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

>From: Jörg Rhiemeier <joerg_rhiemeier@...>
>Reply-To: Constructed Languages List <CONLANG@...>
>To: CONLANG@listserv.brown.edu
>Subject: Re: THEORY: Non-nom Subj & Nom Obj -- Quirky OVS Word Order Or
>Quirky Case?
>Date: Sat, 6 Aug 2005 16:24:38 +0200
>
>Hallo!
>
>Henrik Theiling wrote:
>
> > Hi!
> >
> > [...]
> >
> > Anyway, using some tests, you can check that the status of the
> > nominative object is different from a nominative subject, namely by
> > checking whether it can be referred back to in a coordinated clause
> > from an ellipsis.  IIRC, it was Markus who mentioned this a few days
> > ago.  Usually:
> >
> > a) Ich trinke Bier und []  esse Wurst
> >    NOM        ACC      NOM      ACC.
> >    I   drink  beer and [] eat  sausage
> >    'I'm drinking beer and [I] am eating sausage.'
> >
> > (Gap marked with [].)
>
>This kind of test fails in languages with an ergative or split-S
>pivot.  In Dyirbal, for instance, which has an ergative pivot,
>the sentence `The child threw the ball and [] fell' would mean
>`The child threw the ball and [the ball] fell'.  (ObConlang:
>The same in Old Albic, which has a fluid-S pivot.)
>
>Greetings,
>
>Jörg.
1. Mutatis mutandis for syntactically ergative langs it'd work. (Of course,
by the time mutandis has been mutatis it tests whether something is the
absolutive-ish argument, if I may violate Latin in a very bad manner).

2. Kroeger and some others claim that in syntactically ergative languages,
the object and intransitive subject actually are the subject (remember to
divorce the term subject from any connotations other than those that are
relevant from a syntactical p.o.v.). I don't know how far this has been
proven, but ... in that case, it would still work for langs with an ergative
pivot.

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