Re: Ergative + Accusative?

FFlores wrote:
>
> I've heard several times that some languages (the example
> was Dyirbal) use a mixed system in which sentences with
> 1st and 2nd person subjects follow the ergative/absolutive
> system, while sentences with 3rd person subjects use
> nominative/accusative.
That's actually very common to have mixing that way.

> Assuming this is true exactly like that, is it likely that
> the erg/abs sentences have an antipassive but no passive,
> while the reverse is true for nom/acc sentences? The
> mixed system looks already weird enough to me...
From what I understand of Dyirbal, there's no passive.  Syntactically,
it is about as purely ergative as you can get, it's just that the
morphology uses accusative in some pronouns (I think, tho, that you got
them reversed - I seem to recall that 1st and 2nd persons were acc/nom,
and 3rd was erg/abs)

> In any case, is it likely that a system like this could
> lose case endings, case being distinguished by word order
> alone?
I don't think it would be any more or less likely than a straightforward
nom/acc or erg/abs system.

--
"If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men
believe and adore, and preserve for many generations the remembrance of
the city of God!" - Ralph Waldo Emerson
ICQ: 18656696
AIM Screen-Name: NikTailor