Marking of function A on pronouns
Case marking alignment addresses how the arguments of transitive and intransitive verbs are marked in relation to each other, which may occur through the use of case-bearing affixes or adpositions. The examination of this feature requires consideration of sentences in which the agent is the topic and the rest of the sentence is new information; further, all arguments are in third person. The syntactic functions examined are S, A, and P. S is the only argument of an intransitive verb, A is the agent of a transitive verb expressing conscious, willful action, and P is the patient of a transitive verb; that is, the entity affected by the action.1 This parameter evaluates the strategy used by a given language to mark A on personal or demonstrative pronouns.
Types:
Neutr: Case alignment is neutral: the functions S, A, and Pare not marked morphologically.
NoAMark: The function A is not explicitly marked, while S, P, or both are marked. A is therefore marked with a zero (Ø) morpheme.2
AAff: The function A is marked with affixation.
AAdp: The function A is marked with an adposition.
ASpec: The function A is marked with a special pronoun.3
When a language displays more than one type of marking, two values can be listed. If one type is structurally dominant, a slash (/) can separate the two values, with the dominant value appearing first; if neither is dominant, the two are listed with an ampersand (&) separating the two.
1: For example, in the sentence He sleeps, S is the function of he. In He killed it, A is fulfilled by he, while P is fulfilled by it. Zero-valency intransitive verbs and ditransitive verbs are not considered in this parameter.
2: This value should not be confused with the Neutr value, which involves lack of marking rather than the use of the zero morpheme.
3: To qualify as a special pronoun, a pronoun must display lexical divergence from other pronouns in other functions with the same referent. Suppletive forms are therefore not considered special pronouns.