Re: THEORY: Re : THEORY: Connolly: Interpreting ergative sentences

Ed Heil ------------------------------- edheil@postmark.net
"Facts are meaningless! You can use facts to prove anything
   that's even _remotely_ true!"           -- Homer Simpson

From Http://Members.Aol.Com/Lassailly/Tunuframe.Html wrote:

> Dans un courrier dat=E9 du 16/07/99 21:19:39  , Lars a =E9crit :
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> > So please, caution!  And take due note of what has been discovered
> >  about *living* ergative languages.  You can't hope to understand the
> >  dead ones without them.
> > =20
> >  Leo
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> sumerians did not have camels ;-)
> otherwise an interesting summing up of that question.
> except - if i may - i still can't get why the
> base would be "distributed", which already
> implies an active, distributing agent and is still
> an IE "passivization" reflex (except if the -ed affix
> were meant to refer to the perfect aspect).
> the base should be - i humbly think - "to distribute" :
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> *the camels distribute.
> *the fabric tears.
> the soup cooks.
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> mathias
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> and sumerian has transitive verbs too.
I think that the author may have meant the English simple past
"distributed," not the English perfect passive participle
"distributed," though I confess in the example he gave it's ambiguous.

Ed