[Lingtyp] Languages with accusative/ergative alternation (Sinoël Dohlen)
Sinoël Dohlen
sinoel.dohlen at gmail.com
Tue Jul 2 13:31:20 UTC 2024
Dear Martin & Co,
Majang (Surmic) does have this alternation in my opinion. Joswig (2019)
doesn't go into it himself, but I was able to find a near-minimal pair on
page 293, ex IV.229 b,f:
(DJ=disjoint form, HR=close to hearer, MOD=modified, accompanied by
adnominal)
màlɛ́ wár↓ cìnɛ̀ íɗít↓
hit.3SG.DJ dog\SG.ERG.MOD DEM.SG.HR man\SG.ABS
'That dog hit the man.'
màlɛ́ wár íɗít↓ cìnɛ̀ kɛ́kàr
hit.3SG.DJ dog\SG.NOM man\SG.ABS DEM.SG.HR again
'The dog hit that man again.'
In the first sentence the word for dog is in its modified ergative form,
which unfortunately is syncretic with the absolutive singular and the
modified nominative (see page 50). The unmodified ergative would be wâr.
Example a of IV.229 however has 'my dog' as A, where the possessive shows
ergative marking ('dog' itself is again wár↓) if you want a stronger
argument for this being a (syncretic) ergative.
The case in Majang depends on topicality: topical S/A = marked nominative,
non-topical A = ergative, non-topical S = unmarked (absolutive), any P =
unmarked (absolutive). Thus this is also a kind of split, but I'm not
positive that the indirective/secundative alternation isn't just a less
overtly marked split either (akin to f.e. scrambling in German where one
could say (non-)scrambled sentences are alternations of each other, but
they nonetheless convey different information structure).
Best wishes,
Sinoël
Am Di., 2. Juli 2024 um 00:38 Uhr schrieb <
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> 1. Languages with accusative/ergative alternation
> (Woodbury, Anthony C)
> 2. Re: languages with accusative/ergative alternation (Matthew Dryer)
> 3. Re: Languages with accusative/ergative alternation (G. Khan)
> 4. Re: languages with accusative/ergative alternation (Tom Payne)
> 5. adverb 'when' used as prepositiom (Arnold M. Zwicky)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Mon, 1 Jul 2024 15:08:20 +0000
> From: "Woodbury, Anthony C" <woodbury at austin.utexas.edu>
> To: "lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org"
> <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
> Subject: [Lingtyp] Languages with accusative/ergative alternation
> Message-ID: <B63BC66B-EFD4-454B-9419-003CBC304466 at austin.utexas.edu>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>
> Dear Martin and everyone,
>
> Yes, this is common for many verbs in many if not all Yupik-Inuit
> languages?as long as you recognize the case typically termed ?Modalis? or
> ?Instrumental? as having an accusative function, as is done in some
> Canadian traditions. For Central Alaskan Yupik, Osahito Miyaoka
> (2012:903-4) calls these 'zero-derived antipassives,' giving as an example
> (I quote directly):
>
> Angute-m(A) nayiq(P) ner-aa
> man-REL.sg seal.ABS.sg. eat-IND.3sg.3sg
> ?The man is eating /has (just) eaten the seal?
>
> Angun (S) nayir-mek(P) ner?-uq.
> man-REL.sg seal-ABM.sg eat-IND.3sg?
> ?The man is/has (just) eaten a/the seal?
>
> A bit of explaining: In the first sentence, the REL(ative) is the name
> traditionally used for the case with ergative function; and the verb is
> indexing both the Relative and Absolutive arguments, which in the logic of
> Y-I languages, makes it transitive.
>
> In the second sentence?first of all?angun ?man? is actually in the
> ABSOLUTIVE case, not the RELATIVE (which would be angutem); it?s a typo.
