Re: THEORY: Ergative-Genitive Connection

Matt Pearson skrev:
>Using ergative case to mark possessors is quite common (the Inuit languages
>do it too).  Using nominative case to mark possessors is less common, but
>also attested (in Hungarian, for example).  As for *why* you get these
>correlations, nobody knows.  Many syntacticians argue that noun phrases
>have a structure parallel to clauses (e.g., cf. "Leonardo painted the Last
>Supper" and "Leonardo's painting of the Last Supper"), and that possessors
>occupy a position within the noun phrase which is structurally analogous
>to the position occupied by (transitive) subjects in clauses.
That's essentially the premise I have for Boreanesian. I have gone so
far as saying that only nominal predicative clauses exist. That is, like
the example above, instead of saying things like "Aesop wrote fables at
home", Boreanesian goes something like "Aesop's writing of fables at home"
or "The home is Aesop's place of fable-writing" depending on the focus.

-kristian- 8)