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ERGATIVITY - I’m having trouble with it | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Philological Room |  | |
| GibberMeister Bilingual Pentaglot Groupie Scotland Joined 5808 days ago 61 posts - 67 votes  Speaks: Spanish, Catalan, Lowland Scots*, English*, Portuguese | Message 17 of 28 06 May 2009 at 3:35pm | IP Logged | ||
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There are those who would beg to differ Eskander.
some see it as an areal feature. Perfectly plausible with movements of peoples in the same area. My own dialect of English (Lowland Scots as well as Scottish English) is heavily influenced by Celtic grammar from large scale emigration from the Highlands and Ireland, I'm after doing it = I've just done it What are you wanting? = What do you want? And those are only grammatical features, so I can see how Hurrian and similar languages could have passed on certain traits to languages that superseded them or co-existed with them. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| eskandar Triglot Newbie United States brownfolks.blogspot. Joined 5771 days ago 3 posts - 3 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Persian Studies: Azerbaijani, Urdu, Arabic (classical), Arabic (Written) | Message 18 of 28 06 May 2009 at 5:31pm | IP Logged | ||
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Can you provide any evidence that ergativity in Kurdish came from neighboring languages rather than genetic inheritance? It sounds like idle speculation to me. Indo-Iranian split ergativity is well-documented. Furthermore, if I'm not mistaken, Hurrian was fully ergative-absolutive whereas Kurdish is only split ergative, as is typical of the Indo-Iranian languages.
Hurrian died off far too long ago to have influenced modern Indo-Iranian languages, and the earlier Indo-Iranian languages (such as Sanskrit) were fully accusative, so they obviously did not acquire any ergative features from Hurrian. It is well-documented that ergativity developed later on in Indo-Iranian. I don't see how split ergativity could have developed in such a wide range of Indo-Iranian, from Kurdish, Pashto, Baluchi, Davani, Talysh, Yaghnobi, etc., all the way east to Hindi-Urdu, Gujarati, Punjabi, Marathi, Nepali, etc., and have it still be an areal feature from Hurrian or a Caucasian language. In fact, the development of ergativity in Indo-Aryan as well as in Iranian have been documented as having 'purely' Indo-European origins. It is possible that Hurrian influenced (and may even be related to) the Kartvelian languages. It is likely that Armenian has many words of Hurrian origin, and that some Hurrian words may have found their way into Kurdish as well. But I have not seen any evidence to suggest that Kurdish grammar has been influenced by Hurrian (or Kartvelian languages) in any way whatsoever. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| maxime1981 Tetraglot Newbie Norway Joined 5678 days ago 1 posts - 1 votes Speaks: English*, French, Russian, German Studies: Ancient Greek, Norwegian, Georgian, Armenian | Message 19 of 28 09 May 2009 at 10:06pm | IP Logged | ||
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Of course most assertions of areal influence are speculative, but that does not make them unfounded or unsatisfying.
As you note, there is no ergativity in Sanskrit, none really also in Avestan. Ergativity is not Indo-Iranian, and Kurdish is too far removed from its source to have derived it from any Indo-Iranian influence. The case system of closely related Ossetian is also not Iranian, but rather formed under the influence of surrounding Caucasian languages. As I understand, the hypothesis of Hurrian influence is a bit more speculative, but was formed, I think, by Soviet typologists (Dyakanov and someone else), who found clear parallels as well as lexical contacts between Hurrian (as well as Urartean) and Caucasian, particularly East Caucasian. It would be East Caucasian, then, which would have affected Kurdish. I do not have any reason to subscribe to this, but remember ergativity is also in Hattic and Sumerian in ancient middle eastern times but not at all in the older Semitic languages, older Indo-European languages, nor really in Indo-Iranian when, as you wish to reference, Kurdish came into existence. The phenomenon in Old to Middle Persian is not even really ergativity. Read Geoffrey Haig's most recent work. And Kartvelian is not an ergative language family (it has a partly active/stative typology with increasing nominative/accusative features), so the gentleman asserting that as a possible carrier of Old Near Eastern ergative influences is mistaken.
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| GibberMeister Bilingual Pentaglot Groupie Scotland Joined 5808 days ago 61 posts - 67 votes Speaks: Spanish, Catalan, Lowland Scots*, English*, Portuguese | Message 20 of 28 11 June 2009 at 3:41pm | IP Logged | ||
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It's difficult to PROVE nay of the hypotheses regarding ergativity in languages in the Kurdish area. It's still perfectly plausible that languages have influenced each other in contact and filtered into Kurdish. There is nothing outlandish about the supposition at all, even if Hurrian was long extinct before Kurdish came on the scene.
