Abstract One possible usage-based motivation for ergative alignment in grammars is the reference-establishing function shared by the sole argument of intransitives and the patient argument of transitives. Here we test this hypothesis, known as Preferred Argument Structure, against discourse data from Basque, a language with ergative case marking. While we do find a discourse-ergative distribution of lexical forms of reference, our results suggest animacy in addition to role to be a central driver of this distribution. Thus, syntactic position does not appear to reflect referential status directly. This opens new avenues for exploring the specific effects of reference management on grammar. In drawing on production data from a language with ergative case, we also complement previous studies into discourse ergativity that were based primarily on languages with accusative alignment in their grammatical relations.
Egurtzegi et al. (Thu,) studied this question.