Re: THEORY: Connections Between Word-Order and Typology
| From: | Doug Dee <amateurlinguist@...> |
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| Date: | Sunday, December 5, 2004, 1:23 |
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In a message dated 12/4/2004 5:25:24 PM Eastern Standard Time,
magwich78@YAHOO.COM writes:
>It seems to me that left-branching
>languages would tend to prefer ergative-absolutive, while right-branching
>languages would tend to prefer nominative-accusative. That is, of course,
>if all other things are equal (which is never the case :P ). I also think
>this relationship is due to the core argument that is closest to the verb -
>the object in left-branching languages and the subject in right-branching
>ones. What do y'all think?
I don't think I've run across anyone proposing such a correlation. The only
related thing I remember reading is that ergativity is said to be rare among
verb-medial languages. Among VSO, VOS and SOV, I don't think any order has
been established as more ergativity-friendly than the others, so far as I know.
Doug