Semantic Motivations for Split Intransitivity in Haida

Abstract

Haida has been claimed to be a language of the active-stative type in terms of linguistic typology, in which the subjects of intransitive clauses are marked in two different ways: as transitive subjects and as transitive objects. This phenomenon is termed “split intransitivity,” and it crosslinguistically underlies active type languages. The motivations for split intransitivity have been pursued mostly in semantic terms such as “lexical aspect,” “agency,” and “volition,” among others. The split intransitivity in Haida is manifested only when the first (singular and plural) and second (singular) personal pronouns occur as intransitive subjects. Furthermore, intransitive verbs in Haida can roughly be classified into four groups based on the cases and persons of pronouns that occur as their subjects. The present study argues that the two semantic features of [agency] and [control] can be postulated to explain this phenomenon. [agency] describes the situation wherein a verb requires a participant as its subject that performs an activity or instigates a situation. [control] is concerned with one’s ability to control the activity or situation. This study also points out inconsistencies in case marking on personal pronouns for certain verbs, as well as for speakers, which may be due to the fact that these two features interact with split intransitivity in a fairly complicated manner. Such inconsistencies may be inevitable since the motivation for the split intransitivity is semantically-conditioned, which in turn leads to difficulties in characterizing active type languages in general.