>Date: Sun, 10 Aug 2003 23:14:42 +0300
>From: Markus Miekk-oja <fam.miekk-oja@...>
>Subject: Re: Ergativity
Chris Bates:
>>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
Markus Miekk-oja:
>Well, English is not the measure for nominative-accusative languages. In
>Finnish, you can say "cooked the rice" (in certain constructions), and there
Not like this had much to do with the actual subject of the thread, but I
don't understand you.
- Mitä Robert teki?
- Keitti riisiä.
- What did Robert do?
- Cooked the rice.
In which constructions can you say "cooked the rice" in Finnish where you
cannot say it in English? Or did you mean another Finnish sentence completely?
("Cooked the rice" does not mean "the rice cooked" in the ones above...)
>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?
- M. Astrand
"Neeba." - "Teeba?" - "Qeesvefar la:lka." - "Djo:ly."
"Guess what?" - "What?" - "I've learned how to speak." - "Great."
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