Cross-Dialectal Synopsis of the Morphosyntax

Abstract

Constructional splits have been a recurrent theme in the discussions of the distinct dialect groups of Neo-Aramaic in the previous chapters, each of which are conditioned by features that have been pertinent to the question of ergativity in linguistic typology. On closer examination, however, these features, though some of them consistentwith typological traits of ‘split ergativity’, need not reflect ergativity nor split alignment in general. While the dialectal diversity of Northeastern and Central Neo-Aramaic shows a staggering degree of morphosyntactic microvariation, there are general motifs in the constructionspecific and dialect-specific constraints that merit a separate chapter to compare these cross-dialectally. Moreover, splits on some level do not preclude splits on another, so that sometimes subsystems may be observed within constructional splits, including those conditioned by tam (Section 6.1), morphological coding (Section 6.2), (in) transitivity (Section 6.3.) and referential properties (Section 6.4). In all of this, themorphology of arguments shows the highest degree of variation, always at least in some way linked to the historically resultative participle qṭil-, but not exclusively, whereas the general syntax of arguments is largely consistent across space and time. Differential object marking, for instance, is an essential component of themorphosyntax,which seems tobe completely blind to the alignment typology of a given dialect, but does seem to favor different combinations of coding strategies depending on the dialect, thus sometimes manifesting morphological splits. The coding of s, in turn, is typically manifested in verbal person marking and correlates with the additional expression of tam in verbal inflection more strongly than the coding of p. Moreover, the coding of s largely also depends on the lexicalization of transitivity, i.e. whether the intransitive verb or clause in question is compatible with transitive morphology, thereby sometimes resulting in split intransitivity. The L-suffixes are more grammaticalized as indicators of a in the expression of the transitive perfective past, while the E-suffixes as indicators of s tend to ‘lag behind’ in the grammaticalization of the intransitive resultative. In addition, the marking of a can be dependent on the properties of its co-argument, p, i.e. the presence or absence of a pronominal object. Thus, perfective past clauses with a and p sometimes show a degree of markedness greater than all other types of clauses.