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Re: THEORY: unergative

From:Christophe Grandsire <christophe.grandsire@...>
Date:Sunday, February 22, 2004, 15:32
En réponse à Philippe Caquant :


>I recently discovered, to my utter despair, that a >whole horde of linguistic concepts I hadn't reckoned >upon were howling under my city walls.
Hehe, this list is a goldmine for anyone ready to learn new things in linguistics :)) .
>I had heard before of things like accusative, passive, >theme, rheme and even ergative and absolutive. Now >there seems that they brought new friends called >anti-accusative, anti-passive, primary theme, >secundary theme and anti-ergative (probably others >too).
Actually, I don't think there's anything called "antiaccusative" or "antiergative" out there :)) . If you mean "unaccusative" and "unergative", they do not "oppose" the normal accusative and ergative. And actually, the names are not quite well chosen, but they've stuck so it's impossible to change them now :(( .
> I feel the same as physicists when they >discovered that there were some anti-neutrons, >anti-protons, anti-electrons, plus some Higgs-bosons >and three dozens of even more suspicious characters >around.
LOL.
>1/ Languages like Latin or English use transitive >verbs (among others), like in: >I shot the sheriff >*I* is understood as agent, thus subject and in the >nominative case >*the sheriff* is understood as the patient, thus >object and in the accusative case (I shot him) >The passive form would be : >The sheriff was shot by me (*me* being facultative, >but if present, at an oblique case)
Correct in general.
>2/ But there are languages, like Basque, various >Caucasian langs and others, using another way : >By-me shot the sheriff >*me* being in ergative case, and *the sheriff* in >absolutive >What conception does such a form reflect ? I think I >understand it as : "There was some sheriff-shooting, >and that was done by me". Maybe I'm wrong ?
That's a way to describe it (and indeed many people who don't understand what ergativity is think that ergative languages are "inherently passive". That's not quite correct, but that's the best way to describe ergative languages in accusative terms).
>So what's exactly the theme and the rheme in those two >sentences, I'm not clear about it yet. Normally the >theme is "what we're talking about", and the rheme >"which new information we're adding to that topic". >Maybe I'm wrong too ? But if I burst into the saloon >and yell "I shot the sheriff !", looks to me that >there wasn't any theme and the whole sentence is the >rheme ?
Indeed. The theme can be absent, or refer to the whole context. It can stay unexpressed. Only the rheme is necessary in any sentence.
>3/ When the verb is not a transitive one, than the two >different ways we just saw become something like : >I danced, or : >I shivered >(*I* being the grammatical subject, in the nominative; >in the first case, "I" is doing an on-purpose >activity, in the secund case, a not-on-purpose >activity (?) ; is "I" yet called an agent or not, I >dunno - probably an *experient* in the case of >shivering ?)
"Experiencer" is the usual term. Note that in transitive sentences like "I saw the sheriff", the subject is also an experiencer, not an agent. "Seeing" is not an action (that would be "watching").
>but the Basque or whatever would say : >By-me danced, or By-me shivered (meaning: There was >some dancing / shivering and it was done by me)
No, that's incorrect. They would say: me danced, me shivered (i.e. the subject is in the absolutive!) The important difference between accusative and ergative languages is the case the subject of intransitive sentences is put in: - In accusative languages, the subject of an intransitive sentence is put in the same case as the *subject* of a transitive sentence. This case is usually called "nominative", and the object of a transitive sentence is put in a case called "accusative". - In ergative languages, the subject of an intransitive sentence is put in the same case as the *object* of a transitive sentence. This case is usually called "absolutive", and the subject of a transitive sentence is put in a case called "ergative". If Basque did as you wrote it, it would mean the subject of an intransitive sentence would be in the same case as the *subject* of a transitive sentence, and by definition this would mean the language is accusative :)) .
>So the linguists said : well, in that case, this is >not ergative, this is anti-ergative, because ergative >can only apply in transitive sentences. (Is that it ?)
Not at all, you're mixing things that don't fit together.
>And then they said: well, if there is anti-ergative, >why shouldn't it be also anti-accusative, anti-passive >and anti-whatever-ive ? (The point is I can't find out >any examples by myself, my brain having got over the >boiling point already).
Actually not. There's no such thing as an "anti-accusative". However, there is such a thing as an "antipassive". Like the passive in accusative languages, it's a voice, but it applies to ergative languages. Let's make a simple but good definition: - in accusative languages, there is often a voice called "passive". This voice basically takes a transitive verb, and makes it into an intransitive verb (we say it "decreases the verb's valency" - valency is the number of syntactically mandatory arguments the verb must take -), while it erases the subject (which can sometimes be reintroduced as an oblique argument, but is by no means necessary) and *promotes* the object to subject position (the object goes from the accusative to the nominative case). Your description of accusative languages shows that you understand that already, but I put this description in order to make the next one clearer. - in ergative languages, there is sometimes a voice called "antipassive". This voice also takes a transitive verb, and makes it into an intransitive verb, while it erases the *object* (the argument which is in the most basic case, and which can be later reintroduced as an oblique argument, but by no means necessary) and promotes the transitive *subject* to intransitive subject position (it goes from the ergative to the absolutive case). The term "antipassive" becomes clear: it looks like something that works in the opposite way from the passive. To give an example using the same example you used, if you have: I-ERG shot the sheriff-ABS (I add the case abbreviations to make things clear) I-ABS danced I-ABS shivered I-ABS shot-ANTIPASSIVE ("to" the sheriff-OBLIQUE CASE) The "to" is only there to make it clear that if the former object is reintroduced, it is in an oblique case). However, for what is worth, Basque doesn't have an antipassive. Indeed, it has no voice distinctions whatsoever. However, there are other ergative languages that feature such an antipassive. A thing you have to remember about the distinction between accusative and ergative languages is the concept of *default case*, i.e. basically what case is the dictionary form of a word in. In accusative languages, it's the nominative. The dictionary form of nouns is always the subject form, in both transitive and intransitive sentences. In ergative languages, on the other hand, the dictionary form is the *absolutive* case. This means that the dictionary form corresponds to the *object* of transitive sentences (and the subject of intransitive sentences). And the ergative is a *derived* form, not a base one, just like the accusative in accusative languages is a derived form. If this seems unclear to you, that's because you're reasoning with the concepts of "subject" and "object", which fit only accusative languages (and then, only those that neatly use the nominative for subjects and the accusative for objects). If you try to apply them to ergative languages, it becomes automatically a mess (unless you treat the term in the absolutive as "subject", which is a valid way to think about it, but then you have to remember that the subject of transitive sentences is the *patient* rather than the agent). So what you need to try is to stop thinking in these terms, and only think in terms of syntactic cases.
>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.
I don't have examples at hand, but I hope my explanations have cleared things up a bit. You cannot begin to understand the complexities of split-ergative or active systems, of the "unergative" and the "unaccusative", of Fluid-S and Split-S, if you don't understand first the basic distinction between nominative-accusative and ergative-absolutive languages. I advise you to get the "Que Sais-Je ?" number 1668: "Les Basques" and 2006: "La structure des langues". They are a good starting point to learn about those notions ("Les Basques" has only a small grammar part, but it is good to see how ergativity is actually implemented), and are cheaper and easier to understand than professional linguistic books. And they are written by professional linguists so the info you get is still good info, not too dumbed down (indeed, "La structure des langues" is not something the layman would understand, but for the one who knows already some linguistic vocabulary, it's a good starting point). Christophe Grandsire. http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr You need a straight mind to invent a twisted conlang.

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Philippe Caquant <herodote92@...>