Questions about ergativity
From: | # 1 <salut_vous_autre@...> |
Date: | Sunday, January 23, 2005, 6:32 |
I have somethig to ask about ergativity I'm still not sure to understand
An ergative language will have the same case for the subject of intransitive
phrase and for the object and another for the subject of transitive phrases
but if a transitive sentence takes the form SVO
or EVA (Ergative and Aboslutive)
will the intransitive sentence take the form AV or VA? or maybe they are
both existant in different languages
And with case-marking they could be both possible in a single language
And if a language takes a form like SOV, OSV, VSO or VOS (anything were
subject and object are next of each other)
if there are no case-marking, it is impossible to know, in an intransitive
sentence, if the argument is absolutive or nominative because they would
both take the same position before or after the verb
Can someone give me informations about words order's differences in ergative
languages?
I've read that Abkhaz doesn't have any case marking but that the word order
shows it is ergative but I've been unable to find that word order
do they mean that the intransitive subject is placed at the same place that
the transitive object?
like tran: SVO, intran: VS = ergative
tran: SVO, intran: SV = nominative
Would it mean that if there's no case marking the ergativity or the
nominativity(~) is only indicated by the intransitive word order?
-Max