Re: Re; Ergativity

Tim May scripsit:

> synchronically in my dialect).  "To retire" is labile* (although the
> intransitive formation is more common, and I think older).
Hmm.  I suspect the converse is true; it's certainly true for "to graduate",
in which the person with the diploma was always P until quite recent years,
the school being A.  Fortunately, we do not have "graduatee".

> Something which has occurred to me as a more reliably ergative
> construction in English is the noun phrase "<verb>ing of <noun>",
> referring to an event.  It seems to me that <noun> is always the S or
> P of <verb>.  I hesitate to mention this as many examples sound
> awkward, particularly with intransitive verbs, but I think the meaning
> is unambiguous even in these cases.
There's a Christmas carol, "The Holly and the Ivy", whose chorus goes:

        Oh, the rising of the Sun,
        And the running of the deer;
        The playing of the merry organ,
        Sweet singing in the choir.

"Sun" is S, "organ" is P, but I can't see how "deer" can be anything but A,
unless "running" here means "hunting" or some such.

--
John Cowan
        jcowan@reutershealth.com
                I am a member of a civilization. --David Brin

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