> And the verb is indexing only the Absolutive case argment, which is the
> eater/actor, the man, and in the logic of Y-I languages is considered
> intransitive because of this single indexing of an Absolutive. Meanwhile
> the patient is labeled ?ABM? for Ablative-Modalis (due to syncretism in
> Yup?ik of Ablative and Modalis). But it is reasonable to consider the
> Ablative-Modalis here as having accusative case behavior, as asserted in a
> lot of Canadian literature.
>
> Osahito then rightly point out that in the second case, ?the patient is
> backgrounded? but still may or may not be considered as definite. He goes
> on to show that even a proper name can function as the patient in either of
> the two constructions, which adds caution to the supposition that
> antipassives?if that?s what this is?necessarily ?demote? the patient to
> some sort of generic status.
>
> Tony Woodbury
>
>
>
>
> From: Martin Haspelmath <martin_haspelmath at eva.mpg.de<mailto:
> martin_haspelmath at eva.mpg.de>>
> Subject: [Lingtyp] languages with accusative/ergative alternation
> Date: June 30, 2024 at 7:41:54?AM CDT
> To: LINGTYP LINGTYP <LINGTYP at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG<mailto:
> LINGTYP at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG>>
>
>
> Dear typologists,
>
> Does anyone know of a language that has been described as exhibiting an
> accusative/ergative alternation, i.e. where verbs with meanings like
> 'break' or 'chase' can occur in two constructions such as (1) and (2)
> (which are schematic examples, not English)?
>
> (1) the dog-NOM chased the cat-ACC
>
> (2) the dog-ERG chased the cat-NOM
>
> Such an alternation would be analogous to indirective/secundative
> alternations, as in the schematic examples (3) and (4).
>
> (3) they provided food-ACC us-DAT ('they provided food to us')
>
> (4) they provided us-ACC food-INS ('they provided us with food')
>
> While indirective/secundative alternations have been described repeatedly,
> accusative/ergative alternations are little-known, and seem to be quite
> rare. Is this impression correct?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Martin
>
> --
> Martin Haspelmath
> Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
> Deutscher Platz 6
> D-04103 Leipzig
>
> https://www.eva.mpg.de/linguistic-and-cultural-evolution/staff/martin-haspelmath/
>
>
>
> --
> Martin Haspelmath
> Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
> Deutscher Platz 6
> D-04103 Leipzig
>
> https://www.eva.mpg.de/linguistic-and-cultural-evolution/staff/martin-haspelmath/
>
>
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> Message: 2
> Date: Mon, 1 Jul 2024 17:00:54 +0000
> From: Matthew Dryer <dryer at buffalo.edu>
> To: Martin Haspelmath <martin_haspelmath at eva.mpg.de>, LINGTYP LINGTYP
> <LINGTYP at listserv.linguistlist.org>
> Subject: Re: [Lingtyp] languages with accusative/ergative alternation
> Message-ID:
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>
> Martin,
>
> I don?t understand why you say ?by definition, a transitive pattern is a
> dominant one (occurring in more than two thirds of the cases)?. Why can
> there not be two transitive patterns, neither of which is dominant?
>
> Matthew
>
> From: Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org> on behalf of
> Martin Haspelmath via Lingtyp <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
> Date: Monday, July 1, 2024 at 2:00?AM
> To: LINGTYP LINGTYP <LINGTYP at listserv.linguistlist.org>
> Subject: Re: [Lingtyp] languages with accusative/ergative alternation
>
> Thanks for the comments on my query!
>
> I was thinking of a contrast between (i) ALTERNATIONS and (ii) SPLITS,
> where an alternation is a pair of related patterns with overlapping
> distributions, while a split is a set of patterns that complement each
> other. Thus, the TAM splits in languages like Pitta-Pitta (Peter Austin)
> and Kopar (Bill Foley) do not count here.
>
> Misha Daniel is right that it is not clear how to even identify
> "accusative/ergative alternations", and for this reason I had asked about
> languages which have been "described as exhibiting" such an alternation.
