Re: THEORY: Non-nom Subj & Nom Obj -- Quirky OVS Word Order Or Quirky Case?

Hello, everyone.  Hello, Henrik.

--- In conlang@yahoogroups.com, tomhchappell <tomhchappell@Y...>
> wrote:
> --- In conlang@yahoogroups.com, Henrik Theiling <theiling@A...>
> > wrote:
> > [snip]
Thanks for writing, Henrik, and others.

> [snip]
> ... it seems worth-while to point out that we can (to
> a degree) concentrate on the
> [QUIRKIEST CASES]:
> Certain clauses with both a Quirky Subject and a Quirky Object
> in the same clause.
> There are four particular sub-kinds,
> two for accusative/nominative alignments and two for
> ergative/absolutive alignments.
> 1) Non-Nominative Subject With Nominative Object
> 2) Non-Accusative Object With Accusative Subject
> 3) Non-Ergative Subject With Ergative Object
> 4) Non-Absolutive Object With Absolutive Subject
> ---
> And, of course, there is the question of the "Hyper-Quirky";
>
> 5) Are there natlang examples of
>    Accusative Subjects with Nominative Objects
>    in the same clause?
> 6) Are there natlang examples of
>    Absolutive Subjects with Ergative Objects
>    in the same clause?
I found two Kabardian examples of ABS-ERG constructions (category 6);
but they don't really count as "hyper-quirky",
for the following reasons;
i) The verbs are intransitive. ('read' and 'go')
ii) In Kabardian,
the Ergative case is used for indirect objects
and for certain oblique objects and adjuncts;
that's what's happening in these sentences.
iii) In the second example,
the clause with an Absolutive subject and an Ergative "object"
is a subordinate clause, not a main clause.
I'm not sure, but,
isn't it so that quirky subordinate clauses
don't ordinarily have quite the same quirkiness
that the same cases would have if they occurred in a main clause?

The examples come from "On Root and Subordinate Clause Structure in
Kabardian" by Mukhadin Kumakhov and Karina Vamling of Lund
University; it was in Lund University Dept. of Linguistics "Working
Papers" 44 (1995).  You can find it online at
http://www.ling.lu.se/disseminations/pdf/44/Kumakhov_Vamling.pdf

First example:

(3) S''ale-(r)    tXEÒE-(m)      j-o-Z#e
    boy-(ABS.DEF) book-(ERG.DEF) O3SG-DYN-read.PRS
    `A/The boy is reading a/the book.'

Now, this sentence is intransitive,
and tXEÒE or tXEÒEm as used here
is actually either an an indirect object (?)
or an oblique of some kind,
which, if translated literalistically into English,
should be translated with some kind of adposition.
You can't really say "The boy reads the book" in Kabardian;
he has to read at a book, or read by a book, or read in a book,
or read of a book, or read on a book, or read to a book,
or read up a book, or something.

About those -(r) and -(ABS.DEF) and -(m) and -(ERG.DEF) notations.
In Kabardian, the -r suffix coerces nouns into the absolutive case,
and the -m suffix coerces nouns into the ergative case.
But these suffixes are not always obligatory,
and are sometimes forbidden.
Pronouns, proper nouns, and "certain highly individuated nouns",
(which, I take it, are nouns for which the opposition of
definite vs indefinite would not be very meaningful),
cannot have a -r or -m suffix;
if one of these happens to be absolutive or ergative,
its case must be indicated by word-order
(which is strict SO unless both nouns have their case marked.)
All plural nouns must have -r in absolutive and -m in ergative case;
the subject of a transitive sentence must have -m for ergative.
Otherwise, however,
if the case of an ergative or absolutive noun is marked,
this indicates that it is definite;
if the case of an ergative or absolutive noun is not marked,
this indicates that it is indefinite.

Second example:

(44) [FEzE-r        k'&#730;e-n q'ale-m]  jE-wEbl-a-s'
     [woman-ABS.DEF go-INF town-ERG] S3SG-begin-PERF-ASSRT
     `The woman began to go to town.'

Here, "the woman to go P (the) town" is the subordinate (infinitive)
clause; "SC she-began" is the matrix clause.
(P = at or by or in or of or on or to or up or?  Probably "to".)
(SC = Subordinate Clause)

Tom H.C in MI

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