Nominative vs. Ergative fright!!

I was running my conlang briefly by a former lx prof of mine, and I was
describing to her how I have a nominative, ergative, and absolutive case. In
case anyone forgets, this is how it works. (I haven't spelled out the verb
conjugations because they're irrelevant.)

Ðami eriter.
wall-NOM red
"The wall is red."

Áudridar erit ðamin.
Audrid-ERG red wall-ABS
"Audrid makes the wall red."

Ðamin erit.
wall-ABS red
"The wall turns red."

Similarly:

Lyoc spa [iat].
book-NOM up [me-LOC]
"The book is above [me]."

Gor spa lyocan.
he-ERG up book-ABS
"He puts the book up; he lifts the book."

Lyocan spa.
book-ABS up
"The book rises."

And finally:

Ger skic clairan.
she-ERG break window-ABS
"She breaks the window."

Clairan skic.
window-ABS break
"The window breaks."

Anyway, I was describing this to her, and she muttered something about
"going against UG" and "nominative and ergative at the same time" and then
had to go.

I'm a little insecure about this. My case system is my favourite thing in
the whole language and I'm loath to give it up. Should I be calling one of
the cases something different? Or is it irrevocably flawed?



Blessed be,                        Écartons ces romans
Matt McLauchlin                          qu'on appèle systèmes,
GM18, Montreal, Canada             Et pour nous éléver
English/français/esperanto               descendons dans nous-mêmes.
icq: 4420218                               -Voltaire
http://www.crosswinds.net/~montrealais

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