>
> It seems to me that one needs to specify that by definition, a transitive
> pattern is a dominant one (occurring in more than two thirds of the cases),
> so that if there are two competing patterns none of which is dominant, one
> cannot identify a transitive pattern ? and as a result, there is no way to
> identify "accusative" or "ergative". A well-known case of a language with
> no dominant agent-patient pattern (and hence no transitivity) is Tagalog.
>
> (This is different for ditransitive constructions, which need not be
> dominant in this sense, because the comparison is with monotransitive P,
> aas Misha notes.)
>
> J?rgen Bohnemeyer's example from Hindi-Urdu seems more like an alternation
> between two ergative patterns (one in which the ergative is
> "instrumental"), but it also illustrates the difficulty of matching
> language-particular phenomena with comparative concepts if the latter are
> not very clearly defined.
>
> Best,
>
> Martin
>
>
> On 30.06.24 16:07, Michael Daniel wrote:
> Martin,
>
> I am not sure how to operationalize the notions of accusative and ergative
> in this context. Assuming one uses the standard procedure of comparing the
> bivalent pattern to the intransitive one, I guess some unmarked antipassive
> constructions would qualify. Thus, in Mehweb Dargwa, East Caucasian, which
> lacks regular antipassive derivation, the verb 'carry' has two alternative
> valencies:
>
> Agent-Erg carries Theme-Nom (ergative pattern on the basis of comparison
> with X goes)
> Agent-Nom carries Theme-Erg (accusative pattern on the bases of comparison
> with X goes)
>
> But, on the basis of comparison with other transitive verbs, the second
> pattern is intransitive, so this would not qualify as accusative in the
> usual sense. Yet, I do not clearly see what would be possible other grounds
> to identify an ergative / accusative alternation, even in the presence of a
> TAM or animacy based split, because in your requirement these variables
> should be controlled for.
>
> This is different from the situation of secundative / indirective
> alternation, which is possible to identify in a language because they are
> identified on alignment-independent grounds (comparison to the encoding of
> P). Maybe I am missing something, but I do not see how this is done in the
> case of the putative ergative / accusative uncoded alternation.
>
> Misha
>
> ??, 30 ???. 2024??. ? 14:48, Peter Austin via Lingtyp <
> lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org<mailto:lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
> >>:
> Assuming you do not mean TAM-based split ergativity, e.g. Pitta-Pitta.
>
> Best
> Peter
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org<mailto:
> lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org>> on behalf of Martin
> Haspelmath via Lingtyp <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org<mailto:
> lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>>
> Sent: Sunday, June 30, 2024 1:41:54 PM
> To: LINGTYP LINGTYP <LINGTYP at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG<mailto:
> LINGTYP at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG>>
> Subject: [Lingtyp] languages with accusative/ergative alternation
>
> Dear typologists,
>
> Does anyone know of a language that has been described as exhibiting an
> accusative/ergative alternation, i.e. where verbs with meanings like
> 'break' or 'chase' can occur in two constructions such as (1) and (2)
> (which are schematic examples, not English)?
>
> (1) the dog-NOM chased the cat-ACC
>
> (2) the dog-ERG chased the cat-NOM
>
> Such an alternation would be analogous to indirective/secundative
> alternations, as in the schematic examples (3) and (4).
