accusative and ergative languages

[Ralf-Stefan Georg]

>R-S sighed:

I think I have the sympathy of most people for an occasional sigh during
this thread ...

>> This is getting weary. I think no sane linguist will be unaware of the fact
>> that there are languages with fewer purely morphological means than others.


>Pat concludes:

>In my opinion, dearth of morphological devices is validly characterised as
>"simple".

"Simple" as a characterization of the *morphological subsystem* of a
language. Any dearth of means in one subsystem has to be compensated in
another one to keep the language what it is meant to be, a proble-solving
device. A language is more than its morphology. Anything else is
balderdash, mystification, eighteenth-century stuff. Do you have an English
translation of the Iliad handy ? Do you think it is accurate enough to
convey what the unknown writer going by the name of Homer wanted to say,
its poetic beauties apart, of course ?? Yes ? See what I mean ?
I may have difficulties to come through to you, but, please, you have to
bear with me. I speak a language rich in morphological means, you cannot
expect me to be able to express the richness of my profound thoughts
accurately in a language as simple as English, the best parts are
irretrievably lost, because of the lack of a synthetic dative ;-)
["because-of-the-lack-of", good heavens, take Turkish: noksanlIGIN iCin,
two words instead of five, now *that's* a language !].
(This could also explain the strange ways Marxism went in China, ever
thought of this ? ;-))

Stefan

Stefan Georg
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