On the Overlooked Diversity of Clause Structures and Argument Structures in Non-Indo-European Languages

Abstract

This article responds to a conference call for papers that makes universalist assumptions about clause structures, assuming all languages in the world basically follow the same organizing principles in terms of clause structure, argument structure, and alignment. The article presents data from Tagalog to show how different a language can be from the assumed universal organizing principles to make the point that by imposing an Indo-European framework on non-Indo-European languages, we are overlooking the true diversity of language forms found in the world’s languages.

1. Introduction

The call for papers for a recent conference on argument coding patterns1 states that “Argument coding patterns consist of bound markers indicating the semantic and syntactic dependency of the arguments from their verb and are either argument-bound (flagging or dependent-marking) or verb-bound (indexing or head-marking)…”. This is a universalist statement assuming all languages are like the major Indo-European languages in terms of having only the two options given here, head-marking or dependent marking. It also states, “Transitive and intransitive verbs are also relatively stable cross-linguistically in terms of their alignment options (ergative, accusative or a mixture of the two).” This assumes there are only two alignment types cross-linguistically or within a language, another non-empirical universalist assumption based on Indo-European languages. Because of such common universalist assumptions, linguists regularly try to force non-Indo-European languages into an Indo-European Procrustean bed. This is unfortunate, as we then overlook the true diversity of patterns and organizational principles manifested in the world’s languages. A corollary of this type of view is a view of grammar as autonomous from speakers; all morphology is seen as systematic, even in recent work on variable marking, yet in many languages the role-marking morphology is not paradigmatic and systematic, but semantic marking used when the speaker feels the need to reduce possible ambiguity, such as using an agentive or anti-agentive marker when there are two animate referents mentioned in a clause (see LaPolla 1992, 1995 for early discussions of non-systemic anti-agentive and agentive marking, respectively). This means there is a need to recognize that some languages do not have an alignment.

2. Mandarin Chinese

Although Mandarin Chinese is one of the non-Indo-European languages that is often forced into an Indo-European-type analysis, there is a long history of scholars working on Chinese showing that the clause structure of Mandarin Chinese does not have one of the standard assumed alignments, or even a fixed argument structure, as it has not grammaticalized a system for constraining the identification of the roles of the main participants in the clause, and the unmarked clause is simply topic-comment (e.g., Chao [1948] 1967, [1955] 1976, [1959] 1976, 1968; Lü 1979; LaPolla 1990, 1993, 2009; LaPolla and Poa 2006).2

In this paper I want to focus on Tagalog, a Malayo-Polynesian language spoken in the Philippines, which has a very different clause structure from Indo-European languages, and does not mark arguments in the Indo-European way, and is also quite different from Chinese in structure.

The question is how many more systems might we discover if we work inductively on natural language data and stop imposing the Indo-European system on non-Indo-European languages?

3. Tagalog

3.1. The Tagalog Clause

As shown in LaPolla (2014) (see also LaPolla 2019, 2023), Tagalog clause structure does not have any constituent phrase categories we can identify as “noun phrase” and “verb phrase”; the constituents found are constructions that link elements together, but the same constructions can be used both for reference and predication. All lexical items can be used either predicatively or referentially, so there is no grammatical distinction between noun and verb (Himmelmann 2004).3 Non-topical core arguments4 in Tagalog are not distinguished from each other, regardless of whether they represent actors or different types of undergoers; they are represented the same way, linked to the predicating element in a possessive phrase (a “ng [naŋ] phrase” or as a possessive pronoun, which is a second-position clitic following the head of the phrase, whether the phrase is predicative or referential), not by the traditional IE argument marking strategies mentioned in the EDAP2023 call for papers, and this possessive phrase (which is the totality of the predicate) is in apposition to the Topic5 of the clause, as both have the same reference.6 Using Indo-European terminology, the clause is an equational copula clause, but there is no copula. For example,7

