accusative and ergative languages

[PIE at AN3039.spb.edu]

Tue, 29 Jun 99 18:49 +0300 MSK Larry Trask wrote to Indo-European at xkl.com:

> But Dixon also cites examples of ergative constructions which, in his
> view, have very clearly *not* developed from passives, but from other
> constructions.  His examples are Hittite and Pari.

Pardon my ignorance, but i wonder what Hittite constructions can be
claimed as ergative? Could you clarify Dixon's opinion?

Does he mean the tendency to avoid using inanimates as 1st actants of
two-argument predicate and to transform them to animates in -nt-, like

    eshanants inan karapzi,
    witenants eshar parkunut,    etc?

_________
Alex