Personal Pronouns

[Jens Elmegaard Rasmussen]

On Sat, 22 May 1999, Patrick C. Ryan wrote:

> Dear Jens and IEists:

>  ----- Original Message -----
> From: Jens Elmegaard Rasmussen <jer at cphling.dk>
> Sent: Thursday, May 20, 1999 5:12 PM

> Jens wrote:

>> I have yet to see a really cogent argument for an IE (or pre-IE) ergative.
>> One is constantly served mere descriptions of what the system would be
>> like if it is accepted, but nothing to convince one that it _must_ be
>> accepted. I'm not saying that pre-PIE was _not_ ergative, just that we
>> cannot really know. Practically all the literature on the subject simply
>> boasts that the author knows what an ergative is and so is without
>> scholarly interest. It is as if I would claim that PIE had a definite
>> article, just because I know what that is.

> Pat responds:

> The argument of Beekes on pp. 193-4 of his book seems strong to me.

Perhaps we should stick to discussing our own ideas and not the work of
third party. Let me just say this: In the place you refer to I find the
two well-known observations, (1) neuters have no case in *-s, so
presumably that signalled a role inanimates mostly did not have, and (2)
also the gen.sg. has an /s/, and together they form a nice ergative of
the Eskimo kind. There is also the speculation that the
erg.-turned-genitive lives on in the nom. of the o-stems and thereby
constitutes that class. - The lack of a nominative marker in neuters would
indeed be well explained by their never playing the agent role in
transitive constructions, and that could in itself justify the theory
which just could be true. However, the support from the genitive
evaporates, for the two s's involved do not have identical morphophonemic
properties. And too much is now known about the thematic class to allow it
to be a post-ablaut creation. But perhaps the fundamental differences we
observe between the two morphemes (nom. *-s and gen. *-os, after the
thematic vowel *-o-s and *-e-s + -yo respectively) will some day turn out
not to matter, as I am sure the story of the thematic class does not.
Still, this is _very_ slender evidence, and it is not borne out by the
pronouns which oppose an unmarked nom. to a marked acc. (but that would be
no worse than, say, the nom. : acc. opposition in Eskimo pronouns which
differs from the ergative syntax of the nouns).

> However, there is also the typological angle. It is my impression that most
> typologists believe that nominative-type languages developed from
> ergative-type languages.

I know of a number of cases for which _the opposite_ is above suspicion -
and not of a single one demanding what you say (but that may well be due
to ignorance on my part).

[...]

Jens