Re: Imperative mood in ergative languages

2006/1/24, Isaac Penzev <isaacp@...>:
> Hello,
>
> having started P47 project, I met a problem. The lang is intended to have
> three basic types of a simple sentence: absolute (for intransitive verbs),
> ergative (for transitive verbs) and dative (for perceptive verbs). In
> indicative mood it goes smooth. How then it works in imperative? If
> indicative "The hunter killed a wolf" and "The boy hears his father's voice"
> may be glossed as "wolf is.killed hunter-ERG" and "father-GEN voice is.heard
> boy-DAT", will imperative "Kill the wolf!", "Hear my voice!" be rendered as
> "wolf let.it.be.killed you-ERG", "my voice let.be.heard you-DAT"? IIRC in
> Georgian imperative in fact coincides with aorist, so "Give me some wine!"
> is the same as "You have.given me (some) wine!" Any confirmation? Any
> alternatives?
It seems to me that the simplest thing to do for an ergative language
is simply to not have a morphological passive. In ergative langs the
ergative case is more peripheral than the absolutive, so
"passivization" is simply omitting the optional ergative argument:

wolf-ABS kill me-ERG
"I kill the wolf"

wolf-ABS kill
"The wolf is killed"

In fact, passivization in an ergative lang would actually imply that
the ergative argument is promoted to absolutive, and absolutive is
made peripheral--analogous to how in accusative langs the acc. is
promoted to nom., and the nom. is made peripheral:

wolf-ABS kill me-ERG
"I kill the wolf"

me-ABS kill-PASS to wolf-DAT
"I kill the wolf"

me-ABS kill-PASS
"I kill"

Calling this "passive" is probably a bit esoteric, though. IIRC the
proper term for this kind of construction is "unergative".

English actually allows unergative syntax, though there's no morphology for it:

Active: "We slaughter sheep easily."
Unergative: "Sheep slaughter easily."

> -- Yitzik
> from frosty Ukraine with love
My relatives in Romania tell me that it's -20 C there. Is it the same
in Ukraine? Brrr!


--
JS Bangs
jaspax@gmail.com
http://jaspax.com

"I could buy you a drink
I could tell you all about it
I could tell you why I doubted
And why I still believe."
 - Pedro the Lion

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