Re: THEORY: 'true' nature of nouns vs. 'illusionary' nature

From:    Danny Wier <dawiertx@...>
> The first ideas for polysynthesis came from Georgian verb grammar, which is
> polypersonal if not polysynthetic.
Eh? Under what definition of polysynthesis is there any doubt that
Georgian verbs are polysynthetic? I mean, verbs inflect for the
person and number of the subject, direct object, indirect object, for
tense, various kinds of aspect, mood, a number of valence properties,
"version", etc.

> The screeve system is still confusing me;
> it's a multi-dimensional system of tenses, aspects and moods that affect,
> among other things, the case the subject and objects are declined in. That's
> how Georgian is mixed-ergative.
It's not, actually.  It's a split-S system, as it has two classes of
intransitive verbs, one mostly for unaccusatives that patterns like
the notional direct object of first conjugation transitive verbs, and
one for unergatives that patterns like the notional subject of 1st
conjugation transitives.  The mixing you're thinking about concerns
the behavior of precisely these transitives in the present series.
(This is one area of the language I am currently researching.)

 =========================================================================
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

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