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Ergative/Absolutive with Accusative case? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Philological Room |  | |
| Makrasiroutioun Quadrilingual Heptaglot Senior Member Canada infowars.com Joined 704 days ago 193 posts - 2 votes Speaks: French*, English*, Armenian*, Romanian*, Latin, German, Italian Studies: Dutch, Swedish, Turkish, Japanese, Russian, Arabic (Written) | Message 1 of 7 19 April 2008 at 3:31pm | IP Logged | ||
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Hello,
I've been studying ergativity in several languages across the globe, and I have noticed that the ergative-absolutive morphological pattern is always to the exclusion of the accusative case. For example: English Subject of transitive verb: she Subject of intransitive verb: she Direct object: her Dyirbal Subject of transitive verb: yabuŋgu Subject of intransitive verb: yabu Direct object: yabu However, are there any languages that differentiate all three? | |||
| Captain Haddock Diglot Senior Member Japan ideogramme.ca/japan/ Joined 1366 days ago 1986 posts - 138 votes  Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, Ancient Greek | Message 2 of 7 20 April 2008 at 4:49am | IP Logged | ||
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They are rare but apparently exist. What you are looking for is a "tripartite language".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tripartite_language A few languages also mark the subjects and object of a transitive verb one way, and intransitive subjects a second way. Edited by Captain Haddock on 20 April 2008 at 4:52am | |||
| Talib Groupie United States Joined 1259 days ago 47 posts - 2 votes Speaks: English* | Message 3 of 7 20 April 2008 at 8:44pm | IP Logged | ||
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I wonder which languages mark the transitive subject and its verb the same way. Wouldn't that make it difficult to distinguish between the transitive subject and its object? A rigid word order might help, but I think that having a rigid word order could even be considered a form of marking. Edited by Talib on 20 April 2008 at 8:45pm | |||
| natia Newbie GeorgiaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 650 days ago 9 posts Speaks: Georgian* | Message 4 of 7 30 April 2008 at 7:26am | IP Logged | ||
I'm Georgian, Yes, in my native language the transitive subject and its verb are marked the same way, ex.: [me v-avhuqe mas rveuli] - word by word: I donated him notebook [me]=I is in ergative and marks the verb with the prefix v- , and the verb itself governs the pronoun [me](first person) in the singular and in just first person. the form [v-achuqe] can be used with just pronaun [me]=I and vice versa. with the other words, the verb governs (marks) (pro)noun in the personal form, and the (pro)noun itself governs (marks) the verb in the particular form, besides, except govern we have one more syntax's connection - named agreement: we have agreement in the numeral, exactly the pronoun [me](=I ) will accommodate with the verb in singular.I'm Georgian, Yes, in my native language the transitive subject and its verb are marked the same way, ex.: [me v-avhuqe mas rveuli] - word by word: I donated him notebook | |||
| natia Newbie GeorgiaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 650 days ago 9 posts Speaks: Georgian* | Message 5 of 7 30 April 2008 at 7:27am | IP Logged | ||
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Talib wrote:
I wonder which languages mark the transitive subject and its verb the same way. I'm Georgian, Yes, in my native language the transitive subject and its verb are marked the same way, ex.: [me v-avhuqe mas rveuli] - word by word: I donated him notebook [me]=I is in ergative and marks the verb with the prefix v- , and the verb itself governs the pronoun [me](first person) in the singular and in just first person. the form [v-achuqe] can be used with just pronaun [me]=I and vice versa. with the other words, the verb governs (marks) (pro)noun in the personal form, and the (pro)noun itself governs (marks) the verb in the particular form, besides, except govern we have one more syntax's connection - named agreement: we have agreement in the numeral, exactly the pronoun [me](=I ) will accommodate with the verb in singular. | |||
| natia Newbie GeorgiaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 650 days ago 9 posts Speaks: Georgian* | Message 6 of 7 30 April 2008 at 8:25am | IP Logged | ||
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[QUOTE
A few languages also mark the subjects and object of a transitive verb one way, and intransitive subjects a second way.[/QUOTE] that's true, in Georgian we say (markers of the subj. and object are separated): transitive verb: deda amzadeb-s sadil-s (aproximately=mother cooks the dinner) (subj. is in nominative case, obj-dativ) deda-m moamzada sadili-i(aproximately=mother cooked the dinner)(subj-erg,obj-nominative) intransitive verb: is tb-eb-a (=it warms) (subj. in nominative) is ga-tb-a (=it warmed) (subj. in nominative again ) | |||
 Fat-tony Heptaglot Pro Member United Kingdom Joined 738 days ago 232 posts - 42 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Russian, Thai, Laotian, Urdu, French Studies: Indonesian, Mandarin, Punjabi, Burmese, Javanese Personal Language Map | Message 7 of 7 09 May 2008 at 8:29am | IP Logged | ||
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In Hindi/Urdu (maybe some other Indian languages, but not Nepali) there is ergativity in the past perfective tenses. A handful of pronouns have three seperate forms corresponding to Nom, Oblique (merger of Gen;Acc;Dat etc) and an extended form of the Oblique which is used only with the ergative marker "ne". This may seem inconsequential but nowadays many Hindi/Urdu words have only two distinct forms: one for plural oblique and one for the nom.sing/obl.sing/nom.pl; so the survival of a specialised eragtive form is quite unexpected.
Obviously ergativity is not generally found in the Indo-European family, but it is present in South Asia due to the Sanskrit preference for the passive to express the past tense. Over time "man-instr woman killed (past passive particple)" became the only way to express "a man killed a woman" and the old instrumental case ending "ena" evolved into the ergative postposition "ne". (Teach Yourself Sanskrit, Pg 50) |
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