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

From:Ed Heil <edheil@...>
Date:Sunday, July 18, 1999, 3:30
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 : >=20 > > 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 >=20 > 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" : >=20 > *the camels distribute. > *the fabric tears. > the soup cooks. >=20 > mathias >=20 > 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