The Berber 'state' distinction: Dependent marking after all? A commentary on Mettouchi & Frajzyngier (2013).

Critically reviewing the recent analysis of the distinction between the so-called 'absolute' and 'annexed' 'states' in Kabyle (Berber) by (M&F), it is shown that it does not fare better than the existing treatments in its account of the empirical facts, mainly due to the assumption of monosemy. It is further argued that M&F's rejection of 'case' as a valid notion for the description of the Kabyle data rests on simplistic and ill-informed views on the nature of case, and that adoption of a case analysis allows one to compare the Berber data to a wide range of languages with similar peculiarities in the distribution of dependent marking. Finally, M&F's claim that their analysis of Kabyle has pointed out a 'previously unrecognized typological category' is refuted, showing that it stems from an unwarranted mixing of language-particular descriptive categories and crosslinguistic comparative concepts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]