Re: ergative + another introduction

On Sat, 27 Nov 2004 17:54:29 -0500, Tim Smith
<tim.langsmith@...> wrote:

> At 11:54 AM 11/18/2004 -0500, Kit La Touche wrote:
>> [...snip...]
>> now, there are also things like split-ergative languages (i believe
>> hindi is?) which use morphological ergativity in certain structures -
>> in hindi, i think it's when the verb is in the imperfective.
>
> Actually, it's just the opposite: ergative when the verb is perfective,
> accusative when it's imperfective.  This kind of pattern (split
> ergativity
> based on the tense and/or aspect of the verb) is quite widespread in the
> Indo-Iranian branch of Indo-European, but it's always ergative with past
> or
> perfective, accusative with nonpast or imperfective, never the other way
> around.
We can go one step stronger than that: the pattern described has *no*
known exceptions, not just within IIr, but anywhere on the planet. There
are very few universals about which we can be as firm as we can with this
one.




Paul