Re: Ergative Construction?
From: | William Annis <annis@...> |
Date: | Friday, October 12, 2001, 13:26 |
>Definitely! Agreement of the verb in number with the subject of an
>intransitive sentence, and with the object of a transitive
>sentence. Avar is also a natlang where the verb agrees only with the
>object of transitive sentences and the subject of intransitive ones
>(don't ask me more about it, I know that only because it's an
>example given in the booklet I have with me right now :) ). As for
>the fact that the verb agrees only in number (or does it agree in
>person too?), it's a feature that exists in some languages. In some
>languages even, it's the form of the verb that says whether the
>subject, or a complement (depending on the language) is singular or
>plural :) .
Now this is very odd. After years of looking, I finally found
a Sumerian grammar in English (technical German is slooooow reading
for me), and it seems Sumerian has this singular/plural verb
difference, sometimes with suppletives filling out the possible
forms. From section 265 of "The Sumerian Language" by Marie-Louise
Thomsen -- my copy arrived yesterday :) -- "to bring" has these forms
(I'm omitting the cuneiform ident subscripts):
hamTu-form mar
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