Re: Accusative was allative

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, mcv@... wrote:

> tgpedersen <tgpedersen@...> wrote:

> > No, I'm not. I claim the old ergative became a nominative and the
> > old absolutive became an accusative at the time PIE became an
> > accusative language. That is not a double shift of case endings,
> > it's not even one, it's the automatic consequence of the language
> > changing type
> > (unless you want to argue that using *-s, the former-ergative-now
> > nominative suffix for the subject of intransitive sentences, is a
> > change of ending, which it isn't). Perhaps you should read up on
> > ergative languages?
>
> I don't have my books at hand, but I seem to remember that Dixon

("Ergativity") states somewhere that while we can have a marked
nominative (in accusativic languages), there is no such thing as a
marked absolutive (in ergativic languages). That would speak against
a development absolutive -> accusative as the origin of PIE *-m.

>

That's nice to hear. It increases the chances of my proposal that the
old allative became the new accusative. And I did read Trask ;-)

> When a language changes type, from accusativic to ergativic, or

from ergativic to accusativic, the development is hardly ever one of
simple inversion of the case endings.

>


> If we consider the passive/antipassive route from one type to

another, we have:

>
> 1. acc. => erg. (through passive: "I-NOM see the-dog-ACC ~ The-dog-

NOM is-seen by-me-INS")

> new ergative = old instrumental (vel sim.)
> new absolutive = old nominative
> the old accusative is lost.
>
> 2. erg. => acc. (through antipassive: "I-ERG see the-dog-ABS ~ I-

NOM look at-the-dog-LOC)

> new nominative = old absolutive
> new accusative = old locative case (vel sim.)
> the old ergative is lost.
>

I suppose the (vel sim.) part would cover at-the-dog-ALL.

(Allative: to-case, for those that are lost)

Torsten