accusative and ergative languages

[Stefan Georg]

>> If this were true, then a good reference grammar of Chinese or
>> Vietnamese ought to be shorter than a good reference grammar of Russian
>> or Latin.  And this does not appear to be the case.

>Pat responds:

>Actually, I think it may well be the case for Chinese. I have a copy of
>Chao's _Mandarin Primer_ (336 pages), which has a Chapter III - Grammar,
>beginning on page 33, and *ending* on page 59. I can compare this to Forbes'
>_Russian Grammar_, which contains 436 pages of grammar and indices.

Try Li/Thompson: Grammar of Mandarin Chinese, and tell us whether you find
all their observations and grammar points condensed in Chao's primer.
As for primers, I have here a Russian primer of about 60. pp.
To share an anecdote: a teacher of a teacher of mine used to confine his
Sanskrit lectures to one (short summer) semester only "Sanskrit *ist* nicht
l"anger", he used to say, and if you look at Mayrhofer's masterly condensed
grammar, one gets the impression that this is true. However, it keeps
nagging at me what might have ridden Wackernagel to fill his tons and tons
of paper with nothing but  - Sanskrit grammar  ?????
Please, Pat, don't tell us that the "complexity" of languages is measured
by the thickness of volumes devoted to them. there are primers,
phrase-books, Hippocrene drivel dictionaries, moderate textbooks, reference
grammars and huge encyclopedic grammars. One can write 50 pages on Chinese
as well as 600 (meaningful and relevant pages, that is).

St.