Re: Weird case marking patterns

Jörg Rhiemeier skrev:
> Hallo!
>
> On Wed, 22 Mar 2006 23:28:28 +0100, Benct Philip Jonsson wrote:
>
>
>>I just borrowed a somewhat new book on linguistic
>>typology
>>
>>Author 	 Song, Jae Jung
>>Title 	Linguistic typology : morphology and syntax / Jae Jung Song
>>Publication 	Harlow : Pearson Education, 2001
>>Material Information 	406 s. : ill. ;
>>Series 	Longman linguistics library,
>>ISBN 	0582312213 (pbk.) : £16.99
>>ISBN 	0582312205 : £40.00 : CIP entry (Aug.)
>>
>>and true to my nature I immediately read the chapter on
>>case marking.
>>
>>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.
>
>
> I didn't know that, but I have suspected that for quite a while.
> I don't know about Basque, but I seem to remember that its verb
> marking is nom-acc.  The verb marking of Georgian is nom-acc
> at any rate.
If I recall Trask correctly Basque auxiliaries are
ergatively marked.  Main verbs usually only exist in
infinite form.

>>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.
>
>
> Yep.
>
>
>>Now this has some implications for my (perpetual) thinking on
>>the Sohlob case system.  In my most recent delineation animate
>>agents take the ergative case, while inanimate agents take the
>>instrumental case -- i.e. inanimates are not capable of true
>>agentness.
>
>
> This makes perfect sense, and is also what I am doing in Old Albic.
> Inanimate nouns have no agentive case, and in sentences such as
> 'The stone smashed the window', the "agent" is not a true agent,
> and marked with the instrumental case.  It also doesn't trigger
> agent agreement on the verb.  (As you perhaps already know,
> Old Albic is fluid-S active.)
>
>
>>      This would give me a nice division of labor between
>>the _-l_ case -- which in slightly different functions
>>have been present in the precursors of Sohlob since the late
>>seventies (1) -- and the _-r_ case, the _-l_ case being
>>ergative and the _-r_ case instrumental.  They are supposed
>>to be historically-phonologically related in that the pre-
>>Sohlob language had *r_j and *r rather than /l/ and /r/.
As I was going to note I'm giving away my age here.
Conlanging since the late seventies!  I was ten or
eleven, and thought I was smart when I invented a
nominative marker -- as the nominative was unmarked
in German, and Swedish and German were the only languages
I really knew.

> This makes sense, too.  AFAIK, ergative and instrumental cases
> are often related to each other in ergative languages.
Tibetan has a single particle -- called instrumental in
western grammars -- which serves both functions.
Classical Tibetan is strictly ergative while modern
colloquial Tibetan is fluid-S.

>>Now imagine combining this with the Nominal Hierarchy,
>>so that 1st person and 2nd person take nom-acc marking,
>>inanimates take "instrumental-absolutive" marking and
>>the categories inbetween take erg-abs marking!
>
>
> Why not?
I don't know if any natlang with such a pattern exists,
but it seems logically possible.

>>      Of
>>course both the nominative and the absolutive are to
>>be "marked" with a zero morph!
>
>
> Yes.  In erg-abs systems, the absolutive is usually the case with
> a zero morph.
Just as nominative often is unmarked in nom-acc systems.
Song actually cites a split-erg lang with umarked nominative
and unmarked absolutive, tho which it was escapes me ATM.
Possibly Dyirbal.

>>Now I wonder if such a doubly complicated case marking
>>system might be attested in any natlang, or if it is
>>too weird?  Of course I also contemplate combining this
>>NP marking system with consistent nom-acc marking on the
>>verb, which is perhaps too unrealistic,
>
>
> It isn't.  Georgian, for example, has a split between nom-acc
> and active case marking on NPs conditioned by the aspect of the verb,
> and nom-acc marking on the verb.
>
>
>>       or perhaps even
>>with no marking at all on verbs for inanimates but nom-acc
>>for categories higher in the hierarchy, which potentially
>>is super-unrealistic...
>
>
> It isn't.  In Old Albic, an inanimate "agent" does not trigger
> agreement marking on the verb at all (as I already said above),
> and in inanimate patient triggers agreement but not in number
> - the singular form is used even if the patient is plural.
As long as you don't think Sohlob becomes too similar to Old Albic...

Song also mentions languages with direct-inverse marking on the verb,
i.e. marking which of the Agent and Patient is higher on the
Nominal Hierarchy, which is tempting to adopt for Sohlob.

BTW I think Kijeb (Proto-Sohlob) was nom-acc throughout, but
since the original markers were word-final consonants that got
lost the system was reshuffled.  It will be interesting to work out
the details of that!

John Vertical wrote:

> 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.

I'm not saying anything like that.  The Nominal Hierarchy has
to do with NPs' capability of functioning as agents.  Verbs
can't function as agents.  What does happen is that the
"agentness" of the verb arguments gets marked on the verb.


--
/BP 8^)>
--
Benct Philip Jonsson -- melroch at melroch dot se

    "Maybe" is a strange word.  When mum or dad says it
    it means "yes", but when my big brothers say it it
    means "no"!

                            (Philip Jonsson jr, age 7)

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