Re: Ergative?

On Thu, 27 Sep 2001 12:44:46 -0500, Thomas R. Wier <trwier@...> wrote:

>Quoting Vasiliy Chernov <bc_@...>:
>> BTW, is there a simple criterion to distinguish the ergative
>> construction from the passive one?
> I would
>think that if a language has distinct forms for active and passive
>(ignoring whether it is ergative), then that might constitute such
>a criterion.  For example, in Phaleran, a detransitive morpheme
>explicitly distinguishes between passive, which has this, and the
>active, which lacks it:
>
>   ACTIVE:  Ahrallu      pû      gethasyonti.
>            Governor.ERG boy-ABS see.TR.3SgPfRe.S
>            'The Governor looked at the boy.'
>   PASSIVE: Pû      ahrânto       gethabronti.
>            boy-ABS Governor.INST see.DETR.3SgPfRe.S
>            'The boy was looked at by the Governor.'
Sorry for another dull question, then... What's the difference?

I can see here two morphological forms of the verb demanding different
case marking for semantically same actant. Why do you call one
case/construction ergative, and the other instrumental/passive, and not
vice versa?

>(The valence-marking situation in Phaleran is complex; the suffix
>-asyo- here marked TR(ansitive) might be considered an active suffix,
>but it doesn't appear in every active construction.)
>
>So, you could artificially replace the ergative morphology with
>nominative/accusative morphology (and you would see this with Phaleran
>pronouns), but you'd still get distinct active and passive renderings.
>So, I think the two notions are quite distinct.
Are you saying that sentences can be also construed nominatively, and only
ergative (unlike instrumental) can/must be replaced with nominative?


Basilius