> X-Accept-Language: en
> Date: Sun, 19 Sep 1999 12:27:25 -0500
> From: "Thomas R. Wier" <artabanos@...>
> (2) Hlax^ suunaadax^ agukux^
> boy:AbsSg boat:AbsSg make:Pres:SgSub
> "The boy is making a boat."
> (4) Hlam aguqaa
> boy:RELSg make:Past:SgObj
> "The boy made it."
> It looks like all this might have evolved out of an ergative-
> absolutive system, but clearly isn't now, because the relative and
> absolutive can both be used for syntactic subjects of any type of
> verb [...]
The morphology does look very much like that of other Inuit languages,
whose verbal agreement systems are indeed almost perfectly ergative-
absolutive. If Atkan Aleut had kept the same system, your second
example would come out as
> (2') Hlam suunaadax^ agukaa
> boy:RelSg boat:AbsSg make:Pres:SgSub+SgObj
> "The boy is making a boat."
(The subject and object suffixes are fused together in the modern
languages, so you can't say which part is which).
Lars Mathiesen (U of Copenhagen CS Dep) <thorinn@...> (Humour NOT marked)