Re: CONLANG Digest - 21 Feb 2004 to 22 Feb 2004 (#2004-52)

John Quijada wrote:

>Doug Dee wrote:
>
>
>
>>In a message dated 2/24/2004 4:54:05 AM Eastern Standard Time,
>>herodote92@YAHOO.COM writes:
>>
>>
>>
>>>If I may ask: isn't it remarkable that languages
>>>presented as examples for ergativity (Basque, Eskimo,
>>>Georgian, Dyirbal...) nearly always seem to be used in
>>>very far-off, hidden and hardly reachable places,
>>>seeming to indicate that these people had little
>>>contact with other ones ?
>>>
>>>
>>I'm not sure that the Basques in the Pyrenees are any less reachable than
>>
>>
>the
>
>
>>speakers of accusative languages in the Alps.  And they seem less isolated
>>than the Icelanders.
>>
>>There are many ergative languages in Australia, and many accusative ones.
>>
>>
>It
>
>
>>would be hard to claim any of them are isolated, since they all have
>>neighbors, and Australia isn't particularly mountainous, so they're not
>>
>>
>cut off from
>
>
>>each other.
>>
>>I think there's a good selection of accusative languages in the Caucasus as
>>well.
>>
>>Hindi has "some ergative morphology" (per Dixon) and cannot be considered
>>isolated or hard to reach.
>>
>>
>
>--------
>Perhaps there's a better way to put Phillipe's question: Isn't it curious
>that most ergative languages (with the exception of Hindi) appear to occur
>
>

Just a point - Hindi is a Split-S language with a tendency towards
accusativity, not an Ergative language, though it does have an Ergative
past tense.