accusative and ergative languages

[Nik Taylor]

Jens Elmegaard Rasmussen wrote:

> There are some quite obvious counterexamples: Modern Indic is very close
> to being ergative;

Well, what else can accusative evolve *from* if not ergative, possibly
thru an intermediate active stage?  And what else can ergative evolve
from if not from accusative?  So, it would probably be more reasonable
to say that they tend to alternate, given enough time, that is
ergative-->accusative-->ergative.

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