Personal Pronouns

[petegray]

[ moderator re-formatted ]

I (Peter) said:

>> An ergative description of early PIE or pre-PIE explains various oddities in
>> PIE.

(The context makes it clear that I am not arguing PIE must have been
ergative!)

Brent said:
> OK, would you care to explain which oddities?

This is standard stuff - but do be aware that I am not insisting ergativity
is the only explanation.   My argument is merely that the theory that PIE
was ergative is "interesting" because of the issues it raises, and because
of its potential as an explanation.   My point is already proven, by the
sheer fact that you were interested enough to post your email.

A couple of features explained by a theory of ergativity are:
(a) the identity of nominative and accusative for all neuters.
(b) the lack of a true original passive.
(c) the origin of the verbal endings (see Szemerenyi p 330 for a brief and
confusing summary)

There are others as well, but these will do for the moment.

Peter