accusative and ergative languages

[Ralf-Stefan Georg]

Another old and long-forgotten thread I'm taking up, sorry for everyone who
feels overduely annoyed by this neverending story. I try to be brief. Issue
is, again, with Pat Ryan:

>R-S responded:

>> Linguists can do wrong.

>Pat responds:

>I can do wrong. You can do wrong. Anyone can do wrong. And perhaps they are
>wrong but it refutes the idea that only non-PhD "linguists" like myself can
>hold such a view, does it not? That was the point, was it not?

If this was the point, I'm with you. I've never fostered the stupid idea
that you have to possess some degree to be correct. In fact, I had correct
and fantastic ideas even before my diploma was handed over, so what ? ;-)

>Pat resonded:

>There is one mistake that you consistently make, Ralf-Stefan, and that is
>you frame every discussion as if it were a *personal* contest between you
>and your "antagonist". I am not interested in "beating" you, I am only
>interested in hearing the best arguments on the other side of any issue on
>which I have a position. The value of such discussions will not be that I
>persuade you or you persuade me but rather that other readers, hopefully
>more objective than either one of us, will weigh our respective
>"Informationen" and reach an opinion of their own.

No, I don't think I'm making *that* mistake. I share the same spirit
outlined by you above. When arguing with you or anyone else I know that
deeply held convictions are seldom changed by confrontative discussion or
argument (sadly so, but we are humans, and that's the way humans are). No,
when I react (or sometimes overreact, just like you, we are quite alike in
this respect), I have always that part of the "audience" in mind which
might still follow the (sometimes very long and repetitive) exchanges
between us, though I admit that this audience may be rather small and
dwindling. When I post to a list I'm acting on a stage, just like you. We
should all admit this, you did so, I do so, and that's that.

>Pat interjects: (after I once again pointed out that no split-free erg lg
>is known, but split-free nominative lgs do exist):
>Oh, so "our" type of languages, accusative-type, can be *split-free* but
>"their" type of languages, ergative-type, cannot be. Akkusativ ueber alles!

So much to say here. Overlooking the rhetoric, involving national
stereotypes and an allegation of racism on my side, I should at least say
that I think I said more than once that I find the notion of "ERG/ACC
"type" of languages" rather unfruitful and only marginally meaningful.
Also, I'm not claiming that "our" languages (maybe the "Standard Average
European" ones) are entirely free of ergative structures. Larry has pointed
out marginal ergativity in English by drawing attention to the bahaviour of
the -ee suffix. There is also marginal ergativity in German, as I found out
recently (no, I don't know whether this has been noticed before by someone,
but it probably has); for your amusement, here it is: look at the verbal
prefix /zer-/ (roughly translatable as "asunder" othl.), denoting that some
object is dissolved or dismembered by the verbal process. When prefixed to
a transitive verb, you'll find that the Patient is the undergoer of
dissolution: zerstoeren, zerschlagen, zersaegen aso. aso., when the verb is
intransitive, it is S which is dissolved/dismembered: zerfliessen,
zergehen, zerschellen, zerspringen aso. (those may be fewer). Maybe there
are more prefixes of this kind, but I haven't majored in German like you,
so you could look for more.
The message is that, if you look hard enough, it will be possible to find
more "hidden ergativity" is languages commonly held as split-free ACC,
though you usually have to look harder here than in so-called ERG lgs. when
you are after instances of accusativity. So far, the empirical fact that no
split-free ERG language seems to be known, othoh split-free ACC lgs. do
exist, is still valid and to shatter it, you'll need empirical work showing
that it is not correct.
Defending ideology by trying to allege that the opposite position is also
mere ideology is not the way to win over people. In this case it is
ideology (yours) against empirical facts.

>Pat responds:

>What you seem not to be able to grasp because of your unfamiliarity with
>languages like Sumerian is that the ergative "subject" is frequently NOT
>EXPRESSED. And, I am not even sure that "subject" is a useful term to apply
>to relationships between ergative and nominative languages.

I'm not trying to appear as an expert on Sumerian, which I happily admit
not to be, though I'm pretty much convinced that the examples I gave from
this language earlier this year managed to show that Sumerian is not a
pure, split-free ERG lg. They were from the literature, part of which you
recommended yourself, and you could not show that I misunderstood something
found there due to my lack of knowledge of the language. But, then, every
grammar is only a secondary source, and the real answer will, here as
elsewhere, only be found in the primary data of the texts themselves.
That "subject" is frequently not expressed in Sumerian is irrelevant to the
question (in fact to any question surrounding any kind of ergativity
debate). It can be left unexpressed in quite a range of languages, be they
dominantly ERG or ACC. On the question, whether "subject" is a useful term
here, a lot has been said during this thread, which I won't try to repeat
here. I'm with you that it maybe a potentially misleading term, only
insofar a host of definitions of this traditional term are on the market.
But once we get our definitions clear, there should be no real reason for
not using this (or any other traditional) term in this discussion.

OK, nuff said, I'm looking forward to your book on ergativity ;-)

Stefan Georg
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