Re: Ergativity Reference Done

Quoting David Peterson <ThatBlueCat@...>:

> One neat thing is that I named the third possible pattern.   What I
> mean is that in a nominative-accusative pattern, S and A are
> grouped together to the exclusion of P, and in an ergative-absolutive
> pattern, S and P are grouped together to the exclusion of A.   There
> is a third possible (though unattested) pattern where A and P are
> grouped together to the exclusion of S.   I named this the duative-unitive
> pattern, where A and P receive duative case, and S receives unitive
> case.   I thought it was neat idea.   But, a couple questions remain: (1)
> Did I get the names right (i.e., did I use the Latin roots correctly)?; and
> (2) has someone somewhere already named these cases and this
> pattern?
This pattern has been, somewhat informally, been christened
"monster-raving-loony", or "MRL" for short, which term has been used in various
discussions on this list, perhaps most frequently and consistently by yours
truly. The case-names I've seen, and used, are simply "transitive case" and
"intransitive case".

This pattern is found in some Iranian languages - an archive search for "monster
raving loony" ought yield some info on them, submitted, IIRC, chiefly by the
Lord of the Instrumentality.

There's, of course two further possibilites - "tripartite" languages that have
separate markers for each of S, A and P, and "clairvoyant" languages, that
treat them all the same, using only context to disambiguate A and P.
"Tripartite" can safely be considered an accepted technical term, "clairvoyant"
probably not. Tripartite systems are found in some Australian languages; I
cannot off-hand think of any examples for clairvoyant ones, but they're out
there, or so I'm told.

(And then we get to the intricacies of Split-S, Fluid-S and hierarchy systems,
and those trigger systems ...)

                                                        Andreas

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