Re: THEORY: Mixed erg/acc

>Matt Pearson wrote:
>> Alternative (a).  If the transitive subject is 1st/2nd person and
>> the object is non-1st/2nd, then the subject is in the NOM form
>> and the object is in the ACC form (i.e. both are unmarked).
>
>Don't you mean ABS instead of ACC?  That is:
>
>I hit John
>I-nom hit John-abs
>
>John hit me
>John-erg hit I-acc
>
>(Assuming that they don't do weird things with experience verbs)
Oops, sorry.  Yes, you have it right.

>I hadn't thought of the marked/unmarked.  It makes it seem less weird,
>since 1st/2nd person would normally be the subject, while 3rd persons
>the object.  That way, when that's true, they're both unmarked, while
>when it's not, they're both marked.
Exactly.  At least, that's how some people justify split ergativity
(David Bell, for example, has pushed this explanation).  It makes sense of
the fact that ergativity splits always assign nom/abs morphology to
nominals which are high on the person/animacy hierarchy (1/2 >> 3)
and erg/abs morphology to nominals which are low on the hierarchy
--never the other way round.

Matt.