Re: Ergativity Question

That is my impression of tagalog also.... although since no one's ever
given an exact definition of the word verb to me (It always seems
fuzzy... no one can define exactly what a verb is, because the class of
verbs differs from language to language, with only the core members
remaining the same generally across languages), its difficult for me to
agree that a language working in an attributive way like tagalog
precludes it being "verbal" (which I take to mean having verbs).
Possessing an attribute is being in a state (eg I am in the state of
being the wood's cutter = I am wood's cutter), and many (most? all?)
languages have some stative verbs. In many languages like English and
Chinese stems can be verbs or not depending on which affixes they take
(or without change), for example:
"I dog him" (no change)
"I dogged him" (verb past tense suffix)
"The dog bit him" (used as noun)
So an attribute also occuring in non-verbal situations doesn't seem to
me to preclude it being used as a stative verb. Anyway, not being a
professional linguist my argument may be flawed.

>I keep reading:
>
>"X ng Y ang Z sa W = Z is Y's X with reference to W"
>
>which is typically how an attributive language works, so I would suggest
>again that Tagalog is not a verbal language. The predicate of an attributive
>language is an attribute, not a verb, and it is therefore useless to look
>for "control" through ergativity or subject.
>
>"Thomas R. Wier" <trwier@...> wrote:
><<<
>BTW, I spoke to a colleague of mine who studies Tagalog and other
>Philippine languages about the issue of ergativity in Tagalog, and
>he said more or less definitively that it isn't ergative, but that
>it's not clear what exactly it is. Since it's not clear it even
>has a subject, it's impossible to prove it's ergative.
>
>
>
>µ.
>
>
>