Re: Further language development Q's

Date:    Mon, 20 Sep 2004 18:21:44 +0200
From:    Carsten Becker <naranoieati@...>
Subject: Re: Further language development Q's

El Tedashan 19 Sep.an 2004 21:19 enin, Th. Wier meshená:
> > So, you may want to consider keeping
> > vestiges of the trigger system around.  (Ask me about
> > Mingrelian sometime, which is a really neat example of
> > vestiges like this.)
>
> You are asked herewith.
So, in Georgian you have this wacky Split-S case-assignment
system like the following:

                 First Conj.     2nd    3rd.     4th

Present series:  Nom-Dat-(Dat)   Nom    Nom    Dat-Nom
Aorist series:   Erg-Nom-(Dat)   Nom    Erg    Dat-Nom
Perfect series:  Dat-Nom-(-tvis) Nom    Dat    Dat-Nom
(where order represents the notional agent/experiencer-
patient-goal)

You thus have two classes of intransitives (the 2nd and 3rd
conjugations, one (the 3rd) that behaves like the subjects
of 1st conj. in the aorist, and one (the 2nd) that behaves like
the object of the 1st conj.  Now, Mingrelian is about as closely
related to Georgian as Spanish is to, say, Romanian, so they
look largely the same.  However, Mingrelian made one crucial
change that alters the whole alignment of the system:  it
extended the ergative marker -k (which is by accident the
same as that of Basque) to be the subject marker of both
second and third conjugation series.  Thus, in effect, you
have:

                 First Conj.     2nd    3rd.     (4th)

Present series:  Nom-Dat-(Dat)   Nom    Nom    Dat-Nom
Aorist series:   Erg-Nom-(Dat)   Erg    Erg    Dat-Erg
(I use parentheses around the fourth conjugation, mostly psych
verbs like 'love' and 'hate', since in Mingrelian there is reason
to believe these are just special kinds of second conjugation
verbs.)

Thus, by extending the ergative marker to intransitives, but
only in the past, a former split-S system like Georgian has become
essentially recognizable as an nominative-accusative system, even
if still somewhat bizarre. This is the closest thing I've seen to
tense being marked on nouns in a Real Language.

> > > I mean like in the
> > > example I gave, "to invent" -> "being invented", where
> > > "being invented" is "invent.CAU".
> >
> > This sounds more like a passive to me than a causative.
>
> Yeah, actually you're right. Nevertheless I don't see why I
> should not form stative passives with the causative. IMO,
> something is "caused to be done" after all.
This is a plausible diachronic change, but you probably shouldn't
call it a causative.  Or:  just make the regular causative homophonous
with the stative-passive, but syntactically distinct.

 =========================================================================
Thomas Wier	       "I find it useful to meet my subjects personally,
Dept. of Linguistics    because our secret police don't get it right
University of Chicago   half the time." -- octogenarian Sheikh Zayed of
1010 E. 59th Street     Abu Dhabi, to a French reporter.
Chicago, IL 60637