Argument coding and the alignment type of Beria

Abstract This paper describes the verbal argument coding by a system of person indexing and the alignment type of Beria. Beria is a Saharan language spoken in the Sudan and Chad. The data presented here is from the Wagi dialect. The person indexing system has been analyzed as exhibiting split-S alignment with two types of intransitive verb classes: agentive and patientive verbs. Patientive verbs – though mostly encoding one-participant events – are, however, formally transitive. This morphosyntax-semantics mismatch poses a challenge for the split-S analysis and calls for a reassessment of the transitivity status of the patientive verb class. The present study takes morphosyntactic facts into account that have not been considered in previous contributions. It provides evidence from the verbal number marking system which corroborates an analysis in terms of a split-S alignment type with typologically unusual features.