Re: Noun/pronoun split ergativity (was Re: SVO vs SOV [...])

--- Tim May <butsuri@...>
wrote:

> This is given as a universal, incidentally (in
> _Describing
> Morphosyntax_), that the more animate, the more
> topic-worthy the
> entities denoted by a grammatical category are,
> the more likely it is
> that that category will behave in a nom/acc
> pattern, and the less
> topic-worthy the more likely it is to be
> erg/abs.  This makes sense,
> in that topical/animate entities are more
> likely to be active agents,
> and thus require a marked case for when they
> have something done to
> them (accusative) while less topical/animate
> entities are more likely
> to be patients, and require a special case for
> when they're agents (ergative).
Interesting - I didn't know this, except
intuitively! It does make sense, though. As I've
said before, most Talarian words are inanimate
(even though by rights many are sensically
animate), and usually can not be agents. Such
words require special treatment to make them so;
I think I decided that a special nominative
ending in -am would be used (as opposed to the
usual inanimate -ar).

Padraic.



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