accusative and ergative languages

[Ralf-Stefan Georg]

>Pat:

>Yes, but if a new verb were formed, e.g. webben (from English 'web'), there
>is no possibility that it would be conjugated webben, wabb, gewobben.

>What I consider 'internal inflection'  is Arabic yaktubu, kataba, katibun,
>etc. which applies to any and all verbs, old, and those taken new into the
>language.

The pattern lost productivity in German. So what ?
Also, I hardly understand your claim, which basically amounts to refusing
to speak of technique X in language L, unless it isn't present in each and
every item in which it theoretically could be present. So, you would refuse
to speak of, say, vowel harmony in, say, Turkish, because some borrowed
(and some native) words fail to obey this rule ? ("What I call VH is ...,
which applies to any and all ... Period. There is an exception, or the
phenomenon is gradually losing ground, therefore it doesn't extst at all."
?????).

Taking your example with the artificial verb "webben" (maybe meaning
something  like "to surf the web", for which we already adopted "surfen").
You are right that it could be expected to be inflected according to the
weak pattern. But, if some people choose to use the strong past participle
(leaving aside the simple preterite, which is rarely used in colloquial
speech nowadays), maybe out of some whim, maybe with humorous intentions,
and manage to place this strategically in the mass-media, say, in
online-service-ads, I see no stringent reason why this shouldn't fall on
fertile soil and get used gradually. First as a joke, later as a habit. The
advertising industry *is* able to do this and other things to your or my
language. The pattern is there, and any existent pattern can trigger
analogy.Maybe not too likely, I admit in this case, but certainly not
impossible. Analogy is not eternally confined to pre-modern times.

Stefan Georg
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