accusative and ergative languages

Sean Crist kurisuto at unagi.cis.upenn.edu
Fri Jul 16 20:12:28 UTC 1999


Somebody (I've lost track of who) wrote:

> >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.

This sort of thing actually _does_ happen sometimes; it just isn't that
common.  The English verb "strive" is a loan from Old French; but it is
often declined as if it were an old Class I ablauting strong verb (strove,
striven).  So I'd correct "no possibility" to "much less likely".

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