>
> (3) they provided food-ACC us-DAT ('they provided food to us')
>
> (4) they provided us-ACC food-INS ('they provided us with food')
>
> While indirective/secundative alternations have been described
> repeatedly, accusative/ergative alternations are little-known, and seem
> to be quite rare. Is this impression correct?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Martin
>
> --
> Martin Haspelmath
> Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
> Deutscher Platz 6
> D-04103 Leipzig
>
> https://eur01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.eva.mpg.de%2Flinguistic-and-cultural-evolution%2Fstaff%2Fmartin-haspelmath%2F&data=05%7C02%7Cpa2%40mysoas.onmicrosoft.com%7Cfbd0d937e0024454098608dc99021b32%7C674dd0a1ae6242c7a39f69ee199537a8%7C0%7C0%7C638553481531300351%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=Fk%2BOgeldXwuKKViruD6L3V%2BAXojpaM2NZAuKlpWpHdk%3D&reserved=0
> <
> https://www.eva.mpg.de/linguistic-and-cultural-evolution/staff/martin-haspelmath/
> >
>
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> --
>
> Martin Haspelmath
>
> Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
>
> Deutscher Platz 6
>
> D-04103 Leipzig
>
>
> https://www.eva.mpg.de/linguistic-and-cultural-evolution/staff/martin-haspelmath/
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> Message: 3
> Date: Mon, 1 Jul 2024 17:01:38 +0000
> From: "G. Khan" <gk101 at cam.ac.uk>
> To: "Woodbury, Anthony C" <woodbury at austin.utexas.edu>,
> "lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org"
> <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
> Subject: Re: [Lingtyp] Languages with accusative/ergative alternation
> Message-ID:
> <
> LO0P265MB5572BEA8B55AAA22BBC640A7B5D32 at LO0P265MB5572.GBRP265.PROD.OUTLOOK.COM
> >
>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>
> Dear Martin,
>
> An example of what you are looking for seems to be Neo-Aramaic. In many
> Neo-Aramaic dialects, the agent of past perfective verbs is oblique
> (ergative), but the object may be either nominative (1) and
> cross-referenced by a nominative affix on the verb or accusative (2) and
> not cross-referenced by a nominative suffix on the verb:
>
>
>
> Jewish Sanandaj Neo-Aramaic (Khan 2009)
>
> (1)
>
> ?oni
>
> g?r?-i?-le
>
> they.nom
>
> pull.pst-1sg.nom-obl.3sg.m
>
> ?he pulled them?
>
> (2)
>
> gr??-le
>
> ??l-u
>
> pull.pst-obl
>
> acc-3pl
>
> ?he pulled them?
>
>
>
> Geoffrey Khan
>
>
> Geoffrey Khan
> University of Cambridge
> Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies
> Sidgwick Avenue
> Cambridge CB3 9DA, UK
>
> From: Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org> On Behalf Of
> Woodbury, Anthony C via Lingtyp
> Sent: Monday, July 1, 2024 4:08 PM
> To: lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
> Subject: [Lingtyp] Languages with accusative/ergative alternation
>
> Dear Martin and everyone,
>
> Yes, this is common for many verbs in many if not all Yupik-Inuit
> languages?as long as you recognize the case typically termed ?Modalis? or
> ?Instrumental? as having an accusative function, as is done in some
> Canadian traditions. For Central Alaskan Yupik, Osahito Miyaoka
> (2012:903-4) calls these 'zero-derived antipassives,' giving as an example
> (I quote directly):
>
> Angute-m(A) nayiq(P) ner-aa
> man-REL.sg seal.ABS.sg. eat-IND.3sg.3sg
> ?The man is eating /has (just) eaten the seal?
>
> Angun (S) nayir-mek(P) ner?-uq.
> man-REL.sg seal-ABM.sg eat-IND.3sg?
> ?The man is/has (just) eaten a/the seal?
>
> A bit of explaining: In the first sentence, the REL(ative) is the name
> traditionally used for the case with ergative function; and the verb is
> indexing both the Relative and Absolutive arguments, which in the logic of
> Y-I languages, makes it transitive.
>
> In the second sentence?first of all?angun ?man? is actually in the
> ABSOLUTIVE case, not the RELATIVE (which would be angutem); it?s a typo.
> And the verb is indexing only the Absolutive case argment, which is the
> eater/actor, the man, and in the logic of Y-I languages is considered
> intransitive because of this single indexing of an Absolutive. Meanwhile
> the patient is labeled ?ABM? for Ablative-Modalis (due to syncretism in
> Yup?ik of Ablative and Modalis). But it is reasonable to consider the
> Ablative-Modalis here as having accusative case behavior, as asserted in a
> lot of Canadian literature.