Lowland Scots, as I mentioned before has a heavy Celtic influence in its grammar despite Gaelic not having been spoken in that area for over 1,000 years. Lack of proof isn't necessarily evidence of lack. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 Hencke Tetraglot Moderator Spain Joined 6894 days ago 2340 posts - 2444 votes Speaks: Swedish*, Finnish, EnglishC2, Spanish Studies: Mandarin Personal Language Map | Message 21 of 28 16 June 2009 at 6:12pm | IP Logged | ||
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I don't know any ergative language and I haven't paid much attention to this subject before. But reading about it in this thread got me curious about something.
In English, as well as all other languages I am aware of, many verbs that are basically transitive can often be used intransitively as well: Thou shalt not kill. I don't smoke. I see. etc. In many of these instances it is just a case of leaving out an object that is implicitly understood by logic "I don't smoke (tobacco)" - and in others maybe it is not so clear "They fled" (they might have fled the country, the oppression, the Russian army or whatever else). What I am curious about is: How do ergative languages handle intransitive uses of transitive verbs? Is it handled as if it were a normal transitive, with a "ghost" object left out but implicitly understood, is it handled as a pure intransitive, or does this vary from one case to another, depending on the verb and the context? Edited by Hencke on 16 June 2009 at 6:13pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| izan Bilingual Tetraglot Newbie Spain letmewritealittlebit Joined 5869 days ago 20 posts - 34 votes 1 sounds Speaks: Spanish*, Basque*, EnglishC1, FrenchC1 Studies: German | Message 22 of 28 19 June 2009 at 1:26am | IP Logged | ||
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In Basque:
I don't smoke = Ez dut erretzen. I don't smoke tobacco = Ez dut tabakorik erretzen. I don't smoke Martin's tobacco= Ez dut Martinen tabakoa erretzen. I don't smoke Martin's cigarrettes = Ez ditut Martinen zigarroak erretzen. So, in this case, it is handled as a normal transitive. Moreover, notice that the verb (erretzen dut) is conjugated as if the ghost object were singular (Compared to the verb "erretzen ditut" in the last sentence where the direct object is plural). I'm pretty sure it is always handled in this way, or at least I can't think of any counterexample right now. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| RBenham Triglot Groupie IndonesiaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5643 days ago 60 posts - 62 votes Speaks: English*, German, French Studies: Indonesian | Message 23 of 28 23 June 2009 at 1:17am | IP Logged | ||
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On a terminological issue, I really don't think that English examples like "Thou shalt not kill" really represent intransitive uses of transitive verbs; rather the object is not expressed.
More interesting (in English) are verbs where the subject may be either the agent or patient (or even instrument): "I opened the door with the key", "The door opened", "The key opened the door". Indeed there seem to be constructions in which just about any transitive verb can be used with the patient as subject: "This surface wipes clean easily". On a somewhat related topic, there are "unaccusative" or "ergative" verbs, which are claimed by many linguists to have no agent rôle, but only a direct object. For example, compare arrive with purchase: His friends have just arrived. He has just purchased a house. He is proudly showing his newly-purchased house to his newly-arrived friends. The interesting thing here is that, when you use the participle as an adjective, the noun is understood as the object of purchase but the subject of arrive. So, some linguists argue, his friends really is the logical object of arrive, but it is "promoted" to the subject position in the surface structure because there is no "real" subject to fill that rôle. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| charlmartell Super Polyglot Senior Member Portugal Joined 6244 days ago 286 posts - 298 votes Speaks: French, English, German, Luxembourgish*, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Dutch, Italian, Latin, Ancient Greek Studies: Mandarin, Japanese | Message 24 of 28 23 June 2009 at 12:52pm | IP Logged | ||
I don't care what "some" linguists argue, the sentence basically says: He is showing his house to his friends. House and friends are then further defined, qualified by attributes: newly-purchased and newly-arrived respectively. No: "his friends really is the (???) logical object of arrive (???), but it is "promoted" to subject position in the surface structure blah blah blah". Talk about finicky nit-picking! Looks like you have 2 strong points, making imbecile jokes and splitting hairs. I promise I won't read another of your valuable contributions. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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