A question about ergative markers

[Ralf-Stefan Georg]

At 7:49 Uhr -0400 16.10.1998, William McGregor wrote:
>Dear typologists,
>
>I am wondering if anyone knows of any language with more than one ergative
>marker?

>Dear typologists,
>
>I am wondering if anyone knows of any language with more than one ergative
>marker?

This may not be exactly what you're after, but for completeness' sake I
should throw in that Chukchi has more than one ergative marker: -(t)E for
nouns (= Instrumental) for one inflectional class ("I") and sg. -(y)nE, pl.
-(y)ryk for another ("II") plus -(n)an for personal pronouns. For closely
related Koryak the same pattern holds (forms: -(t)E, -(y)nEk, -(y)jyk,
-(n)an). With differences in detail Al'utor and Kerek, to complete the
language family, may be added.
(If anyone is missing Itel'men: it is neither ergative, nor - imho -
genetically related to Chukchi etc.).

Several East Caucasian languages also show a variation of ergative markers
among inflectional classes (but since Wolfgang Schulze is on the list, I
leave it to him to supply a list  ...).
St.G.

Stefan Georg
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