Re: Ergativity
| From: | Nik Taylor <yonjuuni@...> |
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| Date: | Sunday, August 10, 2003, 3:38 |
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Chris Bates wrote:
> If the languages does indeed mark it:
>
> 2. Robert-<erg> cooked.
>
> without an abs than it is not actually an ergative language at all.
Uh, yes it is. It depends on the language. Many undebatably accusative
languages allow you to drop arguments. In Japanese, for example, you
can freely drop the nominative or the accusative or both, if clear from
context. There's no reason an ergative language can't do the same.
Besides which, ergativity is not a black-or-white category. A language
can have ergative marking on nouns, but accusative syntax, for example.
--
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