Dear Tosten and Cybalisters:
----- Original Message -----From: Glen GordonSent: Tuesday, August 21, 2001 9:04 PMSubject: [tied] Tyrrhenian and its relation to IEPatrick:
> There is nothing at all to lead one to the idea that -*m is derived from
>an ergative case. Ergative is simply an alternate method of marking the
>agent in a transitive construction.
(I'm responding not to Patrick but to the others that may be
understandably confused by Pat's ever-strange statements.)
More specifically, languages operating with the nominative and
accusative cases focus on the subject and object of a verb while
those languages using ergative and absolutive cases focus on the
agent and the patient of a verb.
The "subject" of a verb and the "agent" of the verb are not the
same thing. For instance, in the sentence "I was slapped by Mary",
the subject is "I" while the agent is "Mary", the one who perfomed
the action. However, in the sentence "I slapped Mary", the subject
and the agent are both "I".
Languages *slowly* move from ergative-absolutive case marking
to nominative-accusative marking and they do not give up
ergativity cold turkey. Such is the deal with IndoTyrrhenian
which would have certainly used nominative & accusative cases
while still using ergative-style sentences. The agent here was
expressed via the _genitive_ case and the patient was in the
unmarked oblique (later the IE nominative, locative and vocative).[PCR]Well, which is it? Did so-called "IndoTyrrhenian" have a nominative-accusative system or an ergative-absolutive one? Or was it mixed?
> Rather, if the two arguments of a transitive verb are both
>animate, -*m would identify the non-agent, i.e. the absolutive.
Wrong. The *m-accusative could only have once marked the
*ergative* case, that is, the _agent_ of the transitive verb.[PCR]That is why, presumably, that -*m is a marker of *inanimate (neuter) nouns*.A typical confusion. The functional equivalent of the accusative is the absolutive.
Within the Nostratic hypothesis, the *m-ergative that survives
in Kartvelian provides testimony to this assertion and Kerns
already has published on an ergative particle *ma for Nostratic,
so it ain't just little ol' me.[PCR]I do not believe that Kerns postulates an -*m ergative. Quoting from Bomhard: "(C) the third declension, a variation of the second wherein a definite-accusative singular was marked by the termination *-m."Why not quote Kerns with a reference?
The original state of affairs (in Nostratic) was the following
where there were two sentence patterns based on the transitivity
of the verb:
1) transitive verb:
AGENT-m PATIENT-0 VERB
2) intransitive verb:
PATIENT-0 VERB
eg 1: John-by you slap
"You have been slapped by John."
(The verb functions like a passive.)[PCR]For those who know anything about language terminology, the confusion is blatant."slap" is always transitive, even when reflexive: "he slapped himself". There is no functional difference between "I slapped him" and "he was slapped by me". The passive was originally used for one-participant sentences: "he-slap" = "he is/was slapped". In an ergative language, this construction is marked by the absolutive case.On the other hand, if "he-slap" means "he slaps something", the ergative is used for "he".A true intransitive, like, for example, a color adjective: "he-red", takes the absolutive.
eg 2: You slap
"You slap."
(The verb functions like an active.)
After some time, the unmarked absolutive marking the agent,[PCR]The absolutive NEVER marks the agent in a straightforward ergative language!came
to always mark the *subject*. In other words, there was a shift
of focus from agent/patient marking to subject/object marking.
The verb no longer alternated semantically between active and
passive, but rather retained active meaning throughout. (This is
also coincidentally the point at which two dissimilar pronominal
sets of endings were forming to mark verb transitivity, starting
at around 12000 BCE. This odd state of affairs of suppletive
verb endings would continue to survive all the way to IE.)[PCR]The second set of verb-endings in IE (perfect) originated as stative endings.
By the time, IndoTyrrhenian came about c.7000 BCE, there were
three noteworthy sentence patterns:
1) transitive active:
SUBJECT-0 OBJECT-m VERB
2) intransitive active:
SUBJECT-0 VERB
3) passive:
PATIENT-0 AGENT-se VERB
(SUBJECT-0 OBJECT-se VERB)
[PCR]"subject" is a next to useless term in these contexts. In any case, in the "passive" example above, the agent is not an "OBJECT" but "INDIRECT OBJECT".
Just to drill this whole theoretical package home, it's interesting
to note that the passive "ergative-style" sentence pattern is oh
so handy for expressing an inanimate agent without dealing with
the pesky "no inanimate subject" rule.[PCR]Again more confusion! In an ergative sentence, there is very rarely an inanimate agent --- rather we have an inanimate patient marked by the absolutive.<snip>
> Thus, a nominative -*s and accusative *-m in IE is redundant.
Another Paticism, if I've ever heard one. In all, I don't frankly
care what Pat is mumbling here. What I've said above should
clarify everything.
[PCR]Learning basic linguistic terminology would be a help towards clarifying everything.PatPATRICK C. RYAN | PROTO-LANGUAGE@...
(501) 227-9947 * 9115 W. 34th St. Little Rock, AR 72204-4441 USA
WEBPAGES: PROTO-LANGUAGE: http://www.geocities.com/proto-language/
and PROTO-RELIGION:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/2803/proto-religion/indexR.html"Veit ec at ec hecc, vindgá meiði a netr allar nío,
geiri vndaþr . . . a þeim meiþi, er mangi veit,
hvers hann af rótom renn." (Hávamál 138)