(1)	Pwede ko bang kunin yun leaves…?
	[pwede	ko	ba=ng	kuhin-in]PRED	[’yung	leaves]TOP
	can	1sgposs	q=lnk	take-ut	that+lnk	leaves
	‘Can I take them(,) the leaves…?’
	(https://delishably.com/beverages/How-to-Make-Malunggay-Tea-Home-Made-Moringa-Tea, accessed on 25 April 2023)

Tagalog clauses are consistently focus-initial (unmarked clauses are predicate-initial), so the unmarked information structure is Comment–Topic (not Topic–Comment). As argued in LaPolla (2019), although the Topic usually occurs at the end of the clause (if it is not a pronoun and not omitted and not focal), the Theme, or starting point of the clause is still important because of the information packed into the Theme to assist the addressee in projecting (anticipating) the speaker’s communicative intention. The predicate in many cases marks aspect, realis/irrealis, and often the semantic role of the Topic of the clause, though in natural conversation much of the marking can be left out. In (1), the agent argument appears as a possessive (non-Topic) pronoun (ko) modifying the predicate (pwede bang kunin)—the pronoun is a second position clitic, and so appears after the first word of the predicate, i.e., in the middle of the predicate phrase, which takes the form of a “na/=ng linker phrase”, that is, the two parts of the predicator are linked together by the linker na/=ng8. Here, although the linker is marking the linkage of pwede and kunin, the linker actually appears on the question marker (ba) rather than on pwede in this context because the question marker is also a second position clitic. This marking on an element that is not actually being linked is neither dependent-marking nor head-marking, an option not given in the universalist statement quoted above. If this example was not a question, the linker would appear on the non-Topic pronoun: pwede ko=ng kunin. Only if nothing appeared between the first and second word of the predicate would the linker appear on an element of the predicate: pwede=ng kunin. Note that this structure is the same for elements of the predicate and also for elements of reference phrases; see, for example, the Topic in (2), below, where again the linker linking anak and lalaki (anak na lalaki ‘son’) is not on either of these words but appears on the possessive pronoun (ko=ng; the possessive pronoun appears after anak because it is a second-position enclitic, but it is actually modifying the entire phrase anak na lalaki ‘son’):

(2)	Ano ang tawag sa asawa ng anak kong lalaki?
	[ano]pred	[ang	tawag	sa	asawa	ng	anak	ko=ng	lalaki]top
	what	spec	call	loc	spouse	poss	child	1sgposs=lnk	male
	‘What is my son’s spouse called?’
	(https://dayuhanglalaki.blogspot.com/2021/09/tawag-sa-asawa-ng-kapatid-mong-lalaki.html, accessed on 5 May 2023)

Compare, for example, the following two examples:

(3)	Kaibigan lang siya ng tatay ko.
	kaibigan	lang	siya	ng	tatay	ko
	[friend	only	<3sgt>top	poss	father	1sgposs]pred
	‘He is only my father’s friend’.

(4)	Tinanong lang siya ng tatay ko.
	t<in>anong	lang	siya	ng	tatay	ko
	[<rnat>asking	only	<3sgt>top	poss	father	1sgposs]pred
	‘My father only asked him.’

In these examples, kaibigan ng tatay ko ‘my father’s friend’ and tinanong ng tatay ko ‘asked by my father’ are phrases of the same type in Tagalog, though in English we translate them very differently. (See LaPolla (2014) for more on the different types of phrases in Tagalog, and Naylor (2005) and references therein on the isomorphy of referential and predicative phrases.)

