R: Re: Unaccusative vs unergative ...

John wrote:

> Andreas Johansson wrote:
>
>
> >  So  "to dance" would be an unergative, since in "Jane dances" it's
> > Jane(=the subject) that does the dancing,
>
> That reminds me, I've been wanting to ask:  in "Jane danced the rhumba",
> what is the role of "the rhumba"?  This role, whatever it is,
> is in some way tied with so-called "cognate accusatives", as in
> "to dance a dance", "to sing a song", and "to walk the walk".
In a still unnamed conlang I'm working at (fromerly called Sirmave, but I
don't particularly like the name, so...), this kind of verbs takes the
genitive instead of the accusative. For instance:

I drink         the    beer
drink.1s ART beer.ACC

---> Griuci o sör.
/g*jukI U sY*/

but:

Jane danced             the         rhumba
Jane dance.PST.3s   ART    rhumba.GEN

--> Gxein *danzás te rumbem
/dZeIn dan'tsas t@ rumb@~/

(allowing two loans: 'danz-' and 'te rumba')

Luca