The split word orders APV and PAV of Nuosu Yi

Abstract

Nuosu Yi is a Tibeto-Burman (henceforth TB) language lacking sufficient core case markers. Depending on the telicity and aspectuality of the predicates, its basic word order splits into APV and rigid PAV. To be specific, the atelic and/or imperfective predicates are APV, while the telic predicates indicated by the resultativity or perfect aspect are PAV. This paper describes the semantics and syntax of the syntactic PAV and APV of Nuosu Yi thoroughly; and compares them to other TB languages in terms of role marking strategies. I propose that the conditions of split word order in Nuosu Yi are on a par with those of the split ergativity encoded by the morphological marking in Tibetan and some other TB languages; namely, the rigid PAV corresponds to the ergative alignment, and the rigid APV corresponds to the accusative alignment. The study will deepen Nuosu Yi’s morpho-syntax study and show the word order diversity to the studies of linguistic typology. Additionally, the study sheds light on the possibility of extending the definition of ergativity and its potential counterpart.