Help! Verb agreement
From: | Matt McLauchlin <matt_mcl@...> |
Date: | Wednesday, September 27, 2000, 3:04 |
OK. Lyanjen has verbs that are conjugated for person as well as tense (like
Romance languages). For example:
Iar teuca Áudridan.
ia-r | teuc-a | Áudrid-an
I erg | love 1pSgPrSim | Audrid abs
"I love Audrid."
Áudridar teuc ian.
Áudrid-ar | teuc-Ø | ia-n
Audrid erg | love 3pSgPrSim | I abs
"Audrid loves me."
Obviously, in the first sentence, "teuc" accords with the first
person "ia", and in the second, it accords with the third person "Audrid".
I can also construct a sentence like so:
Teuc ian.
teuc-Ø | ia-n
love 3pSgPrSim | I abs
"(Someone) loves me."
And I can go so far as to do this:
Ian teuc.
ia-n | teuc-Ø
I abs | love 3pSgPrSim
"I am loved."
Wait a minute... The rule seems to be that the verb doesn't accord with the
*subject* of the sentence, but with the *nominative or ergative* in the
sentence, and defaults to third person singular if no such noun is present.
Is there anything wrong with doing this, i.e. does it violate some
universal rule I haven't heard of?