Re: Ergativity
| From: | Markus Miekk-oja <fam.miekk-oja@...> |
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| Date: | Sunday, August 10, 2003, 20:16 |
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>even though the rice is actually the patient because a verb
>in english must always have a nominative. You cannot say "cooked the
>rice" to mean "the rice cooked". In ergatives it is supposed to be the
>opposite, so I don't see how someone can say that an ergative language
Well, English is not the measure for nominative-accusative languages. In
Finnish, you can say "cooked the rice" (in certain constructions), and there
are languages that are extremely liberal as far as that goes. An ergative
system should supposedly not neccessarily be the opposite of the english
accusative system. If you can say <cooked the rice<acc>> in some accusative
languages, then why would <robert<erg> cooked> be impossible in ergative
systems?
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