As some Topic pronouns are also second-position clitics, the Topic actually can appear within the predicate, as it does in (3) and (4), and if it appears between the two parts of a “na/=ng linker phrase”, the linker linking the two discontinuous parts of the predicate appears on the Topic pronoun rather than on any element of the predicate, as with siya=ng in (5):

(5)	Pero wala siyang kinalaman sa kwentong ito.
	pero	[walaʔ	<siya>top=ng	kinalaman]pred
	but	n.exist	3sgT=lnk	involvement
	But she doesn’t have anything to do

	[sa	[kwento=ng	ito]]lp
	loc	story=lnk	proxt
	with this story. (Bob Ong 2003, Alamat ng gubat, Visprint, Inc., Manila, p. 1)

From an Indo-European point of view this is a difficult construction to understand, as an element (the Topic) that is not part of the predicate not only appears in the middle of the predicate, but also takes the relational marker (linker) that links the two parts of the predicate together. This example also shows the peripheral locative structure, with the general peripheral marker sa followed by another “na/=ng linker phrase”. So in this example the same structure, a “na/=ng linker phrase”, is used for both the predicator and for a peripheral argument.

Another point about this “na/=ng linker phrase” is that it does not fit the usual clear grammatical head-dependent structure found in most languages. In many cases the two elements of the “na/=ng linker phrase” can be reversed, e.g., in (5), the expression kwento=ng ito could also be said as ito=ng kwento, both meaning ‘this story’.

Returning to example (1), the agent appears as a non-topical argument, as the leaves (what is being taken out) is the Topic of the clause. The predicate is marked for Undergoer Topic (UT). A literal translation would be ‘is that which I can take out the leaves?’. The Topic also takes the form of a “na/=ng linker phrase”, with the demonstrative pronoun linked to the Topic with the linker na/=ng, so we can see that the predicate phrase and the Topic phrase have the same structure. This equational copula clause-like structure is clearer in cases where we can find the same role marking in the predicator and the Topic reference phrase:

(6)	Binilhan ng lalaki ng bigas ang tindahan ng lola.9
	[b<in>ili-han	ng	lalaki	ng	bigas]pred
	<rnat>buying-lfs	poss	male	poss	rice

	[ang	tinda-han	ng	lola]top
	spec	merchandise-lfs	poss	old.woman
	‘The man bought rice in the old woman’s store’ (Lit: ‘The old woman’s store is the place of the man’s rice buying.’)

Here both the predicate and the Topic are marked with the Location-Forming Suffix, and the man and the rice, as non-topical arguments, are linked to the predicate in a possessive construction using the “ng possessive linker phrase”. The predicate is also marked with an infix as realis-perfective and as having a non-actor Topic.

3.2. The Topic in Tagalog

The Topic in Tagalog also differs from the general concept of topic in Indo-European languages, in that in Tagalog there is a much freer range of possibilities of what can appear as Topic. Generally, almost any referent associated with the situation in some way, whether a core or peripheral argument semantically or even a very indirectly affected referent, can be the Topic of the clause. It is usually one that is identifiable to the hearer, but not always (Adams and Manaster-Ramer 1988). This is much freer than in, for example English, where the possibilities are limited to just two direct arguments and adjuncts, and so very often what is the Topic in Tagalog, what the clause clearly is about, will not be even a notional topic in the English translation, as in the following example (using the Location Topic Construction—compare the use of the locative expression for the one affected in the English translation):

(7)	Huwag mong ubusan ng gasoline si Ricky.
	[huwag	mo=ng	ubus-an	ng	gasoline]pred	[si	Ricky]top
	negimp	2sgposs=lnk	finish-lfs	poss	gasoline	spec	pn
	‘Don’t use up all the gasoline on Ricky.’

That the Topic is what the clause is about can be seen from the fact mentioned in the quote given in footnote 6. Here again, the na/=ng linker linking the two parts of the predicate (huwag and ubusan) appears on the possessive pronoun (mo) referring to the actor of the clause, which appears in second position because it is a second-position clitic (it is actually modifying huwag na ubusan as a whole), and the gasoline is linked to the predicate in a “ng possessive phrase”. So there is a complex structure of linkage10, with the overall predicate being a “ng possessive phrase”,11 and within that there is one other possessive phrase (with mo) and one “na/=ng linker phrase”. The Topic here takes the form si instead of ang or ‘yung because it is a proper name.

