Help in Determining Asha'ille Typology

This talk about ergativity has made me wonder again what, exactly,
Asha'ille's typology.  I don't expect it to be anything highly unusual; the
problem is that I don't understand the various terms and options well
enough to decide for myself.

Asha'ille is VSO, allows subject/object and/or their conjugations to be
dropped, and doesn't lexically distinguish between direct and indirect
objects.  Here are a few example sentences:

    Échiv en'i.
    Échivni.
    "I eat."

    Échiv en'i ne chodál.
    Échivni ne chodál.
    "I eat (the) food."

    Échivnilec.
    "I eat it."

And if you have previously established yourself as the subject (as by being
the last explicitly stated subject), you can also say:

    Échiv.
    "(I) eat."

    Échiv ne chodál.
    "(I) eat the food."

    Échivlec.
    "(I) eat it."

For an example of direct/indirect objects, with |chikegh| "dog", |análdh|
"bone", and |aet| and |-et| "you":

    Arev en'i ne chikegh ne análdh.
    Arev en'i ne análdh ne chikegh.
    Arevni ne chikegh ne análdh.
    Arevni ne análdh ne chikegh.
    Arevlair en'i ne análdh.
    Arevlec en'i ne chikegh.
    Arevnilair ne análdh.
    Arevnilec ne chikegh.
    "I give the dog a bone."

But you can't have both objects on the verb:

    *Arevnilairlec.

Which is the direct vs indirect object is entirely decided by context.  In
the above example, only "I give the dog a bone" make sense; the reverse, "I
give the bone a dog," does not (in any language).  However, it's
conceivable that one could give a person a dog and vice versa:

    Arev en'i ne chikegh n'aet.
    Arev en'i n'aet ne chikegh.
    Arevni ne chikegh n'aet.
    Arevni n'aet ne chikegh.
    "I give you a dog."  -or-
    "I give a dog you."  (ambiguous)

    Arevlet en'i ne chikegh.
    Arevnilet ne chikegh.
    "I give you a dog."

    Arevlair en'i n'aet.
    Arevnilair n'aet.
    "I give a dog you."

So I was only partially accurate in saying you can't distinguish between
direct and indirect objects.  When only one is attached to the verb, it is
assumed to be the more important object (I want to say the object higher up
the animacy scale, but I'm not sure if that's right).  For the verb "to
give," the more important object would be receiving the given thing, not be
the thing itself.

If I need to give more examples before Asha'ille can be classified, please
let me know what kinds of verbs or sentences you need.  Help is most
appreciated!  :)


--
AA

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