Ergative

At 3:57 pm -0700 20/10/98, JOEL MATTHEW PEARSON wrote:
>On Wed, 21 Oct 1998, R. Skrintha wrote, talking about Hindi:
>
>> Btw, there are some ergative-like sentences also for perceptional/mental
>> verbs/emotional verbs, wherein the ergative function is supplied by the
>> formal dative case:
>>
>>   mujhe  yah  maloom hai
>>   me-DAT this known  is
>>   "I know this"
[snip]
>
>This isn't exactly an ergative construction, but rather a (probably)
>related construction called the "experiencer dative".
And this isn't exactly the "experiencer dative", but I reminds of the North
Walian construction which in the colloquial language has replaced the
preterite (simple past) still used in the South.  In the North they use
'ddaru' derived from 'darfod' "to happen" and the subject appears
dative-like with the preposition 'i' "to", e.g. "They went" is -

South Walian:  fe aethon nhw
                  WENT   THEY  [initial 'fe' is a "positive" marker]

North Walian: ddaru    iddyn nhw  fynd
              HAPPENED TO    THEM A-GOING

(Preposition 'i' conjugates and, of course, 'mynd' mutates after the
'dative subject'   :)

It also means BTW colloquial north Walian can express all 'tenses' which
are concerned with time only by means of auxiliary verbs.

Ray.