Theiling Online    Sitemap    Conlang Mailing List HQ   

Re: THEORY: Can Ditransitive Verbs Agree With More Than Two Core Arguments?

From:Chris Bates <chris.maths_student@...>
Date:Thursday, May 19, 2005, 20:43
>Do you by any chance have a reference that shows how common these >patterns you speak of are? ("...how common are these patterns of which >you speak", I guess might have been more better to say.) > >
From Person by Anna Siewierska: Accusative A&P 65.4% A 29.4% P 5.2% A or P 0% Ergative A&P 82% A 0% P 18% A or P 0% Active A&P 85% A 15% P 0% A or P 0% Hierarchical A&P 67% A 0% P 0% A or P 33% This is from a study of languages which showed agreement on verbs. There were 283 languages in the sample. As you can see, for ergative languages which exhibit agreement, the vast majority (82%) in the sample agreed with both the abs and erg arguments, with only a small minority (18%) showing agreement with only the abs argument. Examples of languages which agree with the P but not the A are: Karitiana, Kolana, Lak, Palikur, and Trumai.

Reply

tomhchappell <tomhchappell@...>