Re: relative tense / universals / object agreement

Nik Taylor wrote:

>Boudewijn Rempt wrote:
>> That would be very interesting - it's most often that marking for S and O is
>> optional, while the marking A is obligatory, since in intransitive sentences
>> marking for the subject is redundant - in fact, third person singular
>> subject/object is most often the default, unmarked actant.
>> I'd very much like to see some examples...
>
>Not so.  In nominative languages, S and A are often obligatorily marked,
>while O is less often marked, but in ergative languages, S and O are
>often obligatorily marked, while A is less often marked.  The absolutive
>relation is "closer", so to speak, to the verb than the ergative, in the
>same way that the nominative is closer than the accusative.
It must depend heavily on the language group then - my observation certainly
holds true for the Himalayan languages I have studied - but then I don't know
much about Australian or Caucasian languages. I'm fairly sure
about Nepali too (and that would imply Hindi too), and Tibetan, but I'm
handicapped
in not having my references here. I'll take a look in Dixon's Ergativity
tonight.


Boudewijn Rempt
boud@rempt.xs4all.nl
http://www.xs4all.nl/~bsarempt