Re: THEORY: two questions
| From: | BP Jonsson <bpj@...> |
|---|
| Date: | Friday, March 31, 2000, 10:05 |
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At 16:18 30.3.2000 -0600, Thomas R. Wier wrote:
> >
> > > I may be wrong though. But IIRC, some IE languages have now
> > > mixed ergative if not completely ergative systems,
> >
> > Which languages would that be?
>
>There are a couple Indo-Aryan languages, particularly Hindi, which
>have some aspects of ergativity.
Historically speakers of Middle Indo-Aryan ceased to use the old Perfect,
instead using an analytic passive construction, which is used also in Sanskrit:
_;si.syo 'caaryena d.r.s.ta.h_
pupil-NOM teacher-INSTR seen-PPP
Literally this means "pupil (is) seen by teacher", but in Middle Indo-Aryan
the construction lost its passive sense, becoming the usual way of
expressing the perfect. In New Indo-Aryan the reflex of the past passive
participle has lost its nominal character, and functions as a finite verb
form taking its subject in an oblique case and its object in the
nominative. Thus an ergative!
/BP
B.Philip Jonsson <mailto:bpj@...>bpj@netg.se
<mailto:melroch@...>melroch@my-deja.com
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