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Re: Weird case marking patterns

From:John Vertical <johnvertical@...>
Date:Thursday, March 23, 2006, 20:21
>On Wed, 22 Mar 2006 23:28:28 +0100, Benct Philip Jonsson wrote: > > > In the section about mixed marking systems it says, > > that there are languages which have an ergative- > > absolutive marking system on NPs and nominative- > > accusative marking on verbs while there are none > > that have it the other way around (i.e. no language > > with nom-acc NPs and erg-abs verbs!), but it doesn't > > name any language which has this marking system.
> > It also mentions the _Nominal Hierarchy_: > > > > ^ 1st person, 2nd person > > | 3d person > > | personal name/kin term > > | human > > | animate > > | inanimate > > > > In languages with split ergativity categories towards > > the top of the hierarchy are most likely to have nominative- > > accusative case marking while items towards the bottom > > are most likely to have ergative-absolutive case marking. > > Again there are no known languages that violate the hierarchy, > > i.e. having erg-abs on 1st/2nd person pronouns and nom-acc > > on inanimates. Languages differ WRT where in the hierarchy > > they draw the border, but they don't wiolate the hierarchy.
Are you trying to say we could add "verbs" as the topmost entry of this hierarchy? A bit counterintuitive, but why not, if it works. Also, given the elaborate-ish NP hierarchy... is there any similar internal hierarchy _within_ verbs? In other words, are there classes of verbs that in erg/abs languages commonly take nom-acc marking for some reason? (Yes, active/stative obviously, but besides that.) John Vertical