accusative and ergative languages

[Ralf-Stefan Georg]

>All very well and good. Having explained next to nothing, perhaps you will
>now tell us how precisely *you* were using "passive in nature" and what in
>God's name it is supposed to mean to you, to those you may be quoting, or
>anyone else including me.

It means nothing to me, it was sloppy terminology and has nothing
whatsoever to do with the things we are talking about. I think I made that
clear. It was my incompetent rephrasing of "ergative constructions are, or
invariably come from, passive constructions", a position not endorsed by
me, but apparently by you.

>Pat responds:

>Yes, you are absolutely correct. This is a familar pattern indeed. When
>challenged for an argument, you sidestep the issues of the question by
>conveying that someone you like (here, Larry Trask) "has spoken the definite
>word about this here". If Larry could speak the definite word about
>everything, then this list would be a waste of time. We could just subscribe
>to his newsletter for the latest ex cathedra rulings on all our troublesome
>questions.

Sorry, I've not implied that Larry Trask is the pontifex maximus
ergativitatis, I only stressed that he, in my humble opinion, laid the
issue of "ergative is passive" to rest, with arguments sufficient enough to
show this, and nothing more. That my own position on ergativity happens to
coincide with this and, admittedly, informed my reading of these postings,
is of course instrumental in this. Not who says something matters, but how
well it is argued; believe me or not, I'd even take it from you, if you
only ever said such a thing.

>Now, when Larry recently quoted Dixon about the nature of the ergative, he
>conveniently neglected to mention that Dixon acknowledged that there were
>currently practising linguists --- not amateur linguists like myself ---
>still defending the passive interpretation of ergative constructions.

This is uninteresting. I know practising linguists I wouldn't buy a used
car from. From some I wouldn't buy a *new* car. Who is it and what are
their arguments ? Don't hide behind an anonymous bunch of practising
linguists.

>I asked Larry where he had "shredded" this interpretation, and to my
>knowledge, got no answer. If I missed the "shredding", perhaps you will be
>kind enough to rehearse his performance for us. I have seen nothing by
>Larry's vehemence and your allegiance to support the idea that the ergative
>should not be interpreted as a passive.

How do you live with the fact that some "ergative languages" have
independent passives ?

>That Ralf-Stefan is incapable of defining the term he introduced: "passive
>in nature". By the way, being a native speaker of English, I can assure you
>that in my dialect, "passive in nature" is *not* bad English.

Thanks a bundle for sparing me the one verdict I was really fearing ...

>And to answer your -- I hope not purposeful -- distortion of what I wrote,
>let me say explicitly that I did not assert "there are ergative languages
>without (any) splits". I asserted that Thomsen did not, at least in her
>grammar, identify splits in Sumerian, which you seemed to think she had. I
>then invited you to identify them in Sumerian if you *could*.

I did. I did, out of my die-hard habit, address every single point of your
objections to it, and I addressed them satisfactorily. If not, for heaven's
sake, we will have to go over it again, but I doubt that this time we will
have too many happy faces reading along ...

And, as far as I remember, this whole brouhaha started with me asserting
that all known "ergative languages" have some split, followed by you
prompting we to show such a thing in Sumerian. I'm not a mind-reader, but
this could be interpreted as a challenge aiming at the gist of my
assertion, n'est-ce pas ? I managed to show those splits, although the
discussion got a bit swamped under some hassle over maru:- and
HamTu-conjugations, but I managed to do it. At least I got you to accept,
late in coming, though, that my initial assertian still stands up.

>You might review your own procedures for employing quotation marks. Your use
>of them on "there are ergative languages without any splits" strongly and
>falsely implies that I wrote this in the context of a judgment on the
>question.

I accept the reproach of not being a mind-reader ...

St.G.

Stefan Georg
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