Re: Nominative to ergative shift

Nik Taylor <fortytwo@...> wrote:
> FFlores wrote:
> > Stage 2: only V(O)S
>
> VOS is also a very rare (altho not unknown) word order.  It seems odd
> for a lang to go from VSO to VOS, in my opinion.
>
Yes, it does. I was thinking about a process where you
shift to (S)VO, where the subject may or may not be
understood. I think a better option would be having
VS for intransitive sentences (the original word order)
and SVO for transitive sentences (with the subject
following the trend, often seen in other langs, of
becoming topic and moving to the beginning of the
sentence). This would be enough to place the absolutive
noun phrase after the verb. But as you said in another
post (and I agree) the absolutive is usually unmarked
while the ergative is marked.


--Pablo Flores

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