accusative and ergative languages

Patrick C. Ryan proto-language at email.msn.com
Wed Jun 16 00:38:03 UTC 1999


Dear Jens and IEists:

 ----- Original Message -----
From: Jens Elmegaard Rasmussen <jer at cphling.dk>
Sent: Saturday, June 12, 1999 5:34 PM

> On Thu, 10 Jun 1999, Patrick C. Ryan wrote:

>> [...] I do continue to believe that any language which is
>> presently or has been accusative must have gone through an ergative stage
>> sometime prior to that in its development.

Jens asked:

> Could you give us five examples of languages for which this sequence of
> events is known with certainty? Should be easy if it applies to all.

Pat answers:

The best researched language family is Indo-European. IEists cannot agree if
IE went through an ergative stage preceding its accusative stage so how can
any reasonable person expect that five examples can be found that display
the same proposed sequence "with certainty".

I think a key to these relationships is the understanding the causation of
natural sequences like synthetic -> analytic along the lines of what Larry
Tarsk proposed, and, IMHO, as opposed to Ralf-Stefan's denial of any
mechanical inevitability of certain phenomena.

Pat continued:

>> [...] To try to understand ergative constructions from
>> passive inflections developed in languages in accusative stages seems to me
>> to be potentially misleading.

Jens answered:

> "Potentially" perhaps, but in some cases certainly in accordance with the
> truth of a documented development. Why it that so often disregarded in
> typology-based solutions?

Pat comments:

Well, there are more passive constructions than those developed during
accusative stages of languages; and any explanation of passives should
include an analysis of the data from the many types of languages in which it
appears. It is not that this data should be disregarded but rather that it
should be weighted.

Pat

PATRICK C. RYAN (501) 227-9947; FAX/DATA (501)312-9947 9115 W. 34th St.
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