Re: VOS

> Jim Grossmann wrote:
> > I've heard the name of the language, but did not know that it
> > has ergativity that isn't morphologically marked.
Oh, sorry, I misunderstood you. I thought you meant that there
weren't any langs that were *syntactically* ergative.

Nik Taylor wrote:

> It is morphologically marked in nouns and in third person pronouns (I'm
> not sure about the 3rd person pronouns).  In first and second person
> pronouns (and perhaps 3rd person?), it's accusative marking.
Only 1st and 2nd persons. There are no 3sg pronouns, though there
are 'noun markers', which can have pronominal function. These inflect
on an ergative-absolutive pattern, like nouns and adjectives.

> > However, I see no reason why we couldn't turn everything
> > around.
> >
> > SALLY SAW BILLY     = Billy saw Sally.
> > SALLY JUMPED = Sally jumped.
> I think Erg Verb Abs makes more sense.  The agent of a transitive
> sentence is usually the focus, and would make more sense to be at the
> beginning.
Yes I totally agree with you. Though (as I think I've quoted before)
Dixon says in "Ergativity" page 11: "That case which includes S function
is most often the unmarked term in the system - absolutive in Dyirbal
and nominative in Latin. [...] and it is most likely to be the left-
most NP in a clause."

AFMCL Rinya, I have taken Dixon's words literally. Rinya's word order
is (ABS) - VERB - (ERG). Since it's also active, intransitive verbs
that take an agentive argument have the word order VERB - ERG and
itr verbs that take an undergoer are ABS - VERB.

Dyirbal also have absolutive before ergative.

yabu       nguma-nggu bura-n
mother:ABS father-ERG see-NONFUT
'Father(A) saw mother(O).'

/ Daniel Andreasson