Re: A mixed ergative question...

I am also experimenting with ergative stuff for my own language Minyeva
(previously Malat). The system i have at the moment is nominative in case
marking but ergative in constituent order, which i understand doesn't occur
in any natural languages. It happens the other way around (ergative case
marking, accusative word order) but not the other way.

Minyeva is being designed around a regularized causation system, since i
noticed that causation is generally done unpredictably across languages (but
not necessarily inside one language). The language would have state verbs
(both static and dynamic) and intransitive action verbs pre-subject, but
transitive action verbs post-subject. Sentences are a string of "subjects"
with their verbs attached to them, in a type of causation sequence. It would
look like this:

(state - agent - action) - (new state - patient - action) (new state -
patient - action) and so on.

Here are some example sentences:
(He:NOM - kicked) (became wounded - him:ACC) = he kicked him, injuring him.
(He:NOM) (died - him:ACC) = he killed him.
(He:NOM - shot) (him:ACC) = he shot him.
(He:NOM - shot) (died - him:ACC) = He shot him, killing him. *or* He shot
him dead.
(dead - he:NOM) = he is dead.
(sneezed - he:NOM) = he sneezed. (action)
(knows - he:NOM - french:DAT) = he knows french.

Relative to the verb, the "ergative" case comes before (except for
transitive state verbs), and the "absolutive" after. The words are marked
according to an accusative system, however, with the subject as nominative
and object as accusative. Verbs in english that are transitive state verbs
(as in the object isn't a patient) would have the dative case in minyeva
where the accusative case would appear in english. In this way, those
sentences would end up technically being intransitive, and would explain
their ergative sentence order (w.r.t. the verb).

+++++

As for Tech, do you know what each of the cases actually means? There are
three elements that these cases group together in different ways: Agent
(transitive verb only), Patient (transitive verb only), and Subject
(intransitive verb only). Here is what each of the cases includes:

nominative = A + S
accusative = P

ergative = A
absolutive = P + S

maybe you would best consider a three case (tripartite) system, because that
is the most that occurs in a single clause. Almost all natural languages use
only a dual system, with a few tripartite systems in existance.

> -----Original Message-----
> Coming out of lurk mode briefly to posit a question for y'all folks....
>
> Is there a language, natural or constructed, that has a system
> like this or
> similar? I want this for Tech:
>
> Clauses with active verb: subject = nominative, object = accusative
> Clauses with passive verb: subject = ergative, object = nominative
> Clauses with reflexive verb: subject = ergative
> Clauses with copula as verb: subject = nominative
> Clauses with causative verb: subject (causor) = nominative,
> subject (causee) = ergative, object = accusative
> (The verb changes form when it switches from active to passive, or to
> causative or reflexive, but the noun case also does likewise.
> Tech has free
> word order tending toward a basic VSO typology.)
>
> The last type I'm unsure of; should I reverse the cases for the causor and
> causee? And what's a better term than "causor" and "causee"?
>
> ~Danny~
--
Garrett Jones
http://www.alkaline.org

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