Why agent prominence persists even under challenging conditions

The agent of an event – the one who is performing the action – plays a central role in human cognition and in linguistic structure. Critically, the privileged role of the agent is argued to be a general phenomenon, relevant for all languages. However, in this paper, we zoom in on typological pattern...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Bardají Farré, Maria, Schneider-Blum, Gertrud, Philipp, Markus, Dolscheid, Sarah
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Fecha de publicación:2025
País:España
Institución:Varias* (Consorci de Biblioteques Universitáries de Catalunya, Centre de Serveis Científics i Acadèmics de Catalunya)
Repositorio:Recercat. Dipósit de la Recerca de Catalunya
OAI Identifier:oai:recercat.cat:2445/224330
Acceso en línea:https://hdl.handle.net/2445/224330
http://hdl.handle.net/2445/224330
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Psicolingüística
Lingüística
Psycholinguistics
Linguistics
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spelling Why agent prominence persists even under challenging conditionsBardají Farré, MariaSchneider-Blum, GertrudPhilipp, MarkusDolscheid, SarahPsicolingüísticaLingüísticaPsycholinguisticsLinguisticsThe agent of an event – the one who is performing the action – plays a central role in human cognition and in linguistic structure. Critically, the privileged role of the agent is argued to be a general phenomenon, relevant for all languages. However, in this paper, we zoom in on typological patterns that deviate from the typologically prevalent way of coding agent prominence. We focus on languages in which agents may not be marked as default and on languages that do not exhibit a general preference for placing the agent argument in sentence-initial position, namely Tima (a split ergative language) and Totoli (a language with a symmetrical voice system). Totoli also does not have a preference for linking agents to subject functions. Here we shed new light on how agent prominence is reflected in these typologically diverse languages. Furthermore, by bringing together typological studies, corpus work, and elicitation data, as well as evidence from psycholinguistic and neurophysiological studies, we conclude that agents maintain a privileged status across languages, even if typological features seem to suggest otherwise. More generally, we propose that cross-linguistic comparison – especially considering data from highly diverse languages – offers key insights into which aspects of agent prominence interact with languagespecific properties and how a concept of a general agent prominence still remains universally applicable.2025202520252025info:eu-repo/semantics/articleinfo:eu-repo/semantics/41 p.application/pdfapplication/pdfhttps://hdl.handle.net/2445/224330http://hdl.handle.net/2445/224330Articles publicats en revistes (Filologia Catalana i Lingüística General)reponame:Recercat. Dipósit de la Recerca de Catalunyainstname:Varias* (Consorci de Biblioteques Universitáries de Catalunya, Centre de Serveis Científics i Acadèmics de Catalunya)Ingléshttps://doi.org/10.16995/glossa.115812025, vol. 10, num.1, p. 1-41https://doi.org/10.16995/glossa.11581, 2025info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccessoai:recercat.cat:2445/2243302026-05-29T05:05:01Z
dc.title.none.fl_str_mv Why agent prominence persists even under challenging conditions
title Why agent prominence persists even under challenging conditions
spellingShingle Why agent prominence persists even under challenging conditions
Bardají Farré, Maria
Psicolingüística
Lingüística
Psycholinguistics
Linguistics
title_short Why agent prominence persists even under challenging conditions
title_full Why agent prominence persists even under challenging conditions
title_fullStr Why agent prominence persists even under challenging conditions
title_full_unstemmed Why agent prominence persists even under challenging conditions
title_sort Why agent prominence persists even under challenging conditions
dc.creator.none.fl_str_mv Bardají Farré, Maria
Schneider-Blum, Gertrud
Philipp, Markus
Dolscheid, Sarah
author Bardají Farré, Maria
author_facet Bardají Farré, Maria
Schneider-Blum, Gertrud
Philipp, Markus
Dolscheid, Sarah
author_role author
author2 Schneider-Blum, Gertrud
Philipp, Markus
Dolscheid, Sarah
author2_role author
author
author
dc.subject.none.fl_str_mv Psicolingüística
Lingüística
Psycholinguistics
Linguistics
topic Psicolingüística
Lingüística
Psycholinguistics
Linguistics
description The agent of an event – the one who is performing the action – plays a central role in human cognition and in linguistic structure. Critically, the privileged role of the agent is argued to be a general phenomenon, relevant for all languages. However, in this paper, we zoom in on typological patterns that deviate from the typologically prevalent way of coding agent prominence. We focus on languages in which agents may not be marked as default and on languages that do not exhibit a general preference for placing the agent argument in sentence-initial position, namely Tima (a split ergative language) and Totoli (a language with a symmetrical voice system). Totoli also does not have a preference for linking agents to subject functions. Here we shed new light on how agent prominence is reflected in these typologically diverse languages. Furthermore, by bringing together typological studies, corpus work, and elicitation data, as well as evidence from psycholinguistic and neurophysiological studies, we conclude that agents maintain a privileged status across languages, even if typological features seem to suggest otherwise. More generally, we propose that cross-linguistic comparison – especially considering data from highly diverse languages – offers key insights into which aspects of agent prominence interact with languagespecific properties and how a concept of a general agent prominence still remains universally applicable.
publishDate 2025
dc.date.none.fl_str_mv 2025
2025
2025
2025
dc.type.none.fl_str_mv info:eu-repo/semantics/article
info:eu-repo/semantics/
format article
dc.identifier.none.fl_str_mv https://hdl.handle.net/2445/224330
http://hdl.handle.net/2445/224330
url https://hdl.handle.net/2445/224330
http://hdl.handle.net/2445/224330
dc.language.none.fl_str_mv Inglés
language_invalid_str_mv Inglés
dc.relation.none.fl_str_mv https://doi.org/10.16995/glossa.11581
2025, vol. 10, num.1, p. 1-41
https://doi.org/10.16995/glossa.11581
dc.rights.none.fl_str_mv , 2025
info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
rights_invalid_str_mv , 2025
eu_rights_str_mv openAccess
dc.format.none.fl_str_mv 41 p.
application/pdf
application/pdf
dc.source.none.fl_str_mv Articles publicats en revistes (Filologia Catalana i Lingüística General)
reponame:Recercat. Dipósit de la Recerca de Catalunya
instname:Varias* (Consorci de Biblioteques Universitáries de Catalunya, Centre de Serveis Científics i Acadèmics de Catalunya)
instname_str Varias* (Consorci de Biblioteques Universitáries de Catalunya, Centre de Serveis Científics i Acadèmics de Catalunya)
reponame_str Recercat. Dipósit de la Recerca de Catalunya
collection Recercat. Dipósit de la Recerca de Catalunya
repository.name.fl_str_mv
repository.mail.fl_str_mv
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