Re: non-accusative, non-ergative, non-active ...

Joe Hill wrote:
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Andreas Johansson" <and_yo@...>
>To: <CONLANG@...>
>Sent: Friday, March 08, 2002 6:41 PM
>Subject: non-accusative, non-ergative, non-active ...
>
>
> > If I had a language with no case affices, where word order in sentences
>with
> > a transitive verb is SOV and in ones with an intransitive SV, could that
> > language be meaningfully be classified as accusative, ergative, active
>or
>as
> > not any of those three?
> >
> > As you can probably guess, I'm planning to have a conlang work like
>this,
> > namely Altaii, and quite possibly also its sister Eithínin and their
> > ancestor Vaikin.
>
>Hmm...sounds accusative.  English is fairly similar to that...
Except that if English was ergative, with SVO syntax in transitive
sentences, the syntax ought to change to VS in intransitive sentences (so
that intransitive subjects are treated like transitive objects). In the case
I describe above, you can't tell into which position the intransitive
subject goes. (I know there is better terminology to express what I'm trying
to say - somebody feel like enlightening?)

>
>But almost all natlangs have cases at some time in their lives.  Only
>exception I can think of offhend is chinese.
Well, these _Vaiksh_ languages (to use the Tairezazh term) are in a
definitely un-case'd phase of their lives ...

                                           Andreas

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