Re: Ergative and other questions

On Mon, 17 Nov 2003 17:23:15 +0100, Carsten Becker <post@...>
wrote:

> Hello,
>
> Starting to read all those 200 emails from this mailing list, I tripped
> over
> terms such as
>
> 1. "Ergative",
> 2. "Absolutive",
> 3. "transitive" and
> 4. "intransitive".
>
> As newbie, I absolutely do not know what they mean.
[snip]
> Could you please *try* to explain the terms *with
> English examples*, not in another language (like Basque) where this
> phenomenom may appear, but which I do not understand? Explanations in
> "Abstract Grammaticalese" I don't like so much either.
Phew. What a request. Here goes...

Every verb has conceptually a person or thing that "does" the verb. This is
called the Agent.

In "Fred runs", "Fred" is the Agent, and "runs" is the verb.

Some verbs have conceptually a person or thing that the verb "happens to".
This is called the Patient.

In "Fred sees the ball", "the ball" is the Patient.

Verbs that have an Agent only (like "Fred runs") are called Intransitive.
Verbs that also have a Patient (like "Fred sees the ball") are called
Transitive.

Normally, the Agent is called the Subject and the Patient is called the
Object.

Some sentences describe the action from the point of view of the Patient,
instead of the Agent, in these cases the Patient is often called the
Subject. These sentences are called "Passive" sentences. They use the
"Passive" voice, instead of the "Active" voice, which describes events
relative to the Agent (as in the two above sentences).

In the Passive sentence "The ball is seen", "the ball" is the Patient but
also the Subject.

Right. That's Transitive and Intransitive in a nutshell, along with some
background information that will be useful in a second.

Now for Ergative/Absolutive. That's a bit more of a stinker.

You can't describe Ergative/Absolutive in English. English simply doesn't
have such a distinction.

Imagine two conlangs, Nominese and Erganese, both genetically related, and
both looking startlingly like English, but with a different word order.

Here are a couple of sentences in both languages:

First in Nominese...

Runs Fredno

Sees Fredno the ballak.

Thus, Fred (the Agent in both cases) is marked with "-no", and the Patient
is marked with "-ak".

Nominese is therefore a Nominative/Accusative language, the pattern found
in the majority of languages in the world. Agents are marked in the
Nominative case ("-no"), and Patients are marked in the Accusative case ("-
ak"). English works this way, except it's only shown in 3rd Person
pronouns.

I run.

He runs.

I see him.

He sees me.

Now in Erganese...

Runs Fredab

Sees Fredeg the ballab

Erganese is an Ergative/Accusative language. The Agent of Intransitive
verbs is treated the same as the Patient of Transitive verbs, and
differently than the Agent of Transitive verbs.

The reasons why it makes sense to do things this way round are complex and
technical, and delve into the psychology of language. It's probably outside
the scope of this list.




Paul