Transitivity, diachrony, and language contact

Abstract

Transitivity is often analyzed from the point of view of the formal and functional factors that shape morphosyntax. The contribution of language contact is not often highlighted. This article surveys some evidence for considering language contact in shaping the morphosyntax of transitivity-related phenomena, and proposes that the source of broad areal patterns should be sought in low-level processes of contact-induced change, such as pattern replication, contact-induced grammaticalization, and matter replication of constructional elements of transitivity encoding. Such patterns may call into question the search for purely functional explanations of transitivity encoding.