3.3. Derivational Marking Related to Participants

The different choices of Topic are not active–passive but simply different ways of profiling the event (Foley and Van Valin 1984, §4.3); there is no change in transitivity or markedness, and there is no “basic” form; all are derived, though frequency counts have shown a strong preference for the use of Undergoer Topic constructions (Adricula 2023), though it depends on genre (Longacre 1996). This system is similar to the choice of A construction vs. O construction in Jarawara (Dixon 2000, 2004) depending on what is considered the topic of the clause, though Tagalog allows for many more choices for the Topic than Jarawara: actor Topic (8), patient Topic (9), conveyance Topic (a theme, a benefactive, or an instrument) (10), or locative Topic (a goal, source, or stative (essive) locative argument) (11).

(8)	Bumili kanalang ng bago. Kamahal pa ng 2ndhand bikes ngayon.
	[b<um>ili	<ka>top	na	lang	ng	bago]pred
	<at>buying	2sgT	csm	only	poss	new
	‘Buy a new one. Secondhand bikes are still expensive now.’
	(https://www.reddit.com/r/RedditPHCyclingClub/comments/12x1rbh/gusto_ko_sanang_bumili_ng_mountainpeak_or_devel/, accessed on 25 April 2023)

(9)	Saan mo binili ang mga punlang itatanim natin?
	[Saan	mo	b<in>ili]PRED	[ang	mga	punla=ng	i-ta-tanim	natin]top
	where	2sgposs	<rnat>buying	spec	pl	seedling=lnk	ct-redup-plant	1plinclposs
	‘Where did you buy the seedlings we will plant?’
	(https://quizizz.com/admin/quiz/5dd3b41a5d5cc0001c874d9c/panghalip, accessed on 30 April 2023)

(10)	ang mapagbibilhan anyang nakatawa ay ibibili ko ng hikaw at singsing.
	[i-bi-bili	ko	ng	hikaw	at	singsing]
	ct-redup-buying	1sgposs	poss	earrings	and	ring
	‘(with the money from) the ones that can be bought I will buy earrings and a ring.’
	(https://www.tagaloglang.com/ang-buto-ng-atis/, accessed on 30 April 2023)

(11)	Binilhan ako ni Mama ng cake!
	[b<in>ili-han	<ako>TOP	ni	Mama	ng	cake]pred
	<rnat>buying-lfs	1sgt	poss	mom	poss	cake
	‘Mom bought me a cake!’ (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6J7LSxbFCA4, accessed on 25 April 2023)

These are sometimes talked about as different symmetrical voices, but they are actually derivations, not inflections (Himmelmann 2004, 2005, 2008), and some of the same affixes often appear on referential phrases involving object words, not just on predicates or action words, e.g., basura ‘garbage’, basurahan ‘garbage bin, garbage truck’, using the same Locative-Forming Suffix (lfs) that we saw in the predicates of examples (6), (7), and (11). In most cases they change the meaning and use of the form, e.g., lakas ‘strong’ > laksan (with lfs added and with syncopated vowel) ‘strengthen’, langgam ‘ant’ > langamin ‘be infested with ants’ (with patient-undergoer suffix; Himmelmann 2004, p. 1480). As Himmelmann points out (Himmelmann 2004, p. 1480), there is no formal evidence to support the common view that adding the affixes to action words is inflection while adding them to object words is derivation. They are all derivation (see also Rubino 1998). Himmelmann states (Himmelmann 2004, p. 1481), “…there are no productive inflectional paradigms for voice, as suggested by the commonly used ‘paradigmatic’ examples in the literature. Instead, derivations from all kinds of bases are only partially predictable on the basis of their semantics and exhibit a large number of idiosyncrasies, which again suggests derivation rather than inflection.”