>
> Osahito then rightly point out that in the second case, ?the patient is
> backgrounded? but still may or may not be considered as definite. He goes
> on to show that even a proper name can function as the patient in either of
> the two constructions, which adds caution to the supposition that
> antipassives?if that?s what this is?necessarily ?demote? the patient to
> some sort of generic status.
>
> Tony Woodbury
>
>
>
>
> From: Martin Haspelmath <martin_haspelmath at eva.mpg.de<mailto:
> martin_haspelmath at eva.mpg.de>>
> Subject: [Lingtyp] languages with accusative/ergative alternation
> Date: June 30, 2024 at 7:41:54?AM CDT
> To: LINGTYP LINGTYP <LINGTYP at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG<mailto:
> LINGTYP at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG>>
>
>
> Dear typologists,
>
> Does anyone know of a language that has been described as exhibiting an
> accusative/ergative alternation, i.e. where verbs with meanings like
> 'break' or 'chase' can occur in two constructions such as (1) and (2)
> (which are schematic examples, not English)?
>
> (1) the dog-NOM chased the cat-ACC
>
> (2) the dog-ERG chased the cat-NOM
>
> Such an alternation would be analogous to indirective/secundative
> alternations, as in the schematic examples (3) and (4).
>
> (3) they provided food-ACC us-DAT ('they provided food to us')
>
> (4) they provided us-ACC food-INS ('they provided us with food')
>
> While indirective/secundative alternations have been described repeatedly,
> accusative/ergative alternations are little-known, and seem to be quite
> rare. Is this impression correct?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Martin
>
> --
> Martin Haspelmath
> Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
> Deutscher Platz 6
> D-04103 Leipzig
>
> https://www.eva.mpg.de/linguistic-and-cultural-evolution/staff/martin-haspelmath/
>
>
>
>
> --
>
> Martin Haspelmath
>
> Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
>
> Deutscher Platz 6
>
> D-04103 Leipzig
>
>
> https://www.eva.mpg.de/linguistic-and-cultural-evolution/staff/martin-haspelmath/
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Lingtyp mailing list
> Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org<mailto:Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
> >
> https://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp
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> Message: 4
> Date: Mon, 1 Jul 2024 21:55:11 +0000
> From: Tom Payne <tpayne at uoregon.edu>
> To: Matthew Dryer <dryer at buffalo.edu>, Martin Haspelmath
> <martin_haspelmath at eva.mpg.de>, LINGTYP LINGTYP
> <LINGTYP at listserv.linguistlist.org>
> Subject: Re: [Lingtyp] languages with accusative/ergative alternation
> Message-ID:
> <
> MWHPR1001MB23353D26BEFC0C1377D15B9CDCD32 at MWHPR1001MB2335.namprd10.prod.outlook.com
> >
>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>
> Greetings Martin and others. I must mention that the idea that Tagalog has
> ?no transitivity? is not an uncontroversial assumption, and in fact is
> based on faulty data. The situation is very similar to the Yupik-Inuit
> languages mentioned by Tony Woodbury. Unfortunately I don?t have time to go
> into this in and depth right now, but will refer to a to-appear paper
> available here:
> https://www.researchgate.net/publication/381031114_Degrees_of_transitivity_in_Waray_clauses.
> It?s about Waray, not Tagalog, but I believe similar arguments hold for
> Tagalog.
> All the best,
> Tom
>
> From: Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org> On Behalf Of
> Matthew Dryer via Lingtyp
> Sent: Tuesday, July 2, 2024 1:01 AM
> To: Martin Haspelmath <martin_haspelmath at eva.mpg.de>; LINGTYP LINGTYP <
> LINGTYP at listserv.linguistlist.org>
> Subject: Re: [Lingtyp] languages with accusative/ergative alternation
>
> Martin,
>
> I don?t understand why you say ?by definition, a transitive pattern is a
> dominant one (occurring in more than two thirds of the cases)?. Why can
> there not be two transitive patterns, neither of which is dominant?
