Re: erg/abs; verbs.

At 20:07 12/03/00 +0100, you wrote:
>Hi!
>
Hi! Sorry to answer after everybody, but I'm quite back in the list right
now (trying to resume though...)

>I have some questions about languages that use ergative/absolutive case
>systems.
>Is in these tounges the verbal system generally passive? If I have verbal
>personal endings, will they agree with the absolutive? Is there in these
>languages a difference of voice as in Indoeuropean active/middle-passive?
>
In an erg/abs language, I would tend to think that verbs would agree with
the absolutive (which is the unmarked case, and the only one which is used
for every verb, whether they are transitive or intransitive). But in fact,
all erg/abs languages that I know of agree with both the ergative and the
absolutive when present (in fact, I know mainly of Basque).

And yes, erg/abs languages can have a difference of voice, with a voice
called "antipassive" which makes a transitive verb intransitive by changing
the ergative to an absolutive. For example:

I eat the apple -> I eat
becomes for an erg/abs language:
I-ERG eat the apple-ABS -> I-ABS eat-ANTIPASSIVE

Generally, the antipassive never shows the actual object (unlike the
passive of nom/acc languages which can show the agent: 'by')

>
>I'm also trying to avoid the use of the passive voice - and that's why I'm
>interested in erg/abs - here are some tricks I've invented to do it, I would
>like you to comment them:
>
>1- use an erg/abs grammar;
>
>2- use a word order where the topic of a sentence is always in a certain
>position (but I'd also like to free up th word order, so it doesn't seem a
>good thing...);
>
>3- use a trigger marker on verb's object to make it the subject of a passive
>statement:
>        Eat  I             apple
>        verb+1s         apple+ACC
>        I eat an aplle
>    becomes:
>        Eat  I             apple
>        verb+1s         apple+ACC+*TRIGGER*
>        An apple is eaten by me
>        'I' is always the grammatical subject; 'aplle' is the logical
>subject.
>
Instead of 'trigger', you could call this affix 'topic'. Japanese has it:
ga is the marker of subject, wa the marker of topic, o the marker of
object. wa can replace ga or o, but generally the topic is also the
subject, so it's rare that wa replaces o. Moreover, Japanese has a passive...

>4- use the same case for the subject of an active sentence and for the agent
>of a passive one, while using a different case for the object of an active
>sentence and the subject of a passive one:
>        Eat  I                       apple
>        verb+1sNOM         apple+ACC
>        I eat an aplle
>    becomes:
>        Eat  I                       apple
>        verb+1sNOM         apple+*SUBJECTIVE*
>        An apple is eaten by me
>        'I' is always the grammatical subject; 'aplle' is the logical
>subject.
>
I don't think it would be that different from the former possibility. Also,
it doesn't seem very naturalistic (but that's not a critic: I'm the first
one to do unnaturalistic things with my languages - and yet I'm always
trying to justify them in a naturalistic way :) - ).

>5- do without passive (someone said that languages would be really much
>better without passive - was he studying Greek verbs?)
>
That can well be, especially with a language with cases. Instead of a
passive, use simple free word order.

>*
>
>Another think I would like to speak about is the tense system I'm creating
>for my conlang. I have designed six tenses.
>
>1-    Present:            I eat an apple;        I'm eating an apple
>
>2-    Perfect:            I have eaten an apple (I'm eating it yet or I've
>just finished to eat it)
>
>3-    Aorist:              I ate an apple (and this happened so much time
>ago I don't bother about it anymore) I used to eat an apple (only one a day,
>but every day, and I don't do it anymore)
>
>4-    Future:             I will eat an apple, I'm going to eat an apple,
>I'm eating an apple
>
>-plus two additional tenses, always agreed with other time clauses:
>
>5-    Anterior:           After I eat an apple(ANT), I'm doing my
>homework(PRES)
>After I ate an apple(ANT), I have done my homework(PERF)
>After I had eaten an apple(ANT), I did my homework(AOR)
>After I will have eaten an apple(ANT), I will be doing my homework(FUT)
>
>6-    Posterior:          same uses, postponed, after the principal action.
>
>What do you say about this?
>
Nice! Personnally, I have a few languages that use the same tenses as your
last two. Just a comment: technically perfect is not a tense but an aspect,
and it can be combined with any tense (like English pluperfect: had eaten,
which is not only an 'anterior' and future perfect: will have eaten). So
unless you have a justification, I'm not sure Perfect could be a tense.

>Hopefully,
>
>Luca Mangiat
>email: mangiat@tin.it
>
>P.S.: I hope you haven't had an indigestion with all those apples...  :)))
>
Too bad I don't like apples :))

>P.P.S.:Excuse me for my English!
>
It's nice, from the point of view of a Frenchman :) .

                                                Christophe Grandsire
                                                |Sela Jemufan Atlinan C.G.

"Reality is just another point of view."

homepage : http://rainbow.conlang.org
(ou : http://www.bde.espci.fr/homepages/Christophe.Grandsire/index.html)