accusative and ergative languages

[Patrick C. Ryan]

Dear Larry and IEists:

 ----- Original Message -----
From: Larry Trask <larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk>
Sent: Friday, July 16, 1999 10:35 AM

> Pat Ryan wrote:

>> 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.

Larry responded:

> No; this is not so.  Read p. 189 of Dixon's 1994 book.

Pat responds:

I suggest you read it. "But we do still encounter scholars who insist that
there is a necessary diachronic connection, e.g. Estival and Myhill
(1988:445): 'we propose here the hypothesis that in fact all ergative
constructions have developed from passives'."  Are you suggesting that
Estival and Myhill are not "linguists", or that Shibatani, in whose book
this essay appeared, is not a "linguist"?  The quotation above is from p.
189 of Dixon's 1994 book. What are you playing at?

Pat asked:

>> 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.

Larry answered:

> Mr. Ryan, I'm afraid I lack the time to reply in detail to all, or even
> most, of the 37 or so postings from you that greet me each morning.

> But briefly: if a transitive sentence in an ergative language were
> "really" a passive, then its absolutive NP would be the subject and
> would exhibit subject properties.  But this not the case in most of the
> ergative languages I have heard about.  In spite of the ergative
> case-marking and/or verbal agreement, it is usually the *ergative* NP
> which exhibits subject properties, not the absolutive NP.

Pat interjects:

Still no word on the scene of the great "shredding" which was *claimed* by
Larry.
And what are subject properties that an absolutive NP never displays?

Larry continued:

> Take any ergative language you like.  Assume that the subject of an
> intransitive sentence is the sole (absolutive) NP in it.  Examine the
> syntactic properties of that NP, and tabulate them.

> Then look at transitive sentences.  Tabulate the syntactic properties of
> the absolutive and ergative NPs, and compare these with the preceding.

> In the great majority of ergative languages, it is the ergative NP which
> shares the subject properties of the intransitive subject.

> A few examples of typical subject properties:

> The subject controls reflexive and reciprocal NPs.

> The subject cannot itself be reflexive or reciprocal.

> The subject controls the empty NP in an empty-NP complement.

> The empty NP in an empty-NP complement is itself a subject.

> A subject can be coordinated with another subject.

Pat responds:

Why do you not give us an example of these so-called subject properties in
some ergative language besides Basque? And how were these properties
selected?

Larry continued:

> And so on.  There are also various language-specific tests.  For
> example, in some varieties of Basque, the object of a gerund (but not
> the subject of a gerund) goes, exceptionally, into the genitive case.
> Neither the absolutive subject of an intransitive gerund nor the
> ergative subject of a transitive gerund can be genitivized, but the
> absolutive object of a transitive gerund can be.

Pat responds:

Dialect-specific and totally unconvincing for ergative languages in general.

Larry continued:

> One more test from Basque.  In Basque, the subject of an intransitive
> sentence cannot be reflexive or reciprocal.  So, Basques can say,
> literally, `Susie and Mike [ABSOLUTIVE] were talking to each other', but
> they cannot say *`Each other [ABSOLUTIVE] was talking to Susie and
> Mike'.

Pat responds:

Since '*Each other was talking to Susie and Mike' is equally ridiculous, I
fail to see any valuable point made. Frankly, I am amazed. A reflexive
requires an agent and a patient, and a reciprocal requires two agents and
two patients. An intransitive verb, by definition, has only one NP element
so any two(or four)-NP-element construction obviously is a contradiction in
terms.

Larry continued:

> Now, in a transitive sentence, Basques can say `Susie and Mike
> [ERGATIVE] slapped each other [ABSOLUTIVE]', but they cannot say *`Each
> other [ERGATIVE] slapped Susie and Mike [ABSOLUTIVE]' -- or, in terms of
> the discredited passive theory, they cannot say *`Susie and Mike
> [ABSOLUTIVE] were slapped by each other [ERGATIVE]'.

Pat responds:

More nonsense! 'Each other' cannot function as an ergative or nominative
subject. So what? That is semantic not grammatical. That it can be used in
some languages in an oblique case (as in English above) is to be expected.

Larry continued:

> In an intransitive sentence, the absolutive subject cannot be reflexive
> or reciprocal.  In a transitive sentence, the ergative subject cannot be
> reflexive or reciprocal, but the absolutive object *can* be.

Pat responds:

Answered above.

Larry continued:

> All tests for subjecthood in Basque give the same result: it is the
> ergative NP in a transitive sentence which shares the subject properties
> of the absolutive NP in an intransitive sentence, and therefore it is
> the ergative NP, and not the absolutive NP, which is the subject of a
> transitive sentence.

Pat responds:

If you are referring to the "tests" above, you have proved nothing.

Larry continued:

> There are unusual languages, of course.  In Dyirbal, and in
> Nass-Gitksan, the absolutive NP in a transitive sentence shows at least
> some subject properties, while the ergative NP does not show the same
> properties -- though it does show other subject properties.  This is the
> phenomenon we call `syntactic ergativity'.  But I know of no language
> which is syntactically ergative without exception, and I know of few
> languages which are syntactically ergative at all.

Pat responds:

Of all the languages I have ever seen, Basque is, by a mile, far the most
"unusual" language.

Larry continued:

> The "passive" view of ergative languages in general is indefensible.

Pat responds:

Obviously, I do not think so. And Estival and Myhill (and probably
Shibatani) do not either --- not to mention the majority of linguists of the
past.

Pat

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