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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

Replies

Christophe Grandsire <christophe.grandsire@...>
Dirk Elzinga <dirk_elzinga@...>