Re: inalienable possession
From: | Matt Pearson <mpearson@...> |
Date: | Tuesday, November 17, 1998, 19:06 |
Christophe Grandsire wrote:
>>The ergative can be used with inanimates, it's just less common. "The
>>disease killed him", disease is inanimate, but it would be ergative, or
>>better yet "The rock crushed his head when it fell on him", rock would
>>be ergative, yet it's still ergative. It's just that ergative is
>>*usually* animate.
>
> No, I meant: _in PL_, the conlang I'm currently inventing, ergative
>is used _only_ for animates, as it has a meaning of volitionality. It is
>true that in most natlangs, ergative is used also with inanimates (but I
>know ergative natlangs that can't use ergative with inanimates, they use an
>oblique case for an inanimate subject of a transitive verb. It's generally
>the same kind of langs where the order of the participants is subordonned to
>the animation of those participants).
In some ergative languages (I'm thinking especially of Australian languages)
the ergative and the instrumental are homophonous, and can be considered
a single case form. Participants marked by this case are interpreted as
agents if animate, and instruments if inanimate:
John-ERG knife-ERG chicken-ABS killed
"John killed the chicken with the knife"
Tokana, it seems, is like PL in that the ergative case is reserved for
volitional animates. Non-volitional and/or inanimate participants are
marked with the instrumental case:
Na Tsion mukteh hitol
the-Erg John-Erg closed-the door-Abs
"John closed the door (on purpose)"
Inan Tsionne mukteh hitol
the-Inst John-Inst closed-the door-Abs
"John closed the door (accidentally)"
Itan suhune mukteh hitol
the-Inst wind-Inst closed-the door-Abs
"The wind closed the door"
Ergative case is also used in noun phrases to mark animate possessors.
Inanimate 'possessors' take the dative case:
te halmana Tsion
the book-the-Erg John-Erg
"John's book"
te sathahi katiai
the roof-the-Dat house-Dat
"the roof of the house"
Matt.
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Matt Pearson
mpearson@ucla.edu
UCLA Linguistics Department
405 Hilgard Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1543
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