AUV order when the actor is marked with the ablative Ordering of sources and themes

41 reference to the actors the rich man’s family, in conformity to the principle that topics precede comments.

2.3.2.3 AUV order when the actor is marked with the ablative

The principle of placing clausal topics before comments holds true even in the rare cases where the actor is marked with the ablative as a local but not higher-level topic see 2.2.1.2. This is the case for ‘the dragon’ in 35: 35a Aoqqivq, beiyaoq mol nei aqssaq yaol hhoq night dragon DCL ABL son.in.law ACC again gul li alnei, neesoq saq leiq zaq li movq call go.up ADD tomorrow meat seek DUR go.up want al leil eil. CRS QUO say ‘At night, the dragon called his son-in-law again and told [the son-in-law] that [he] wanted to go look for meat.’ 35b Aqyo aqssaq yaol milma_hhaqdaoq qiq gal a 3 son.in.law ACC mountain.pass one place DAT saqluvq_luvq leil eil miq. wait.for.game QUO say TRAN ‘[He] told his son-in-law to wait for the game.’ 35c Aqyoq hhuvq yil alnei aqyo miqma naogo eil miq. 3 return go.down ADD 3 wife with say TRAN ‘He [the son-in-law] returned [home] and told his wife [about this].’ Li 1990:220 In 35a, the local topic ‘the dragon’ is placed before the undergoer ‘the son-in-law,’ even though the dragon is not a higher-level topic. The fact that the son-in-law is given only pronominal encoding in 35c indicates that it is assumed that he is readily understood as a higher-level topic. 42

2.3.2.4 Ordering of sources and themes

When sources and themes are both present in a clause, their ordering follows the principle of natural information flow, as can be seen by comparing the orderings in 36 and 37. 36 Aqyoq peilhaoq xil xov 21 meigoq nei bavq pyul 3 clothing this CL America ABL take across la laq e nga. toward PERF LNK OBJ ‘He brought this clothing over from America.’ elicited 37 “Ngaq e aqnil, nol ngaq e meiqbaoq nei siil 1 LNK y.bro 2:N 1 LNK mouth ABL gold qiq dev bavq heil joq.” one piece take away IMP ‘“My younger brother, take a piece of gold from my mouth.”’ spoken by a talking rock III:91 In 36, the clothing is has been previously mentioned, but the place from which it came has not. In 37, the rock is already talking, so that its mouth is an accessible referent, and existence of a piece of gold has not been previously mentioned. Thus, in both 36 and 37, the constituents are ordered so that established information is mentioned before unestablished information.

2.3.2.5 Ordering of themes and recipients