>
> Matthew
>
> From: Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org<mailto:
> lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org>> on behalf of Martin
> Haspelmath via Lingtyp <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org<mailto:
> lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>>
> Date: Monday, July 1, 2024 at 2:00?AM
> To: LINGTYP LINGTYP <LINGTYP at listserv.linguistlist.org<mailto:
> LINGTYP at listserv.linguistlist.org>>
> Subject: Re: [Lingtyp] languages with accusative/ergative alternation
>
> Thanks for the comments on my query!
>
> I was thinking of a contrast between (i) ALTERNATIONS and (ii) SPLITS,
> where an alternation is a pair of related patterns with overlapping
> distributions, while a split is a set of patterns that complement each
> other. Thus, the TAM splits in languages like Pitta-Pitta (Peter Austin)
> and Kopar (Bill Foley) do not count here.
>
> Misha Daniel is right that it is not clear how to even identify
> "accusative/ergative alternations", and for this reason I had asked about
> languages which have been "described as exhibiting" such an alternation.
>
> It seems to me that one needs to specify that by definition, a transitive
> pattern is a dominant one (occurring in more than two thirds of the cases),
> so that if there are two competing patterns none of which is dominant, one
> cannot identify a transitive pattern ? and as a result, there is no way to
> identify "accusative" or "ergative". A well-known case of a language with
> no dominant agent-patient pattern (and hence no transitivity) is Tagalog.
>
> (This is different for ditransitive constructions, which need not be
> dominant in this sense, because the comparison is with monotransitive P,
> aas Misha notes.)
>
> J?rgen Bohnemeyer's example from Hindi-Urdu seems more like an alternation
> between two ergative patterns (one in which the ergative is
> "instrumental"), but it also illustrates the difficulty of matching
> language-particular phenomena with comparative concepts if the latter are
> not very clearly defined.
>
> Best,
>
> Martin
>
>
> On 30.06.24 16:07, Michael Daniel wrote:
> Martin,
>
> I am not sure how to operationalize the notions of accusative and ergative
> in this context. Assuming one uses the standard procedure of comparing the
> bivalent pattern to the intransitive one, I guess some unmarked antipassive
> constructions would qualify. Thus, in Mehweb Dargwa, East Caucasian, which
> lacks regular antipassive derivation, the verb 'carry' has two alternative
> valencies:
>
> Agent-Erg carries Theme-Nom (ergative pattern on the basis of comparison
> with X goes)
> Agent-Nom carries Theme-Erg (accusative pattern on the bases of comparison
> with X goes)
>
> But, on the basis of comparison with other transitive verbs, the second
> pattern is intransitive, so this would not qualify as accusative in the
> usual sense. Yet, I do not clearly see what would be possible other grounds
> to identify an ergative / accusative alternation, even in the presence of a
> TAM or animacy based split, because in your requirement these variables
> should be controlled for.
>
> This is different from the situation of secundative / indirective
> alternation, which is possible to identify in a language because they are
> identified on alignment-independent grounds (comparison to the encoding of
> P). Maybe I am missing something, but I do not see how this is done in the
> case of the putative ergative / accusative uncoded alternation.
>
> Misha
>
> ??, 30 ???. 2024??. ? 14:48, Peter Austin via Lingtyp <
> lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org<mailto:lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
> >>:
> Assuming you do not mean TAM-based split ergativity, e.g. Pitta-Pitta.
