Why a language may lack productive argument demotion strategies: Zenzontepec Chatino valency patterns in lexicon and discourse

Languages display a range of strategies for adding or promoting arguments (e.g. causatives, applicatives) and removing or syntactically demoting them (e.g. passives, antipassives), but not all languages do these things in the same ways or to the same extent. Zenzontepec Chatino, a Zapotecan (Otomanguean) language of Mexico, displays minimal valence reducing strategies that would demote arguments, especially P (object-like) arguments, and this talk addresses the question of why a language might display such a profile. Extensive lexicographic research finds that the verbal lexicon is highly intransitive, and thus there are few P arguments in the syntax to demote in the first place. When we look at language use, people often avoid expressing agents, using patientive intransitive verbs, even when an agent is known from context and a suitable transitive verb is available, or by encoding the understood agent indirectly as the possessor of an S argument or dative oblique. Over time, culturally-grounded discourse patterns shaping language use have likely resulted in and sustained extensive intransitive lexicalization. It is suggested that strongly transitivizing languages may be poised to lack robust argument demotion strategies.

Eric W. Campbell (Ph.D. 2014, University of Texas at Austin) specializes in typological, functional, and community-based approaches to phonology, morphology, syntax, language change, language documentation, and lexicography, especially regarding Otomanguean languages, in collaboration with community members based in Mexico and the California diaspora.