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Re: Ergativity

From:Thomas R. Wier <trwier@...>
Date:Tuesday, August 5, 2003, 22:26
Quoting Rob Haden <magwich78@...>:

> I was wondering if the sentences below demonstrate an ergative distinction > in Pre-OurTongue: > > [1] Myáya n(w)a thwáya ?yát?ya. [transitive] > Me [GEN] you eat. > I am eating you. > > [2] Myáya n(w)a ?yát?ya. [agentive?] > Me [GEN] eat. > I am eating (something). > > [3] Myáya ?yát?ya. [patientive] > Me eat. > I am being eaten (lit. '(Something) is eating me'). > > What do y'all think?
Ergativity is, put simply, a pattern in which both the single argument of an intransitive verb and the patient of a transitive verb are treated (morphologically or syntactically) in one fashion which is distinct from the treatment of the agent of the same transitive verb. Your situation is not clear, because I cannot tell whether the genitival marker is syntactically associated with the first argument ("me") as a kind of postposition, or with the second argument ("you") as a preposition. (If your language adheres to Greenbergian universals, with an SOV language you would have postpositions, not prepositions.) If the former, as a postposition, you do not have an ergative language, because the single argument of your two putatively intransitive constructions can be marked either as patient or as agent. As such, your language would be a split-S or, more likely, a fluid-S language. If the genitival marker is associated with the second argument in the transitive construction, then you still do not have an ergative language, as the first argument is marked the same in all three examples. ========================================================================= Thomas Wier "I find it useful to meet my subjects personally, Dept. of Linguistics because our secret police don't get it right University of Chicago half the time." -- octogenarian Sheikh Zayed of 1010 E. 59th Street Abu Dhabi, to a French reporter. Chicago, IL 60637