Re: Ergative or Vocative?
| From: | Christophe Grandsire <grandsir@...> |
|---|
| Date: | Wednesday, October 6, 1999, 6:45 |
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Danny Wier wrote:
>
> Question. I'm working on some basic grammar in Tech, whatever I can at this
> time. So far I have a few noun cases worked out, and I think I'm going to
> decline nouns according to this scheme:
>
> 'water' 'bride'
> Nominative weat k@ul [wE:t, k@ulw]
> Oblique stem weta- k@lu- [wEta, k@lu]
> Accusative wetaam k@luam [wetam, k@luVm]
> Genitive wetaun k@luun [wetaumw, k@lu:n]
> Gen. of acc. wetamaun k@lumaun [wetamaunw, k@lumaunw]
A genitive of accusative? Does the difference between the genitive and
the genitive of accusative as something like the two genitive I use in
Azak: the genitive ergative (if the completed noun is turned into a
verb, the completer will turn into an ergative) and the genitive
absolutive (if the completed noun is turned into a verb, the completer
will turn into an absolutive)?
> Vocative? weta k@lu
>
> So for the zero-ending, what would be more likely in a natlang -- a vocative
> case or an ergative?
>
A vocative without a doubt. In ergative/absolutive languages, it's
usually the absolutive which is unmarked. But I'm sure we can find at
least one counter-example :) .
> Thanks,
>
> Danny
>
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