Andreas Johansson palsalge
>Quoting JS Bangs <jaspax@...>:
>
>> These are the wrong kind of examples to use for deciding whether a
>> language is accusative, ergative, or active. These terms have to do with
>> the marking of arguments to a verb and transitivity, so we'd need to see
>> some examples of that. Can you post translations of these three
sentences:
>>
>> 1) I eat food.
>> 2) I run.
>> 3) I fall.
>>
>> In most general terms:
>>
>> An accusative language is one in which "I" in all three sentences is
>> marked the same (nominative), while "food" is marked differently
>> (accusative).
>>
>> An ergative language is one in which "food" from (1) and "I" from (2)
and
>> (3) are marked the same (absolutive), while "I" from (1) is marked
>> differently (ergative).
>>
>> An active language is one in which "I" from (1) and (2) is marked the
same
>> (agentive), while "food" and "I" from (3) are marked the same
>> (patientive). This is subject to a lot of language-specific variation,
>> though, so beware.
>
>What would we call a language that marks "I" from (1) the same as "I" in
(3),
>and "I" in (2) the same as "food" in (1)? Beyond weird, that is.
For that matter, what would you call a language that marks "I" and "food"
the same in (1), but marks the other two in a different manner? Beyond
English, that is.
~Wright, who can't stay serious for ten minutes in a row.