Query on Ergatives in South America and New Guinea

[Nicholas Ostler]

Another very late answer to Enrique Palancar's query on ergatives.

The ergative is marked on pronouns and nouns in the Chibchan language
Uwa (aka Tunebo, U'wa, Uw Cuwa), spoken on the borders of Colombia
and Venezuela, north and east of the Sierra Nevada del Cocuy.

The ergative-marker is the suffix -t.

It appears (to me at least) to be derived from the morph at- "hand".

The instrumental is marked with the postpositions kuitara or -kut
e.g.
baxit kuitara takinro "I shall cut it with a machete"
at kut kakaro "It is gathered by hand."

In the closely related Chibcha language (well documented, but died
out in the 18th cent.), spoken to the south-east of Uwa, there is no
sign of an ergative construction. However, the word for hand in that
language is "yta", where the first vowel "y" is probably a high
schwa, or back unrounded vowel, and yta-c is a postposition used to
mean "because of".

Choc yta-c aquynza-c ze-gasqua. I become tired as a result of work.
work hand-at inactive-at I-become

Confirmation of these data to be found in:

Gonz‡lez de PŽrez, M.S. (1987). 'Diccionario y Gram‡tica Chibcha' -
MS an—nimo de la Biblioteca Nacional de Colombia. Bogot‡, Instituto
Caro y Cuervo.

Headland, Edna Romayne (1997). Diccionario Bilingue. Uw Cuwa (Tunebo)
y Espa–ol. Instituto LingŸ’stico del Verano. Bogot‡.

At 7:24 pm -0500 1/8/01, Enrique L. Palancar Vizcaya wrote:
>This message is posted to you all both in Spanish and English.
>
>Dear Colleagues,
>
>My name is Enrique Palancar and I'm presently based at Queretaro in Mexico
>and working on Otomi, from the Oto-Manguean stock. Im writing a book in
>English on Agent case syncretism and the data in my sample is very poor and
>scanty on ergative languages spoken in South America and New Guinea. I'm
>currently writing to you all to kindly request any information from you on
>this topic. I'm specially interested if the (dependent-marked) ergative
>marker in your language or in any you know of is also used to encode other
>semantic categories, as for example an instrument as in "I eat with my
>hands", a cause in an intransitive construction as in "the tree fell due
>to/from the wind", a dative as in "I gave it to the man" or any other role,
>locative, ablative, perlative, beneficiary, causee, etc.
>
>I will post all results when received, and of course I will duely  mention
>with all gratitude anyone of you who kindly contributed to my research.
>
>My most sincere thanks to you all,
>Enrique Palancar
>
>
>
>Queridos colegas,
>
>Me llamo Enrique Palancar y trabajo en Mexico en el otomi (otomangue)
>hablado en San Ildefonso, Estado de Queretaro, Mexico. En la actualidad me
>encuentro escribiendo un libro sobre sincretismo gramatical en los
>marcadores de agente, y los datos con los que cuento para marcadores de
>ergativo en lenguas de Sudamrica y Nueva Guinea es francamente muy pobre y
>escaso. Por esta razn me dirigo a vosotros con la intencin de
>pediros si por favor me podrais informar sobre este tema en la lengua en la
>que trabajis o en alguna que conozcis bien.
>
>Se trata de si el marcador de ergativo en cuestin (en marcacin
>dependiente) sirve a su vez en la lengua para codificar otras nociones
>semnticas tales como el instrumento como en "lo rompi con una piedra", la
>causa en una construccion intransitiva como "se murio de una fiebre que le
>dio", el participante dativo en "se lo di a Juan", o cualquier otro rol,
>como por ejemplo beneficiarios, causados, locativos, ablativos, etc.
>
>Cuando reciba resultados los mandar a la lista de nuevo, y por supuesto
>habr de mencionar a todos aquellos que me proporcionen bondadosamente sus
>datos.
>
>Recibid mi ms sincero agradecimiento,
>Inspiracin
>Enrique Palancar
>
>
>.............................................................
>
>Facultad de Lenguas y Letras
>Universidad Autnoma de Quertaro
>Cerro de las Campanas s/n
>Santiago de Quertaro
>Quertaro 76010
>Mxico
>
>
>
>
>
>_________________________________________________________________
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