SV: accusative and ergative languages

[Lars Henrik Mathiesen]

> From: Fabrice Cavoto <fabcav at adr.dk>
> Date: Wed, 26 May 1999 08:21:44 +0200

> As Larry Trask suggests, ergativity may well been understood like any other
> feature: it can come and/or go, with or without leaving traces, like a
> mode.

How does a [-ergative] language look? Accusative? Why?

>From yours and Larry's statements, it certainly sounds like ergativity
is a feature that you can add to and take away from any language, and
when it's not there, the language has the default type of accusative.
But where does that leave active and trigger languages? And even if we
ignore that problem, why can't ergative be the default, if there has
to be one at all?

Lars Mathiesen (U of Copenhagen CS Dep) <thorinn at diku.dk> (Humour NOT marked)