Universität zu Köln

Lorenzen, Mandy ORCID: 0000-0001-5433-8224 (2024). Case marking and constituent order variation in Nilo-Saharan: Insights from a typological survey and a case study of Datooga (Nilotic). PhD thesis, Universität zu Köln.

PDF Dissertation_MandyLorenzen.pdf Download (7MB)

Abstract

This dissertation investigates constituent order variation and its interaction with case marking in Nilo-Saharan languages of East Africa. In several of these languages, case marking is restricted to postverbal agents in ergative systems and postverbal subjects in marked nominative systems, while preverbal agents or subjects remain unmarked for case. Despite its significance, the contexts driving constituent order variation in these languages remain unclear, with limited studies explicitly addressing this topic. To address this research gap, this dissertation combines a typological survey with a corpus-based case study. The first part extends previous research on case marking and constituent order variation across the Nilo-Saharan phylum through a typological survey of descriptive grammars and language descriptions. The second part presents an in-depth study of constituent order variation in Datooga (Southern Nilotic) based on a corpus of natural speech from the Barabaiga and Gisamjanga dialects, including both monologic narratives and multi-party conversations. The results show that the interaction between case marking and constituent order variation is more restricted within Nilo-Saharan than previously assumed and is largely confined to languages with marked nominative or ergative case systems. Across both the typological survey and the Datooga case study, discourse pragmatics and information structure emerge as the primary factors underlying constituent order variation, whereas factors such as animacy play a secondary role. The case study of Datooga further demonstrates that constituent order choices are highly context-dependent and vary across genres, highlighting the importance of conversational data and discourse context for understanding constituent order variation.

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD thesis)
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID ORCID Put Code Lorenzen, Mandy mandy.lorenzen@gmx.de https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5433-8224 UNSPECIFIED
URN:	urn:nbn:de:hbz:38-804812
Date:	2024
Language:	English
Faculty:	Faculty of Arts and Humanities
Divisions:	Collaborative Research Centers > CRC 1252: Prominence in Language > TP B02
Subjects:	Language, Linguistics
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Keywords Language Constituent order variation UNSPECIFIED Case marking UNSPECIFIED Nilo-Saharan UNSPECIFIED Nilotic UNSPECIFIED Datooga UNSPECIFIED Linguistic Typology UNSPECIFIED Language Documentation UNSPECIFIED Information structure UNSPECIFIED
Date of oral exam:	10 December 2024
Referee:	Name Academic Title Mitchell, Alice Jun.-Prof. Dr. Hellwig, Birgit Prof. Dr. Witzlack-Makarevich, Alena Prof. Dr.
Refereed:	Yes
URI:	http://kups.ub.uni-koeln.de/id/eprint/80481