Linguist Forum
Specializations => Morphosyntax => Topic started by: zaba on October 17, 2014, 09:39:20 PM
-
What would it mean for a given language to have a split ergative/accusative system? I bet it's a stupid question but I never really wrapped my head around it so any insight for a n00b would be tremendous.
-
Ergativity refers to intransitive subjects being marked like transitive objects, and transitive subjects being marked differently. (This is the inverse, in a sense, of nominative-accusative languages like English, etc.)
Read this link for more:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ergative%E2%80%93absolutive_language
A "split" ergative(-accusative) language is one where sometimes it's ergative and other times it's accusative. This is actually extremely common: I think I heard once that there are no completely ergative languages.
The exceptions are usually in some part of the grammar such as:
1. Pronouns vs. full nouns (or certain persons, etc.) (This is found in Australia I believe)
2. Tenses (Hindi has an ergative past tense system but accusative otherwise)
3. Some languages may have a distinction between morphology and syntax, such as which one is the subject after a coordinated clause with 'and'-- "Bill saw John and then he fell down"-- who fell down?
(Note: you should verify this information well before trusting it-- I'm remembering this info from a while ago, but it's on the right track at least.)
-
It's a pretty weird phenomenon, so I don't blame you for having trouble getting your head around it. Nepali has a tense-based split ergative system:
Present is straight-forward:
ma bhat khã-chu
I rice eat-PRS.1S
Past requires an ergative marker on the agent:
ma-le bhat khã-ẽ
I-ERG rice eat-PST-1S
But, past intransitive verbs don't:
ma mor-ẽ
I die-PST-1S
Notably, the case-marking used to indicate the ergative is the same as the one used to indicate instrumentality:
ma chamcha-le bhat khã-chu
I spoon-INS rice eat-PRS.1S
-
It is true of many Indo-aryan languages