Re: erg/abs; verbs.

>Is in these tounges the verbal system generally passive? If I have verbal
>personal endings, will they agree with the absolutive?
I think that it is more common that verbs in an erg/abs system agree with
the ergative.(But they probably might agree with both in some languages.)
Also, languages might be ergative in the sense that verbs agree with the
intransitive subject and the transitive object in the same way even thought
they do not mark cases on any of them.

>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.
>
>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.
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'?


>-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.
This is nice!



/Jens
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