Re: THEORY: unergative

Philippe Caquant <herodote92@...> wrote:
<<<<
So if somebody could give me some clear and easy
examples, I would pray the Lord he be blessed, and his
sons be blessed, and his grandsons be blessed, and his
cats and dogs and cows and sheeps and everybody home
be blessed too.
>>>>
Maybe ergative and stuff are best understood without "transitivity" and with
an egg and a chicken: Which comes first?

If your language decides that the egg comes first, the corresponding egg's
state "to be laid" will be the basic predicate. You will then derive the
action of the chicken (in English: "to lay an egg") as "to cause an egg to
be laid." I will call such language "eggative".

An eggative language works reversely to chronology: You infer what was
"before" based on what is "now." This is the natural way your brain deals
with causality. French linguists call this a "direction retrospective."

Reversely, if your language decides that the chicken comes first, her action
"to lay" will be the "basis" from which you will derive the resultive state
of the egg "to be laid". I will call such language "chickenative".

In a chickentive language, you view things according to chronology. This is
the natural way your brain deals with experience: "First I could see the
chicken was in her nest and next thing I know for sure: There is an egg
now." French linguists call this a "direction prospective."

Now, some languages base all their predicates on the eggative, and others on
the chickenative--regardless whether the process involves a result or not.
Languages tagging eggative and chickenative as noun cases are called
"ergative" and "accusative":

Ergative language:

Egg laid.
Chicken-ERG egg laid.
Egg seen.
Farmer-ERG egg seen.
(Egg is absolutive)

Accusative language:

Chicken lay.
Chicken egg-ACC lay.
Farmer see.
Farmer egg-ACC see.
(Chicken and farmer are nominative)

Ergative languages with accusative features are called "split ergative." I
don't know whether accusative languages with ergative features are worth a
special cool name as well.

Now, other languages don't have noun cases so they tag eggative and
chickenative as verbal voices only. I call these voices "factitive" and
"mediopassive"--but linguists also call them "causative", "passive", "middle
voice", etc., depending on plenty of parameters--including elusive ones such
as "transitivity":

Mediopassive-based (so-called "intransitive-based"):
Egg laid.
Chicken FACT-laid egg.

Factitive-based (so-called "transitive-based"):
Chicken lay egg.
Egg MEDIOPASS-lay.

Languages with (next to) no noun cases such as Indonesian and English pick
eggative or chickenative as a basis depending on the semantic content of the
predicate ("action" vs. "resultive state"):

Indonesian mediopassive-based verb:
Telur pecak. The egg is broken.
Orang me-mecak-kan telur. The man makes-broken the egg.

English mediopassive-based verb:
Her hair is dark/ grows.
The shampoo darkens her hair/ makes her hair grow.

Indonesian factitive-based verb:
Orang potong roti. The man cuts the bread.
Roti di-potong (orang). The bread is cut (by the man).

English factitive-based verb:
The man breaks the egg.
The egg is broken (by the man).

Note that no linguist claims that Indonesian or English are "split"
whatever.

Regarding languages with ergative in the perfect ("past") and accusative in
the imperfect ("present-future"): Pick up an egg freshly laid; The resultive
state of the egg symbolizes the "present". Now imagine the "past": the image
of the chicken laying the egg will come to your eyes. The present state of
the egg is the basis and the past action of the chicken derives from that
present basis. Therefore it's no wonder that some accusative langs are
ergative in the past tense.

µ.