Re: THEORY: Mixed erg/acc

On Fri, 10 Mar 2000, Matt Pearson wrote:

> There's another kind of split-ergativity pattern out there as well,
> where the choice between NOM/ACC marking and ERG/ABS marking
> depends on the aspect of the verb.  If the verb is imperfective,
> then you get the NOM/ACC pattern, and if the verb is perfective,
> then you get the ERG/ABS pattern:
>
>    John-NOM  book-ACC  read-PROG
>    "John is reading the book"
>
>    John-ERG  book-ABS  read-PERF
>    "John has read the book"
>
> This kind of split-ergativity is found in Hindi and other Indo-Aryan
> languages, and also (I think) in Georgian.  (A linguistics professor
> of mine, Anoop Mahajan, has a neat story for explaining this pattern,
> but I won't go into that unless asked...)
Okay, I'll ask. If it's too involved, feel free to respond
privately.

> Matt.
>
--
Dirk Elzinga
dirk.elzinga@m.cc.utah.edu