Similar to the generalization given in footnote 6, Himmelmann (2004, p. 1481) argues that the affixes “change the orientation of a given base in such a way that it may be used to refer to one of the participants involved in the state of affairs denoted by the base … In this view, -um- is an actor orienting infix which derives from a base such as tango ‘nod, nodding in assent’ a word tumango which could be glossed as ‘one who nods, nodder’. This expression no longer directly denotes the action of nodding, but rather the participant who nods. That is, in the Tagalog clause … tumango ang unggo ‘The monkey nodded in assent’, both tumango and unggo refer to the same entity. Imitating the equational structure of this clause it could be rendered as ‘nodd-er in assent (was) the monkey’ … Note, however, that Tagalog voice affixes are not nominalising in a morphosyntactic sense, since they do not change the syntactic category of the base…”

The so-called actor voice infix -um- can also be used when there is no actor, as with certain natural processes, such as umulan ‘rain (falling)’ (< ulan ‘rain’) and with certain processes, such as pumuti ‘become white, bleached’ (< puti ‘white’). Due to these problems and also to the fact that they are derivational affixes, they cannot be seen as agreement affixes, as is common in the literature on Tagalog.

In Tagalog there is no neutralization we can call S, nor even neutralization of semantic roles that would form a single grammatical category of Actor or Undergoer, in terms of the derivations, as different types of actor and undergoer (e.g., with different degrees of intention, agentivity, transitivity, and/or affectedness) involve different derivations depending on the nature of the action, the Topic of the clause, and sometimes the nature of the affected participant. For example, in an intransitive clause, different events involving the same root can take different affixes, e.g., given the root dulas, madulas can be used for ‘slip (unintentionally)’ and dumulas can be used for ‘slide (i.e., slip intentionally)’,12 and the marking of an intransitive actor can be different from that of a transitive actor, even with the same root, e.g., labas ‘outside’: lumabas ‘(the one who) comes/goes out’ vs. maglabas ‘(the one who) brings/takes out’. In one case the difference in the affix represents a difference in the direction of action: bumili ‘(one who) buys’, magbili ‘(the one who) sells’. The prefix mag- can also be used to express greater frequency or greater intensity, e.g., bumasa ‘read’, magbasa ‘to read a lot/study’, and they can even be used together for even greater intensity: mag-um-aral ‘study diligently’ (examples adapted from Himmelmann 2005, p. 365).

And in some cases of the use of the maN- actor marking orientation prefix, the difference is in whether the action is directed at a single undergoer or distributed over several undergoers, e.g., pili ‘choice’, mamili (maN “actor” prefix + pili) ‘(one who) choses among several items’; takot ‘fear’, manakot (maN “actor” prefix + takot) ‘(one who) frightens several people’ (Himmelmann 2004, p. 1476). Possibly related to this use of maN- is its use in creating words that refer to people who frequently carry out particular actions, such as professionals (with reduplication of the first syllable of the root), e.g., mangbabasa ‘reader’ < basa ‘reading’, manggagamot ‘physician’ < gamut ‘medicine, cure’ (examples from Himmelmann 2005, p. 373). From all this it is clear these are not agreement inflections.

There are also three different types of undergoer marking, which can be used to represent a range of semantic types.

The facts given above have not stopped many people from trying to force Tagalog into a nominative–accusative or ergative–absolutive alignment pattern by manipulating made-up examples to make the pattern look consistent, and by calling possessive pronouns ergative, but as mentioned above, the different constructions for each Topic type are not either of these assumed alignments, but are a different sort of structure altogether, which we can call the Philippine type. With each different construction, as we saw in the examples above, one participant is singled out as the Topic, and the non-topical participants appear either in a possessive phrase as part of the predicate, if they are direct arguments, or in an adjunct phrase, if they are oblique arguments. This is not at all the sort of standard alignment system assumed in the quotes given above.

4. Conclusions

This short paper is just to make a simple point: we should not assume all languages work the same way, whether it is in terms of alignment, marking, or any other aspect of the language. We should be open to the diversity of possibilities, and document them faithfully when we find them, working inductively through natural language data, and not force non-Indo-European languages into an Indo-European mold. This holds for writing reference grammars and also for teaching the language. There is no need to force concepts like “noun”, “noun phrase”, “subject”, etc. on the language if they are not appropriate. Readers and students will be much better off if the language is described in a way that reflects the way people actually speak the language.