accusative and ergative languages

[Ralf-Stefan Georg]

>I grant you (quoting Dixon) that Hittite is not this way: making neuters
>animate when they are subjects of transitive verbs is indeed not the
>reflex of a passive transformation. I have no knowledge of the Amazon
>language Pari, let alone of its history. But note that I never claimed
>that ergative always comes from passive, only that there are very clear
>examples that it sometimes does - at least, that was what I meant.

Sorry for playing the smartass, but P"ari is Nilotic, one of the celebrated
cases where ergativity has been found on the African continent. It is
particularly rare there.

St.G.

Stefan Georg
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