Re: erg/abs; verbs.

Persson wrote:
> One of the uses of passive is in elliptical sentences such as:
> 'I shot the klingon guards and fell to the floor.'
>
> which is an abbreviation of :
> 'I shot the klingon guards and I fell to the floor.'
>
> If I would want to say :
> 'I shot the klingon guards and the klingon guards fell to the floor'
> in the same way I can use passive:
> 'The klingon guards were shot by me and fell to the floor'
>
> Now, would Ate-he    apple      and disappeared
>            (2s)   (acc,trigger)       (2s)
>
> still mean 'I ate an apple and disappeared'
> or   'The apple was eaten by me and disappeared'?
Mh, that's a problem! I didn't think about it!
I could use relative prefixes to join two sentences and determinate the new
subject: this could be a solution not to be ambiguous, but it seems too
artificial:

Ate-3s   apple-acc-trg      and  determinator1(what before was the
subject)-disappeared-3s
= the apple was eaten by him and he (=the man) disappeared

Ate-3s   apple-acc-trg      and  determinator1(what before was the
object)-disappeared-3s
= the apple was eaten by him and it (=the apple) disappeared


Or I could introduce grammatical gender to use it (also) this way:

Ate-3s-male    apple-acc-trg      and  disappeared-3s-male
= the apple was eaten by him and he (=the man) disappeared

Ate-3s-male    apple-acc-trg      and  disappeared-3s-fruit
= the apple was eaten by him and it (=the apple) disappeared

where _male_ and _fruit_ are two genders
-Bantu languages have half a dozen genders: I'll make up my _fruit_
gender! :)


Luca Mangiat
email: mangiat@tin.it