accusative and ergative languages

[Ralf-Stefan Georg]

>Pat responds:

>I do not readily have access to material on Khalkha Mongolian so I cannot
>comment in detail on your example.

>However, in general, I would hazard the guess that, regardless of its
>apparently accusative construction, for all practical purposes, this
>sentence could be just as easily translated: 'A book was sent to you'.

If I had to *translate* a Mongolian novel into English, I might choose the
passive as well, in *English*, since the "agentlessness" of this sentence
is something which goes well with English (and other) passives. But that's
*translation*, and not *analysis*. I chose Mongolian, because it has a
passive available. The active construction, as I gave it, will be most
naturally be found, when an agent is inferable from the
pragmatic/textual/situational context, passive being preferred when it is
unknown or information on it deliberately suppresses. there are other
parameters which govern the choice of diathesis, mostly of a pragmatic
nature and not entirely explored. The question was about grammaticality of
such a construction in an acc. language.

> I am
>also a little sceptical of an "accusative" in such a context which is marked
>by -0.

I made a slight mistake, thanks for your attentiveness. I should have
rendered the sentence in English with *a book*, not *the book*, the overt
accusative marker being used with definite patients only. With an
indefinite one, it is -0.

>But, having said that, I am willing to concede that for *some* accusative
>languages, this construction, provided a nominative subject can be mentally
>supplied from context, is grammatical.

OK, thanks, we are getting somewhere.

Stefan

Stefan Georg
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