Ergative is not inherent: Evidence from *ABA in suppletion and syncretism

Abstract

I show that case syncretism obeys the same *ABA restriction previously observed in case-sensitive suppletion: no Vocabulary-Insertion rule can apply to both an inherent case and an unmarked core case (nominative/absolutive) without also applying to another core case (accusative/ergative). The case hierarchy that these effects motivate is one where the ergative is consistently put in the same box as the accusative, separately from all inherent cases. This offers a new kind of argument in favor of dependent-case theories, whereby accusative and ergative are both structurally assigned to nominals that stand in an asymmetric c-command relation to another as-yet-caseless nominal nearby. Keywords: *ABA; syncretism; suppletion; ergativity; dependent case; Impoverishment