Christophe wrote:
> If this seems unclear to you, that's because you're reasoning with the=20
> concepts of "subject" and "object", which fit only accusative languages=20
> (and then, only those that neatly use the nominative for subjects and
the=20
> accusative for objects). If you try to apply them to ergative languages,
it=
> =20
> becomes automatically a mess (unless you treat the term in the
absolutive=20
> as "subject", which is a valid way to think about it, but then you have
to=
> =20
> remember that the subject of transitive sentences is the *patient*
rather=20
> than the agent). So what you need to try is to stop thinking in these=20
> terms, and only think in terms of syntactic cases.
So, is it possible to have a coherent definition of subject and object which
fits both accusative and ergative languages? One of my university text books
(an introduction to linguistics) said it is the argument the verb agrees
with- a definition which works fairly well with Italian, but... what about
Swedish, for instance, where the verb does not inflect for person and
number? And what about many Northern Italian dialects, where verbs agree in
number with a 3rd person subject only when they follow it (when the verb
precede the subject it takes 3 sg agreement, even when the subject is
plural)?
Luca