical relation is one that groups S and P together, in other words subject in Dyirbal means * S or P'. Although it might seem that the syntactic difference follows the morphological difference between nominative-accusative morphology in English and ergative-absolutive morphology in Dyirbal (as can be seen by comparing examples (i2)-(i4))>it: is important to emphasize that this is not the case. In English, the syntactic identification of S and A proceeds even with non-pronominal noun phrases, which do not have a morphological nominative-accusative distinction. In Dyirbal, personal pronouns of the first and second persons happen to have nominative-accusative case marking, a fact to which we return in chapter 6, but this does not affect the ergative-absolutive basis of the coordination construction: TJad"a tjinuna balgan. I-NOMINATIVE yoU-ACCUSATIVE hit ' I hit you' fjad"a baninyu. I-nominative came-here ' I came here.' tjinda banirtu. you-NOMiNATlVE came-here ' You came here.' TJacPa rjinuna balgan, baninyu. ' I hit you, and you/*I came here.' (16) (17) (18) (19) We should also note that not all languages pattern either like English or like Dyirbal. In Chukchi, for instance, in coordinate constructions the omitted S of an intransitive verb can be interpreted as coreferential with either the A or the P of the preceding verb: dithy -e talayvanen ekdk father ergative he-beat-himson-ABSOLUTiVE dnk?am ekvetyPi. and he-left 'The father beat the son, and the father/the son left.' (20) io8 SUBJECT In Yidiny, as we saw in section 3.4, the preferred interpretation for an omitted S follows the morphology (coreferential with an absolutive or nominative noun phrase in the transitive clause), thus combining aspects of nominative-accusative and ergative-absolutive syntax, whereas Chukchi is completely neutral as between them, in this instance. One important point that the Yidiny material illustrates particularly clearly is that it is misleading to classify a language as being either ergative or not, rather one must ask: to what extent, and in what particular constructions is the language ergative, i.e. where does its syntax operate on a nominative-accusative basis and where does its syntax operate on an ergative-absolutive basis. In Yidiny, then, in the transitive construction, in some instances the A will have subject properties under coordination (example (44) of chapter 3), in other instances the P will have subject properties (example (43) of chapter 3), in yet other instances subject properties will be distributed between the two noun phrases (example (45) of chapter 3). In common with many, but not all, languages, both English and Dyirbal have different syntactic means of encoding the same semantic roles, i.e. different voices. In English, for instance, we can take the transitive sentence (8), with the man as A and the woman as P, and rephrase it as a passive, an intransitive construction, in which the woman appears as S and the man as an oblique object (i.e. neither S, A, nor P): The woman was hit by the man. (21) Since the woman is S of (21), and also S of the intransitive sentence (10), it is possible to coordinate these two sentences together, omitting the coreferential S from the second conjunct, to give (22), which has exactly the same meaning as Dyirbal sentence (15): The woman was hit by the man and came here. (22) In Dyirbal, it is possible to take a transitive sentence like (12) (or, for that matter, (16)) and rephrase it so that 'the man' appears as an S, and 'the woman' as an oblique object, adding the suffix -nay to the verb. This kind of voice, whereby the A of the basic voice appears as an S, has in recent work on ergativity come to be called the antipassive voice: Bayi yam bagun dyugumbilgu man-ABSOLUTiVE woman-DATlVE balgalrjanyu. hit-ANTIPASSIVE ' The man hit the woman.' (23) SUBJECT 109 In Dyirbal, it is then possible to conjoin (23) with the intransitive sentence (13), of which' the man' is also S. For reasons that go beyond our concerns here, the only order in which this particular conjunction is possible is with the intransitive clause first: Bayiyara baninyu, bagul d?ngumbilgu balgalrjanyu. ' The man came here and (he) hit the woman.' (24) Thus we see that one of the functions of different voices in languages is to redistribute subject properties: in English, to enable what would otherwise be a P noun phrase to have subject properties (as an S) j in Dyirbal, to enable what would otherwise be an A noun phrase to have subject properties (as an S). We may close the discussion of this section by recapitulating the main points, and driving them home with one further example. While the assignment of subject is clear in most intransitive constructions, especially those that are literally one-place predicate constructions, in transitive constructions we may find subject properties assigned either to the A, in which case we have nominative-accusative syntax, or to the P, in which case we have ergative-absolutive syntax. Some languages show strong preference for one or the other - e.g. English is largely nominative-accusative, Dyirbal largely ergative-absolutive - while other languages are more mixed. In Chukchi, the infinitive construction works on the nominative-accusative system, with omission of the S or A of the infinitive, with the suffix -(a)k\ a dmnan yat ttte I-ergative you-ABSOLUTiVE sometime mavinretydt ermetvi-k. let-me-help-you to-grow-strong ' Let me help you to grow strong.' Moryman yat matrevinretyat we-ERGATiVE you-ABSOLUTiVE we-will-help-you rivl-ak amalPo yeceyot. to-move all gathered-things-ABSOLUTrvE 'We will help you move all the gathered items.' (25) (26) In (25), the S of 'grow strong' is omitted; in (26), the A of 'move' is omitted. In the negative participial construction, with the suffix -IP on the no subject subject iii verb in the participial form, the construction may be used to relativize either the S or the P of the participial clause, but not its A (unless the clause is antipassivized, as in (29), with relativization then effectively of the S): E -tip?eyne-ka -IP .{n negative Sing negative participle absolutive rjevacqet raytayPi. (27) woman-ABSOLUTiVE she-went-home 'The woman who was not singing went home.' Iyara -yoP -ka -IP -eta now negative reach negative participle allative enm -eta manalqanmak. (28) hill allative let-us-go 'Now let us go to the hill which (someone) didn't reach.' En -aytat-ka -IP -a antipassive chase negative participle ergative Qa