Re: ergative + another introduction
| From: | David Peterson <thatbluecat@...> |
|---|
| Date: | Thursday, November 18, 2004, 7:09 |
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Erich wrote:
<<
> What exacly constitutes ergative structure? I've seen it mentioned
numerous
> times but I am completely in the dark as far as how it works. Is there
> perhaps a website someone could link me to, or do any of you want to
enlighten
> this poor soul about the mysteries of the ergative structure?
>>
Well, this is twice this week that a message on CONLANG has caused me to post
about a webpage I'm putting up that's half-finished. It should be finished
before
Friday. What I was *going* to say in the message I was going to post when
it was
done was that I added a page to my website that endeavors to explain
everything
there is to know about ergativity. Everything. Currently, I've explained
what I call
pristine nominative-accusative and ergative-absolutive systems, both with
case
marking and without. In other words, these are systems that don't exist in
natural
languages. I'm about to start working on what occurs in natural languages.
What's
up for right now, though, is probably enough to answer your question, Erich.
So,
from now on, if anyone asks about ergativity (that's once a month or so on
the list),
my hope is that we can point people to the following site:
http://dedalvs.free.fr/notes.html#ergativity
This is just a subsection of the larger page (which is also not finished).
As such,
if anyone has anything to add about ergativity (for example, I'd like to add
a list
of conlangs that are ergative that have their ergativity explained on a
website
somewhere), let me know, and hopefully we can get everything said that needs
to be said.
But, of course, I shouldn't even have been reading this message, because I'm
offlist. Grr... Good thing my phonetics professor isn't on CONLANG...
Oh, incidentally, welcome to the list, Erich! ~:D
-David
*******************************************************************
"sunly eleSkarez ygralleryf ydZZixelje je ox2mejze."
"No eternal reward will forgive us now for wasting the dawn."
-Jim Morrison
http://dedalvs.free.fr/
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