>
> Best
> Peter
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org<mailto:
> lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org>> on behalf of Martin
> Haspelmath via Lingtyp <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org<mailto:
> lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>>
> Sent: Sunday, June 30, 2024 1:41:54 PM
> To: LINGTYP LINGTYP <LINGTYP at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG<mailto:
> LINGTYP at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG>>
> Subject: [Lingtyp] languages with accusative/ergative alternation
>
> Dear typologists,
>
> Does anyone know of a language that has been described as exhibiting an
> accusative/ergative alternation, i.e. where verbs with meanings like
> 'break' or 'chase' can occur in two constructions such as (1) and (2)
> (which are schematic examples, not English)?
>
> (1) the dog-NOM chased the cat-ACC
>
> (2) the dog-ERG chased the cat-NOM
>
> Such an alternation would be analogous to indirective/secundative
> alternations, as in the schematic examples (3) and (4).
>
> (3) they provided food-ACC us-DAT ('they provided food to us')
>
> (4) they provided us-ACC food-INS ('they provided us with food')
>
> While indirective/secundative alternations have been described
> repeatedly, accusative/ergative alternations are little-known, and seem
> to be quite rare. Is this impression correct?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Martin
>
> --
> Martin Haspelmath
> Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
> Deutscher Platz 6
> D-04103 Leipzig
>
> https://eur01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.eva.mpg.de%2Flinguistic-and-cultural-evolution%2Fstaff%2Fmartin-haspelmath%2F&data=05%7C02%7Cpa2%40mysoas.onmicrosoft.com%7Cfbd0d937e0024454098608dc99021b32%7C674dd0a1ae6242c7a39f69ee199537a8%7C0%7C0%7C638553481531300351%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=Fk%2BOgeldXwuKKViruD6L3V%2BAXojpaM2NZAuKlpWpHdk%3D&reserved=0
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> _______________________________________________
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> Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org<mailto:Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
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> https://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp<
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>
> --
>
> Martin Haspelmath
>
> Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
>
> Deutscher Platz 6
>
> D-04103 Leipzig
>
>
> https://www.eva.mpg.de/linguistic-and-cultural-evolution/staff/martin-haspelmath/
> <
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> ------------------------------
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> Message: 5
> Date: Sat, 29 Jun 2024 20:41:56 +0000
> From: "Arnold M. Zwicky" <zwicky at stanford.edu>
> To: Linguistic Typology <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
> Cc: "Luc V. Baronian" <baronian at uqac.ca>
> Subject: [Lingtyp] adverb 'when' used as prepositiom
> Message-ID: <CA8BCF73-27BD-416E-8396-15C43CB1629C at stanford.edu>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>
> Had a long visit yesterday from my linguistics colleague Luc Vartan
> Baronian, at UQ ? Chicoutimi, during which he asked if I knew about cases
> where a subordinating adverbial of place -- 'where' -- has developed a use
> as a preposition, as French o? has in Qu?bec. This from a joint research
> project with Hugo Saint-Amant--Lamy, at UQ ? Rimouski.(Some examples, from
> a large database, below.) I dimly recalled a discussion on this list about
> such examples (possibly involvng other subordinating adverbials as well,
> though in Qu?bec French it's just the place adverbial that's affected).Can
> someone point me to this discussion? Luc isn't a subscriber to this list,
> but I'll forward responses on to him. (Or you could add baronian at uqac.ca
> as a recipient of your mailing.)
>
> ...
>
> Exemples de <o? SN> [AZ: SN abbreviating "syntagme nominal" = Noun
> Phrase)]:
>
> -- Va te placer o? l'?toile.
> -- Il faut tourner ? droite o? l'?glise.
> -- O? les lilas, on mettrait des chaises longues.
> -- J'ai laiss? mes cl?s o? l'ordinateur.
> -- J'ai mal au pied, o? la petite bosse.
>
> [AZ: They're also researching the geographical distribution of the variant
> within Qu?bec.]
>
> ...
>
> Arnold
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Subject: Digest Footer
>
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>
> End of Lingtyp Digest, Vol 118, Issue 2
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