Personal Pronouns / Ergativity

[Inaki Agirre Perez]

> In Basque (an agglutinating ergative language), both the ablative and the
> ergative case contain the -k ending, which also occurs in the nominative
> plural, in my view derived from a construction implying a kind of
> 'genitivus/ablativus partitivus' (cf. French 'des gens'; Lat. 'de' also had
> an 'ablative meaning'!).

Could you be clearer about this point, Ed? Basque ergative case is s.
-AK pl. -EK, both from *-EGAK if I recall it right. Ablative is s. -TIK
and partitive is -IK. They have a very close meaning in NPs like 'one of
you', say ZUETARIK BAT = ZUETATIK BAT, but I don't grasp the point with
ergative or nominative.

Inaki