Theiling Online    Sitemap    Conlang Mailing List HQ   

Re: Ergativity Reference Done

From:Rene Uittenbogaard <ruittenb@...>
Date:Tuesday, November 23, 2004, 1:19
Andreas Johansson wrote:
> 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 reminds me of the case pattern I had in mind for Tacsoy (a conlang currently in a very early stage of development). There are two cases, which I called nominative and "preferentive". Furthermore, there are two types of verbs, type 1 and type 2. The types are chosen at random for each verb (I might change this, and use some semantical criterion instead). Type 2 verbs are inflected; type 1 verbs are not. These verb types give rise to two types of sentences: Type 1 sentences are those that contain a type 1 verb. The subject is put in the nominative, the object in the preferentive. Ud llhoR hih mo lomâk. /Md K\7R\ hih m7 'l7mak/ PRON-1SG-NOM see PRON-3SG-PREF in garden-NOM. I see him in the garden. Type 2 sentences are those that contain a type 2 verb. Subject and object are both put in the preferentive. Note that the noun following the preposition "mo" (time/place) is still nominative (nouns following other prepositions get preferentive again). Hih @mpu uð mo pis3s_. /hih '@mpM MD m7 'pisEs/ PRON-3PL-PREF interrogate-3PL-PRES PRON-1SG-PREF in city-NOM. They interrogate me in the city. In these examples, I did not consider agent/patient/experiencer/etc. The verbs are arbitrarily assigned a type, and I guess they are inherently nominative/accusative-like after all. Maybe I could shake this nom/acc-yoke off by paying more attention to the semantical roles. René