Re: THEORY: Case systems and Ergativity

As I've seen of your webpage (or did you change that?), the
split-ergative system is used only for the pronouns, whereas the nouns
follow a simpler nominative system and the verbs agree in person with
the subject, whatever it is (but have a suffix to show the number of
core arguments).

        In this case, I think you can do nearly whatever you want. Pronouns
come generally from the syncretion of particles together, and thus may
behave differently from the nouns (that's why they are often so
irregular, like the 1st person singular in Latin which is 'ego' in
nominative case, but whose other cases are built on 'me-/mi-', they come
from the syncretion of particles in PIE and different cases can have
completely different origins). Even when pronouns can be traced back to
the parent language (like French from Latin), they often keep features
that have disappeared in the nouns (thus the fact that French pronouns
keep the distinction nominative-accusative-dative whereas the nouns have
lost all trace of such declension). You say in your page that Phaleran
can be traced back to an isolating language, so I would tend to take the
first explanation. In this case, a split-ergative system could have
emerged in pronouns but not in nouns, maybe due to postpositions used in
that isolating language with pronouns particles and not with nouns to
lengthen them for instance (such things happen in natlangs) and
different for purpose of focus or I don't know what.

        Anyway it seems not at all unlikely, as long as only the pronouns are
involved. If the system was extended to nouns, I would find it on the
other hand more unlikely, as it is already marked on verbs. Maybe
analogy with the pronouns, but I don't know if it is very likely. But
I'm not a linguist, so...

--
        Christophe Grandsire

        Philips Research Laboratories --  Building WB 145
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