Re: Ergativity!

> From: Jörg Rhiemeier
>
> Mae govannen, mellyn!
cuenaen govamme, meldar

> Mangiat wrote:
> >
> > Hi folx!
> >
> > How're ye? I was exploring my Vaiysi's ergative case system.
> I've come out
> > with an interesting feature. The ergative case should be called instead
> > causative, since now I make it work even with intransitive verbs. An
> > exemple?
> >
> > Let us see an intransitive sentence:
> > Vyea     yegam
> > me.Abs go.1s
> > I go
> >
> > Then let us take a transitive statement:
> > Es          teo            talu
> > thou.Erg build.3s    house.Abs.
> > 'the house is built by thee', which can be read as 'the house is built
> > because of thee'.
> >
> > Hence comes my idea:
> > Es            yegam    vyea
> > thou.Erg    go.1s    me.Abs
> > from thee I go > I go since thou causest my going > thou makest me go
> > ( is the -st thing right?)
> >
> > Does this happen in real world ergative languages? I like this, it helps
> > very much, since I've noticed in my little wordlist I haven't
> distinguished
> > trans. and intrans. verbs, so I don't know which ones should
> take erg and
> > which abs. In this system everything is possible : )
> >
> > What do y'all think?
>
> I see no reason to relabel the ergative case in the examples above.
> It just does what one expects from a case labeled that way.
> What is displayed here are two uses of the verb _yegam_:
>
> 1.) As an intransitive verb meaning "I go (away)".
> 2.) As a transitive verb meaning "You/he/she/... causes me to go
> (away)".
>
> The second is the causative of the first, and if I am not mistaken,
> this is a fairly frequent pattern in ergative languages:
> to construct the causative, add an ergative NP (and perhaps modify
> the verb form, e.g. in order to add subject agreement).
Yep, and that's just the way amman iar (an ergative language) does it.
Thus,

\f She goes.
\t aliel          ernorel              elas
\m al   =iel -0   er-  noro -e   -l    el-        -as
\g it   =fem -[S] do-  go   -agt -actn assertive- -pres
\p 3per =gnd -abs agt- v    -val -vc   mood-      -tense

\f He makes her go.
\t alanne          elas              en
\m al   =an   -e   el-        -as    en
\g it   =masc -[A] assertive- -pres  agt.to.pat
\p 3per =gnd  -erg mood-      -tense ptp

\t aliel          ernnoraen
\m al   =iel -0   er-  en-    noro -ae      -n
\g it   =fem -[P] do-  cause- go   -agt/pat -actn/proc
\p 3per =gnd -abs agt- caus-  v    -val     -vc

Notice that I changed the pronouns from "I" and "You" to "She" and "He".  I
did this because amman iar has a mixed ergative system in which the
speech-act pronouns (1st and 2nd person) take nom/acc instead of ergative.

David

David E. Bell
The Gray Wizard
    dbell@graywizard.net
    www.graywizard.net

"Wisdom begins in wonder." - Socrates