Aspects of Split Ergativity

In languages with aspect-based split ergativity one portion of the grammar follows an ergative pattern while another shows a split. In this book Jessica Coon argues that aspectual split ergativity does not mark a split in how case is assigned but rather a split in sentence structure. Specifically the contexts in which we find the appearance of a nonergative pattern in an otherwise ergative language involve added structure--a disassociation between the syntactic predicate and the stem carrying the lexical verb stem. <p/>The book begins with an analysis of split person marking patterns in Chol a Mayan language of southern Mexico. Here appearance of split ergativity follows naturally from the fact that the progressive and the imperfective morphemes are <em>verbs</em> while the perfective morpheme is not. The fact that the nonperfective morphemes are verbs combined with independent properties of Chol grammar results in the appearance of a split. <p/>This book further surveys aspectual splits in a variety of unrelated languages and offers an explanation for the universal directionality of split ergativity: in splits ergativity is always retained in the perfective aspect. Following Laka's (2006) proposal for Basque Coon proposes that the cross-linguistic tendency for imperfective aspects to pattern with <em>locative</em> constructions is responsible for the biclausality which causes the appearance of a nonergative pattern. Building on Demirdache and Uribe-Etxebarria's (2000) prepositional account of spatiotemporal relations Coon proposes that the perfective is never periphrastic--and thus never involves a split--because there is no preposition in natural language that correctly captures the relation of the <em>assertion time</em> to the <em>event time</em> denoted by the perfective aspect.<br>