On the Subject of Samoan: an absolutive answer

Abstract

On the Subject of Samoan: an absolutive answer Samoan is known to have ergative case-marking, but the identification of the syntactic Subject in Samoan is a matter of dispute. On the basis of ellipsis in co-ordinated clauses Mosel and Hovdhaugen (1992) argue that Samoan has neither an A-S nor an O-S pivot and ‘neither the absolutive argument nor the ergative argument represents a grammaticalised topic’ (Mosel and Hovdhaugen, 1992:705). This amounts to saying that Samoan has no syntactic Subject. On the other hand, Cook (1991) claims that a wider range of data – derived from Keenan’s tests for Subjecthood (Keenan, 1976) - indicate that Samoan is syntactically accusative, and the NP closest to the verb is the Subject regardless of its case-marking. This paper reviews the same tests in the light of Manning (1996) who divides Keenan’s tests into those that reflect semantic subjecthood and those that reflect syntactic subjecthood. It concludes that Samoan is syntactically ergative and identifies the absolutive argument as the Subject. It then shows how LFG’s Lexical Mapping Theory (Bresnan, 2001) can account simply for the mapping of the Subject GF to a variety of thematic roles in the various valency alternations for each of the Samoan verb classes proposed by Mosel and Hovdhaugen (1992). Bresnan, Joan. 2001. Lexical Functional Syntax. Blackwell Textbooks in Linguistics. Malden, Mass: Blackwell. Cook, K. W. 1991. The search for subject in Samoan. In R. Blust (Ed.), Currents in Pacific Linguistics: papers on Austronesian languages and ethno-linguistics in honour of George W. Grace, Pacific Linguistics, C-117, 77-98. Canberra: Research School of Pacific Studies, A.N.U. Keenan, E. L. 1976. Towards a Universal definition of “subject” In Charles N. Li (Ed) Subject and Topic ,303-333 New York: Academic Press. Manning, Christopher D. 1996. Ergativity: Argument Structure and Grammatical Relations Dissertations in Linguistics. Stanford, California: CSLI Publications Mosel, Ulrike and Even Hovdhaugen. 1992. Samoan Reference Grammar. Oslo: Scandinavian University Press.