Re: VOS
From: | Nik Taylor <fortytwo@...> |
Date: | Friday, April 28, 2000, 3:07 |
daniel andreasson wrote:
> AFMCL Rinya, I have taken Dixon's words literally. Rinya's word order
> is (ABS) - VERB - (ERG).
W doesn't have a fixed word order, except that the verb is always
initial (with a few exceptions - mostly idiomatic combinations of a noun
plus labí, to give). However, there is a tendency to place a noun of
higher animacy first, thus, noun-erg-abs is more common than
noun-abs-erg.
> Dyirbal also have absolutive before ergative.
Interesting. I suspected that might be the case, but it just seems (to
me) counter-intuitive. I guess that's my native language coming into
play.
--
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