accusative and ergative languages

[Wolfgang Schulze]

"Patrick C. Ryan" schrieb:

> Fabrice writes:

>> I think that what Patrick refers to is that many typologists mean that the
>> evolution 'ergative to accusative' is more commoun than the reverse,
>> without excluding it.

> Pat responds:

> That is, of course, very close to what I believe. But I would go an
> unpalatal to some step further, and, agree with G. A. Klimov, that an
> ergative form *must* precede an accusative type.

Dear Pat and IEists,

whenever we discuss possible ergative properties of the IE reconstruct,
we should bare in mind that up to now we hardly have a Generalized
Theory of this linguistics and (?) CoCo- (cognition and communication)
feature. The only thing we really can tell is that ergativity and
accusativity is not a linguistic "category" or so, but some kind of
paradigmatic and syntactic behavior that is carried out by a number of
structurally coupled paradigms etc. By this I mean that a language may
well show e.g. an accusative behavior in its noun (!) inflection, but an
ergative behavior in - say - its agreement system, if present. In
general we should assume that accusativity and ergativity represent two
poles on a scale (the "accusative-ergative-continuum" (AEC) on which
single paradigmatic structures are located. If we claim that S
(subjective), O (objective or rather the cluster obejctive-indirect
objective which should be labelled (I)O)) represent metalinguistic
descriptors for these behavior types, accusativity would satisfy the
{S=A;(I)O} condition, whereas ergativity refers to [S=(I)O;A}.
Accusativity would then reflect some kind of A-promince, and ergativity
- on the other hand - some kind of O-prominence. The interaction of
different (liunguistic) categories with respect to the AEC is dominated
(and organized) in accordance with the general archicteture of the
'operating system' (OS) of a language  (that is those parts of grammar
that control the linguistic interpretation of event experience based on
'simple sentences'). The aprts of grammar that are relevant for the OS
are orgenaized as a plycentric dynamic network. The individual centers
are determnined by both paradigmatical aspects of the system
architecture and the degree of functionality that is carried out by
these centers. A simplified (and fictive) example would be
(IO-clustirung is neglected):

NP cases	{S=0;A}
SAP Pronouns	{S=A=O} ['neurtral']
AGR		{S=0;A} IF {S & A} = SAP 	['Speech Act Participant]
		{S=A;0} IF [S & A} = nSAP
TAM		{S=A;0} IF DURATIVE
		{S=O;A) IF PERFECTIVE
Diathesis	{S=O;A}
Word Order	{S=A;0}
DCD		{S=A;0}	[Discource Cohesion Device]

Now, how to claim that such a system (which - in a much more elabortaed
form - is well attested is 'ergative' or 'accusative'? Also, we have to
bare in mind that some of these centers are more colesely connected than
others. For instance, Abkhaz (West cauacsian) is generally thought to be
ergative at least with respect to 3.persons (Abkhaz is head-marking (no
cases, but polypersonal agreement). Its typology goes:

Intrans.:	S-Verb
Trans.:		O-A-Verb

Synchronically, the order of agreement clitics plays a crucial role to
determine the location of theis paradigm on the AEC. S and O behave
parallelly with respect to their position, hence we have {S=O;A}. Now,
it is generally assumed that a polypersonal paradigm did no come up 'at
once', but gradually. Hence , in diachronic perspective, Abkhaz once
probably knew a system that had only S and A clitisized to the stem, a
clear accusative scheme.

	The diachronic perspective of the ACC/ERG problem de facto refers to
the dynamics of the AEC. It can clearly be shown that the polycentric
architecture of the operating system allows parts of its centers to
shift say from ACC to ERG, whereas others in the same time shift from
ERG to ACC. There is no reason and no logics to assume that historically
all such centers once were O-prominent.

	If we now use this frame work in order to explain the morphosyntax of
IE it comes clear that we should first describe the single centers with
respect to their location on the AEC (withut forgetting possible splits
in terms of "Differentiated Agentive Marking" (DAM) (our famous 'active
typology') or 'Differentiated Objective Marking' (DOM) (accusative
split)). Moreover, we have to remember that ACC and ERG in many cases
are discourse features rtahter than mere syntatic or even semantic
features. But what to we know about the organization of sentence
chaining, of topicality etc. in IE? Practically nothing! It is very
dangerous to infer the gerelöa lcation of the IE operating system on the
AEC from just one (functionally reconstructed) paradigm (or center).

	It goes without saying that the AGR system in IE clearly in of the ACC
type (S=A), whereas NOUN (not PRONOUN) inflection may share sme ERG
properties (at a first glance). We know of such (sub)systems from
typological evidence (cf. the problematic ase of Georgian), but WHY to
declare these nominal features as ERG? Just because of a must that stems
from belief?

[Please note new phone number (office) :+89-2180 5343]
___________________________________
| Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Schulze
| Institut fuer Allgemeine und Indogermanische Sprachwissenschaft
| Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet Muenchen
| Geschwister-Scholl-Platz 1
| D-80539 Muenchen
| Tel:	+89-21802486 (secr.)
|      	+89-21805343 (office) NEW ! NEW !
| Fax:	+89-21805345
| Email: W.Schulze at mail.lrz-muenchen.de
|
http://www.lrz-muenchen.de/~wschulze/
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