ergative to accusative alignment

[Richard Griscom]

This is a very interesting topic, but I would also add a word of caution
against making assumptions regarding entire language systems conforming to
a single alignment pattern. In my opinion, alignment is best viewed as
construction-specific rather than language-specific in order to avoid
inaccurate generalizations across the distribution. This, of course,
doesn't preclude an analysis of a shift in the alignment patterns of one or
more constructions in a given language.

Best,
Richard



On Thu, Jan 9, 2014 at 12:32 AM, Florian Siegl <florian.siegl at gmx.net>wrote:

>  A related phenomena though only partly answering the initial posting is
> attested on Kamtchatka. Chukchi and Koryak show ergative alignment, but not
> Itelmen. The Itelmen absolute case marks S as well as A and P. Whether the
> Itelmen transitive verbal agreement markers still follow erg-abs alignment
> is not settled. Itelmen is not ergative but apparently not very
> nominative-accusative either. See the relevant sections in Georg, Stefan &
> Volodin, Alexander P. 1999. Die itelmenische Sprache - Grammatik und Texte.
> Tunguso-Sibirca 5. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.
>
>
>
> Best wishes,
>
>
>
> Florian Siegl
>
>
>
>
>
> On 9.01.2014 9:03, Don Killian wrote:
>
> Dear Raheleh,
>
> Depending on what you might be including by ergative, there's an
> interesting article by Dimmendaal 2012 (
> http://www.uni-koeln.de/phil-fak/afrikanistik/mitarbeit/dimmendaal/Marked%20nominative%20in%20Eastern%20Sudanic%20130907%20DR%20comments.pdf)
> in which he postulates the origins of Marked Nominative (depending on who
> you ask, some consider this a subcategory of accusative alignment) in
> Eastern Sudanic languages.
>
> Gaahmg is particularly interesting as far as diachronic developments go,
> as it also has both passive and antipassive constructions and in fact can
> allow for both types of markers simultaneously.  If you're curious, email
> me and I can send you an article by Tim Stirtz.
>
> Best,
>
> Don
>
>
> On 01/08/2014 02:24 PM, Raheleh Izadi Far wrote:
>
> Dear all,
>
> Does anybody know about languages which have changed from ergative
> alignment to accusative alignment? or does anybody know about the
> mechanisms involved in such a change? what are the studies concerning
> this issue? and if there are any, are they accessible online?
>
> Thank you very much in advance
>
> kind regards,
> Raheleh Izadifar
>
>
>
>
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