This paper examines the case of different dialects of Inuktitut which appear to vary in their distribution and function of the antipassive construction. It is hypothesized that a difference in grammatical restrictions on this construction will coincide with a quantitative difference in occurrence, i.e. some dialects have moved further along the continuum toward a nominative-accusative typology. However, it is shown that counting the number of tokens of the case marker in question does not show any statistical significance, due to the fact that this case marker has functions independent of object marking and that these functions appear to vary in inverse proportion to the degree to which it is used as an accusative marker.
2017. The ergative-antipassive alternation in Inuktitut: Analyzed in a case of new-dialect formation. Canadian Journal of Linguistics/Revue canadienne de linguistique 62:4 ► pp. 661 ff.
Jessica Coon, Diane Massam & Lisa Demena Travis
2017. The Oxford Handbook of Ergativity,
Spreng, Bettina
2010. On the Conditions for Antipassives. Language and Linguistics Compass 4:7 ► pp. 556 ff.
JOHNS, ALANA
2006. Ergativity and Change in Inuktitut. In ERGATIVITY [Studies in Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, 65], ► pp. 293 ff.
Johns, Alana
2010. Eskimo‐Aleut Languages. Language and Linguistics Compass 4:10 ► pp. 1041 ff.
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