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Dear Wolfgang,<BR>
<BR>
many thanks for this posting.<BR>
<BR>
As you may or may not know, my typological book 'Imperatives and commands' is coming out with Oxford University Press very shortly. I enclose the pdf of the cover - so you see what it will look like. I also enclose the table of contents. If there is any part of it you would like me to share with you, i am happy to do so.<BR>
<BR>
As always, I looked at as many languages as I could, in detail (based on the analysis of the original sources). The pattern you are mentioning in west Caucasian is rare but not unique; there are a few other ergative languages which have similar features (these didn't make it into the WALS database, I am afraid).<BR>
<BR>
Best wishes<BR>
<BR>
Sasha<BR><BR>Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald, PhD, DLitt, FAHA<BR>Professor and Research Leader (Peoples and Societies of the Tropics)<BR>The Cairns Institute <BR>James Cook University<BR>PO Box 6811<BR>Cairns<BR>Queensland 4870<BR>Australia<BR><BR>mobile 0400 305315<BR>office 61-7-40421117<BR>home 61-7-40381876<BR> <BR><A href="mailto:alexandra.aikhenvald@jcu.edu.au">alexandra.aikhenvald@jcu.edu.au</A> <BR><A href="http://www.jcu.edu.au/sass/staff/JCUPRD_043649.html">http://www.jcu.edu.au/sass/staff/JCUPRD_043649.html</A><BR><A href="http://www.aikhenvaldlinguistics.com/">http://www.aikhenvaldlinguistics.com/</A><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR> <BR>
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Date: Tue, 2 Mar 2010 18:35:43 +0100<BR>From: W.Schulze@LRZ.UNI-MUENCHEN.DE<BR>Subject: Ergative pattern of imperatives?<BR>To: LINGTYP@LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG<BR><BR><FONT face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">Dear friends,<BR>just a brief question: Abkhaz and Abaza (West Caucasian) are known for having a rather unusual (?) pattern of imperative formation: In both languages, 'true' imperatives (that is: second person imperatives) of intransitive verbs are marked for the presence of the corresponding 'absolutive' agreement morpheme, e.g.<I> w-c'a</I> 'go (man)!',<I> b-c'a</I> 'go (woman)!', <I>shw-c'a</I> 'go you (all)!' and so forth. With transitive verbs, this agreement marker is missing in the singular - instead, the verb shows the 'absolutive' marker for the Objective (<I>y</I>- for inanimates, <I>d</I>- for animates), e.g<I>. y-ga</I> 'take (it)!', <I>d-ga</I> 'take (him/her!)',<I> d-sh'e^</I> 'kill (him/her)'. Note that in the plural, the corresponding 'ergative' morpheme for A is present, e.g.<I> y-zhw-ga</I> 'take (you) (it)' etc. (the original morpheme <I>shw</I> = 2PL is assimilated to the stem consonant in A-function only). Obviously, we have to deal with a strong ergative pattern (S=O;A) in the singular that the marks the verb for the given central actant (S=O) only. My simple question is whether this pattern has good parallels in other languages. Also, I would be interested in learning of how to explain the distribution singular imperative S=O[;A], but plural (more or less) S=A;O. Unfortunately, WALS does not discuss this pattern in details, as far as I can see..... <BR>Many thanks in advance and sorry for my possible ignorance,<BR>Wolfgang</FONT><BR>
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