Re: Ergativity Reference Done

Andreas wrote [concerning A and O marked one way, S another]:
> 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".
These are what I would call them.

> 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 is more or less the standard term, at least since Dixon's
book on ergativity came out.  The question is whether one can call
the so-called "clairvoyant" morphology "case" at all, given that
there is no opposition in the morphosyntactic mapping. (But see below)

> Tripartite systems are found in some Australian languages;
Wangkumara and Galali, but only on NPs, not in verb agreement.

> I cannot off-hand think of any
> examples for clairvoyant ones, but they're out there, or so I'm told.
Nahuatl might count as one.  Most nouns in Nahuatl have
a so-called "absolutive" suffix (occuring in all three Dixonian
roles), which must be removed to add possessive or plural morphology:

  n-inekwisti-s xonaka-tl
  1-smell-fut   flower-abs
  'I will smell the flower'

  n-inekwisti-s xonaka-meh
  'I will smell the flowers'

  n-inekwisti-s mo-xonaka
  'I will smell your flower'

The absolutive suffixes (either -tli, -li, or -tl) was IIRC
originally an article, which over time lost its deictic sense and is
now just frozen nominal morphology.  Since it is no longer an article,
one could just as well call it case -- except that there is no opposition
defining it as such. Such systems are obviously dysfunctional.

 =========================================================================
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

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