Re: Ergative?

> From: Vasiliy Chernov
>
> On Thu, 27 Sep 2001 14:52:12 -0400, The Gray Wizard
> <dbell@...> wrote:
>
> >> BTW, is there a simple criterion to distinguish the ergative
> >> construction from the passive one?
> >
> >I'm not sure I understand your question.  Ergative constructions
> and Passive
> >constructions are not mutually exclusive.
>
> I've heard of that, but I don't understand how such situations
> are analyzed
> - that's exactly what my question was about.
>
> >Ergativity is the discriminatory application of case roles to the core
> >arguments of a predicate based on a formal parallel between the
> P-function
> >argument of a transitive predicate and the S-function argument of an
> >intransitive one.
>
> Consider how sentences with passives are construed.
>
> The house (P, abs) was built by my grandfather (erg.). The house (S, abs)
> will stand for long.
>
> No?
This is the case where ergative is used not just for the A-function argument
of an active predicate, but when it is also used for the oblique reference
to the demoted A-function argument in the passive.  This would cause
ambiguity without an explicit passive marker on the verb.  Does anyone know
how pervasive this conflation of cases is among ergative languages?  I was
under the impression that only of minority of such languages use this
construction.

> > Passivity, on the other hand, is a voice operator used to
> >modify the valency or argument structure of a predicate.  NPs
> are typically
> >marked for the former while VPs are typically marked for the
> latter. While
> >antipassive voice is more common among ergative languages, a number also
> >have passive forms (my conlang, amman iar, is ergative and has
> both passive
> >and antipassive voice operators).
>
> My father builds (antipassive) houses.
>
> How do you decline such an analysis?
Antipassives are difficult to express in English since English doesn't have
an antipassive.  Consider:

(1) My father-ERG build-ACT houses-ABS     "My father builds houses"
(2) My father-ABS build-ANTIP (houses-DAT) "My father builds, (houses)"

> Maybe, I should explain where my question comes from. In the
> thread 'Rating
> languages' I mentioned Tagalog among the hardest ones; I
> remembered that I'd
> failed to grasp something important about its syntax, and the matter was
> partly that the grammars I'd read described it as a nominative lang, while
> I felt this wasn't quite adequate.
I think I read somewhere that while Tagalog is syntactically ergative that
its argument expression uses a trigger mechanism.  I may be completely wrong
on this however.

> Typically, the descriptions went on as follows: "T. has normal
> active voice;
> curiously, it also has several passives; moreover, it uses its passives
> more often than its active voice; BTW, imperative sentences are construed
> using one of the passives (e. g. 'drink it' as 'let it be drunk by you')".
>
> Do you see where I'm pointing? Reminds of something, doesn't it?
>
> This is why I ask about the criteria. How do they draw the distinction
> between 'ergative vs. antipassive' and 'passive vs. active'?
I don't know enough about Tagalog to follow this.

Stay curious,
David

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

elivas en ishron ordelmar cotronian
Wisdom begins in wonder.