2. Typological evidence against universal effects of referential scales on case alignment
Balthasar Bickel, Alena Witzlack-Makarevich, Taras Zakharko · 2014
Typological evidence against universal effects of referential scales on case alignment* If a language develops differential subject or differential object marking by case or adpositions, this is widely hypothesized to result from a universal effect of referential scales.The effect can be understood as a universal correlation between the odds of overt case marking and scale ranks (a negative correlation for subjects, a positive one for objects), or as an implicational universal proposing that, if a language has a split in case marking, this split fits a universal scale.We test both claims with various versions of scale definitions by statistically estimating diachronic biases towards correlations or scale-fitting in an areally stratified sample of over 460 case systems worldwide.For most scales tested, results suggest evidence against universal preferences towards universal scale effects under either a correlational or an implicational model.For binary part-of-speech and information-structure distinction and object marking, the evidence for universal effects is inconclusive.What we do find, by contrast, is highly significant area effects: case-marking splits tend to have developed and spread in Eurasia and the New-Guinea/Australia ('Sahul') macro-areas.This suggests that any replication of scale effects across language families is a side-effect of areal diffusion rather than of universal principles in grammar or cognition.* This research was supported by Grant No. BI 799/3-1 from the