accusative and ergative languages

[petegray]

Pat said:

> What I consider 'internal inflection'  is Arabic yaktubu, kataba, katibun,
> etc. which applies to any and all verbs, old, and those taken new into the
> language.

Like it or not, in the pattern "sing, sang, sung" there is inflection, and
it is internal.   If you mean "applying consistently to all verbs", that's a
different matter.   But "sing, sang, sung" woudl still be internal
inflection, even if it were the only surviving example.

I am quite happy if you want to say that this pattern is no longer
productive in the language.

Peter