Re: CHAT: Glottalized consonants

> Date:         Fri, 14 May 1999 20:27:11 PDT
> From: Danny Wier <dawier@...>
> True.  I'm not even sure how active/stative works, but from what I read I-E
> probably started as an active language, then became ergative, then finally
> nominative-accusative.
I don't think that's the consensus view now, if it ever was. There may
be some traces of an ergative stage in PIE, and people argue about how
far back that was, but noone sees signs of an active case system. Even
Nostratic is reconstructed as ergative.

It was yet another Russian, Marr, who invented a 'natural progression'
of case systems, of which active/ergative/accusative are the final
stages; since he was a sort of linguistic dictator in the USSR from
the 20's to 1950, his views had some influence. By his thinking, since
Pre-IE is the earliest traceable stage of IE, it must of course have
been at an early level of the theory. (The logical fallacies should be
readily apparent here). Since the data were so obscure, it wasn't hard
to make them fit this theory.

Lars Mathiesen (U of Copenhagen CS Dep) <thorinn@...> (Humour NOT marked)